The movies inspired Mirfield-born Patrick Stewart to boldly go and carve out a glittering Hollywood career.

The actor, famous for his role in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the X-Men movies, said he frequently watched films as a youngster to escape his difficult home life.

Patrick, 69, spoke of his childhood at the launch of National Schools Film Week, which he is supporting.

“My home life wasn’t very pleasant, and not fun, so getting out, not being at home, especially to have the opportunity to escape into a fantasy world was bliss,” said the former Royal Shakespeare Company actor.

“I was one of the Saturday morning cinema kids. It was always packed with yelling kids. You would watch short movies – usually Westerns – and then you would watch serials with a different cliff-hanger, so there’d be a new episode every Saturday morning. I loved those serials, and Westerns.”

He added: “I hated it when the movie or the Saturday morning ended, and I had to go back to real life. So, in a sense I was being set up for being an actor, for entering this world of make-believe.”

“I was transported to other worlds from my cinema seat – into the Western US, into outer space, into the back streets of Hong Kong or New York, and given insights into other lives and other societies,”

The actor said a major inspiration in his quest to be an actor was Elia Kazan’s Oscar-winning film On The Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando.

“That film had such an effect on me. The film portrayed people like me – it was an eye-opener,” said Patrick. “I saw that film three times that week, all my pocket money went on it.

“Young people don’t know about the things that excited me when I was young – there are none as significant as that movie.”

He also revealed that his mother had encouraged him to become a thespian.

“My mother said I started acting for her,” he said. “After I returned from the cinema, she would ask me what the film was about and I used to act out the entire film for her.”

Now Patrick is encouraging schoolchildren to watch more films for the week-long campaign. He said his top ten films include Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Back, Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning film The Pianist and Westerns such as Shane, High Noon and The Shootist.

“Kids are, in every sense, our future,” he said. “We can’t do enough to encourage young people to not feel intimidated.

“Film is part of the cultural life of this country – it is not only a source of entertainment, amusement and distraction, but it can be, for young people, an introduction to an industry, to a new profession. It gives them the opportunity to understand some of the complexities of the film industry.”

He added: “It introduces them to other worlds, and this is where it’s most important to me, as a child growing up in a West Riding mill town in the Forties and Fifties. International film-making is now so rich and there’s so much diversity to widen young people’s horizons. Their knowledge of the world is vast.

“I hope, like me, they experience the magic and thrill of cinema. It’s only through getting young people attracted to live entertainment and to cinema that we can continue as an art form.”

  • National Schools Film Week runs from October 19 to 23.