Stewart was honored at the Chicago International Film Festival where he received the Gold Hugo Career Achievement Award.
"I am so pleased to be back in Chicago. My wife and I love coming here. We have great friends and there have been some important encounters, certainly career encounters, here in Chicago," he told ABC7 Eyewitness News.
One of those career encounters was an introduction to Chicago's Improvised Shakespeare Company, which Stewart calls one of the most significant groups of people in his life.