Ian Mckellen Quotes
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I can't make up my mind whether I want to dance like Josef Brown or dance with Josef Brown.
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It's an interesting but useless bit of information that every single character in 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' wears a wig, and many of them wears a prosthetic - false ears, feet, hands. In my case, nose.
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Doing some of the 'Lord Of The Rings' press junkets got a bit claustrophobic.
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So it's joyful to me, in my 71st year, to be able to be in a play that is absolutely right for my age and my experience, and that is a popular success. What more could you ask as an actor?
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I'm not being offered a constant stream of wonderful parts with wonderful directors that would keep me away from the theatre. When they turn up, I do them.
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I live for the text. It's my job.
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I often get mistaken for Dumbledore. One wizard is very much like another.
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In any human-rights campaign, everybody must do what they can.
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'Lord of the Rings' was about saving the world, big time, big duties.
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It's nice for me to be in touch with a younger generation.
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I get pretty grumpy about TV.
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Every anti-gay remark from the Church gives the thug a license to be cruel.
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Shakespeare's villains are fabulous because none of them know that they are villains. Well, sometimes they do.
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When I've been asked what should be on my gravestone, I've said: 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out.' Two big achievements.
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Try and understand what part you have to play in the world in which you live. There's more to life than you know and it's all happening out there. Discover what part you can play and then go for it.
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Capitalism offers you freedom, but far from giving people freedom, it enslaves them.
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I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887 - 1976) lived and painted.
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Establishing the rights for gay people to be married would cost the Australian government nothing financially and would gain for you worldwide respect from people like us and, of course, would change lives enormously - the lives of gay people and of their friends and of their families and therefore of Australia as a whole.
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You see people in Hollywood trying to make blockbuster after blockbuster, but it's not possible. There's some god up there saying, 'You will fail now.' But I suppose that's true of us all.
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If you've been in a film that's seen by millions and millions and millions of people, you're more likely to be recognized for that than for your theater performances, which were seen by considerably less people. Why would I get upset by that?
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I have got prostate cancer, and I have to keep monitoring that. It's no problem, it's under control and I'm very cool about it, but other people are dying from it.
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I'm fortunate to be famous for two rather imposing characters like Magneto and Gandalf.
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What I particularly like about Broadway is the camaraderie and the friendship of other people in other shows. Everybody knows you're opening and cares about you. There's a real village atmosphere.
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When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that - in real life - I wasn't doing.