Sir Patrick Stewart—an officer of the Order of the British Empire, a Laurence Olivier Award–winning alumnus of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the owner of an era-defining voice—was not ashamed to be most famous for being the lead on a 1980s science-fiction spin-off television show. As he wrote in his 2023 memoir, “I shall forever be known first and foremost, by most people, for playing Jean-Luc Picard”—the stern and steely captain of the starship Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

This wasn’t always the case: “There was a time when I was uncomfortable with this reality, when it seemed incompatible with my background and reputation as a serious stage actor,” he wrote. But by the time he walked onto the stage for his first-ever appearance at a Star Trek convention, and faced a crowd of thousands of fans all thrilled to see him, that sense of wounded pride had vanished. The actor, who died on Wednesday at 86, knew that the material on The Next Generation didn’t measure up to the verses of the Bard, but his attitude toward that role—the lack of chest-puffing ego, the pride in a job well done—echoed the virtues of his best-known character, who was distinguished by wisdom and sophistication, not virility and brawn. Those virtues, now falling out of fashion, are worth celebrating.

When The Next Generation was first coming together, Stewart was a journeyman actor who’d performed on Broadway and scored some roles in BBC miniseries; he didn’t know anything about Star Trek. The idea was to revive the 1960s space-adventure show, about an intergalactic federation attempting to reach new planets and species, with a new ensemble cast and new dilemmas. Success was not guaranteed: Although it had become a cult classic with an outsize pop-culture footprint, the original Star Trek ran for only three seasons. And Stewart—unmuscled, bald, middle-aged—was a strange choice for the revival’s main character. Although the first show had envisioned an egalitarian future without money or scarcity, it was still in large part a story about a good ol’ boy from Iowa, Captain James Kirk (played by a dashing young William Shatner), shooting cool aliens with laser guns and bedding the ladies.

Picard, by contrast, was not a champion fighter or an action hero, but an amateur archaeologist and unrepentant aesthete. His interests included classical music and viniculture; his favorite beverage was hot tea. On The Next Generation, Picard was far more likely to invite combative extraterrestrials on his ship for a civil, if clipped, debate. In the wrong hands, he might have come off as a flimsy stereotype of an effete Frenchman. But Stewart’s performance, which he took as seriously as any Shakespearean role, turned Picard into a valiant lead for the ages.

Today, Picard is still seen all over the internet, eternally face-palming in exasperation or exclaiming in confusion while a Klingon lurks awkwardly in the back of the frame. Those GIFs and memes of Stewart emoting traveled so widely because his performance was typically so controlled and cerebral. Instead of screaming or swaggering, as Shatner did before him, Stewart rumbled like thunder. Picard wasn’t flashy, but Stewart played him with plenty of sex appeal—except the women who fell for him were taken in by his intelligence and respectful demeanor, not his alpha-male vigor. In rare, memorable scenes, Stewart would allow Picard’s composed mask to drop: In the 1992 episode “Chain of Command,” Picard is captured and tortured, and told again and again that five lights are shining directly into his face. But Picard refuses his enemies: “There are four lights,” he bellows, as determined as King Lear in the thunderstorm.  

Picard didn’t fraternize with his crew, and he could be a disciplinarian. But he was a charismatic, astute leader, one worth trusting. Late in the series, a trickster entity allows Picard to revisit his past, and we see him as a brash, violent young man who instigates a bar fight and is stabbed in the heart. (This being the 24th century, he recovers.) Ashamed of his impetuousness, Picard tries to rewrite events—only to find himself back in the present as an undistinguished junior officer, largely due to his risk aversion. Picard needed to face the consequences of his actions, the episode suggests, in order to become the man he is: one who respects the value of a life, who’s willing to hazard danger when it’s required and avoid it when it’s not.

This, I think, is a rather noble kind of masculinity—and not one that’s very popular right now. Men are being told by influencers of all stripes that they must dominate and humiliate others to get ahead; that they’ll never find love without well-defined muscles, sharp jawlines, and full heads of hair; that cheating and lying are acceptable if doing so produces the desired outcome; that leaders are men who burnish their own images at the expense of the people they’re meant to serve.

[Read: Revisiting Star Trek’s most political episode]

When so many people are adopting that boisterous attitude, the version of manliness Stewart embodied—both on television and in his real life—is all the more worthwhile. By his own account, he came onto the set of The Next Generation determined to lead the cast toward professionalism; at one point, he upbraided his colleagues for having “too much fun.” But he quickly realized the error of his ways. He ended up having a blast playing Picard—so much so that he happily starred in a revival series, Picard, for three seasons beginning in 2020.

Why pretend otherwise—why act like a formidable Shakespearean is “supposed” to? A great actor could be someone who was proud of his run on a seven-season television show; a great man could be someone who led with humility, not grandiosity. And a great captain could be someone with no hair, the mind of a diplomat, and the build of a cyclist, who wears red-and-black pajamas while exploring space.