Sir Patrick Stewart, the much-awarded actor who went from Shakespeare onstage to becoming a sci-fi legend, has passed away.

Stewart knew he wanted to be an actor at a young age. By 1966, he became part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he would remain until 1982. In 1979, he was nominated for his first Olivier Award — he was actually nominated twice that year, once for Actor of the Year in a Revival for his role as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and the other for Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, which he won.

He would be nominated twice more for A Christmas Carol and Macbeth, and win a second time for Hamlet in 2009.

In addition, Stewart was nominated for four Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, three Grammys — one of which he won for Best Spoken Word Album for Children — a Tony Award, and three Critics' Choice Awards, one of which he won for his role in Star Trek: Picard.

However, when he first took the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in 1987, very few people thought it would lead to award fame. Reviving an iconic series like Star Trek seemed like a fool's errand. Stewart's agent told him that the job would be short-lived. "He assured me, 'The series is not going to work. You’ll be lucky to make it through the first season. You cannot revive an iconic series like Star Trek," Stewart told A.V. Club. "So come over, make a bit of money for the first time in your life, get a sun tan, go home.' And it didn’t quite work out that way,."

Star Trek: The Next Generation struggled to find its footing in the ratings for the first two seasons, but the season three finale, which saw Picard abducted by the Borg, brought wide attention to the series. "The best part about [playing] Locutus was that I have something to reference, the drama Picard had to endure, the makeup process for me, which was extremely unpleasant and painful and unsettling. No experience is wasted," Stewart explained to The Hollywood Reporter. The finale cliffhanger was a shocking new TV event at the time, and fans were hooked.

Star Trek: TNG went on for seven seasons and four movies, all of which Stewart reprised his role in.

When Stewart was offered his other most famous role, that of Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men, he was hesitant at first. “I’d already begun to learn that there was a downside to playing an iconic, immediately recognizable actor in a successful television series,” Stewart said in an interview with Deadline Hollywood. “Which was, you become that person.” The typecasting of Stewart as Picard made him nervous about taking another sci-fi role, but he eventually agreed.

Stewart got to work alongside longtime friend Ian McKellen in the X-Men series, and would go on to appear in six more movies in the franchise.

Over his six decades of work, Stewart collected over 150 onscreen credits. Just a few of the highlights include Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), Dune (1984), A Christmas Carol, American Dad!, The Prince of Egypt (1998), and more.

In 2010, Stewart was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama.

The actor was 86 years old.