Picard’s Ed Speleers struggled on and off screen during season 3

In “Picard,” Jack and Jean-Luc have a couple of touching moments, but the most intense occurs in the finale when Picard must confront his son in the Borg cube after being assimilated into the collective. Picard has to help bring Jack back from the brink of destroying everything and he manages to do it by being truly open and honest with his son. When Collider asked how fatherhood affected Ed Speleers’ performance, the actor shared how insightful he really was:

“I think having children has opened my mind, and every fiber of me, actually, to a different way of working. Things always get emotionally boiling over because of kids, and that’s good. And I mean all the emotions, everything from love, fear, happiness, anger, everything always fades because of children and that way they make you see the world so yeah I think it was insightful because also what it made me do is maybe see how I’ve been like a son, too, and maybe the things I’ve done and the things I haven’t done.”

Fatherhood may have adjusted Speleers perspective, but his connection to the Jack Crusher character was incredibly strong to begin with. The emotionality of the moment was compounded by the fact that Speleers was not only going through quite the emotional journey in character, but he was also saying goodbye to playing the character for good.