During Sir Patrick Stewart’s recent press tour for Logan, few interviewers have been able to resist the elephant in the room - or should I say smug-looking poo in the room - his upcoming role as the poop emoji in The Emoji Movie.

The Shakespearean actor confirmed that he really is playing ‘Poop Daddy’ in the animated film on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week, to laughter from the audience.

Stewart feigned upset at the reaction and very dryly detailed why he took the part.

Asked whether the Queen would approve, the knight replied: "I think she will approve because she will know that, for me, poop has been a lifelong work in progress."

As for whether he’d be going method for the role he said that yes, for him it has been a “totally internal” process.

“Until it's external, of course,” he joked. “It’s interesting - when I was an infant, it was more spontaneous. In my teens, it took a kind of comedic spurt; it was low-farce, rather than high comedy. But as I matured, so did my output."

Other actors playing small ideograms for presumably truck loads of cash in the film include James Corden (a hand emoji), Maya Rudolph (a smiley emoji) and Broad City’s Ilana Glazer (a codebreaker emoji).

You can listen to our podcast interview with Sir Patrick below:

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Here’s the official synopsis:

"The Emoji Movie unlocks the never-before-seen secret world inside your smartphone. Hidden within the messaging app is Textopolis, a bustling city where all your favorite emojis live, hoping to be selected by the phone's user. In this world, each emoji has only one facial expression--except for Gene (T.J. Miller), an exuberant emoji who was born without a filter and is bursting with multiple expressions.