Sir Patrick Stewart took one of the strangest turns of his television career in Prime Video’s 2026 dark comedy “Bait,” lending his unmistakable voice to a severed pig’s head known as “Pigtrick.”

The series stars Riz Ahmed as Shah Latif, a struggling British Pakistani actor whose life spirals after he auditions to become the next James Bond. Stewart’s role is far removed from Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” character with which the late stage and screen actor was most closely associated on television.

Rather than appearing as a conventional character, Stewart voices the pig’s head as it speaks to Shah during a deepening existential crisis. The surreal performance became one of Stewart’s final television roles and allowed him to explore the more unsettling side of comedy.

How “Pigtrick” enters Shah’s story

“Bait” follows Shah’s unraveling over four days. After his high-profile audition for the next 007 film, he deliberately leaves through an exit where he knows paparazzi will spot him. The resulting leak triggers widespread internet backlash.

The reaction then turns more disturbing when someone throws a severed pig’s head through the living room window of Shah’s parents.

At the beginning of the following episode, the series initially makes it appear that Shah is being interviewed by Stewart. The scene eventually reveals something much stranger: Shah is actually speaking to the pig’s head, which is being kept in a freezer, and imagining its replies in Stewart’s voice.

Dubbed “Pigtrick,” the head becomes an expression of Shah’s self-doubt. His hallucinations unfold as he pursues the status and respect associated with playing Bond, a part presented as typically beyond the reach of actors of color. Shah eventually places the head in a bag and carries it around town while the imagined conversations continue.

Ahmed told GQ that Stewart accepted the unusual role because “he’d never read anything quite like this.”

A comic streak beyond “Star Trek”

Although Stewart was best known on television for playing Picard, “Bait” was not his first move into comedy. His previous comic performances included guest appearances as acclaimed director and opera guild head Alistair Burke on “Frasier,” the leader of the Stonecutters on “The Simpsons” and an exaggerated version of himself on “Extras.”

Those roles were more traditionally comic than his contribution to “Bait,” which turns a grotesque object into both an absurd character and a symbol of Shah’s internal conflict.

LeVar Burton highlighted that playful side of his “Star Trek” co-star in a tribute following Stewart’s death. “Of all the Dames and Knights I’ve known [Stewart] was deep down-the silliest,” Burton said in remarks carried by Variety.

That willingness to embrace the unexpected helps explain how an actor so strongly identified with a commanding science-fiction captain could also commit to voicing a hallucinated pig’s head in a dark comedy.

ShowBiz Take

Stewart’s “Bait” performance matters because it pushes his established comic instincts into markedly darker territory. “Pigtrick” is not simply an eccentric cameo: The voice accompanies Shah’s crisis as professional ambition, online hostility, racism and self-doubt collide.

The role also depends on the contrast between Stewart’s stature and the bizarre image on screen. “Bait” first encourages viewers to believe Shah is having a conventional conversation with the actor, then reveals the frozen head behind the voice. That reversal gives the part its absurdity while tying Stewart directly to the show’s central psychological struggle.

For an actor remembered above all as Jean-Luc Picard, voicing “Pigtrick” offered a striking final example of his readiness to take an unconventional television risk.