Ian Mckellen Quotes
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People on television have trouble with fame because audiences think they're their mates.
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There are still times in my life where I pull back from being totally honest, and I can't imagine a single straight person who would understand that.
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I increasingly see organized religion as actually my enemy. They treat me as their enemy. Not all Christians, of course. Not all Jews, not all Muslims.
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People who are truly horrible are often the most interesting people in the room. You look at them and just say, 'Why?'
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There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company.
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'King Lear,' I've been seeing all my life. I mean, the great actors of my lifetime... to join their company, as it were, by playing a part that's challenged them, is one of the great joys of being an actor who does the classics.
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One thing Middle-earth is short on is the feminine.
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Why not celebrate those who want to marry and bring up a family?
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There are people who've enjoyed my work in the theater, and they let me know that it was special for them. I'm not going to say, 'Well, you should have seen me as Gandalf!'
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If you're sounding right, you're probably walking right, and vice versa. If you get the footwork right - if you get even one line right in a rehearsal, the director will say, do you know when you said that, it was exactly the character. You were - really landed on it.
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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
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The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.
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I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.
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I love working in New York.
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Some relationships get easier as you get older, depending on what sort of person you are. I don't think I've got any better at them.
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Journalists often ask me: "Aren't you sorry that after all the work you've done, you're best known as Magneto and Gandalf?" But that's what I've always wanted - not to be known as myself. I want to draw attention to the characters.
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One school invited me down, as two pupils had come out, and the headmaster didn't know what to do about it. I said, 'How many students here are gay?' and he said, 'Just these two.' Clearly not. 'How many gay members of staff have you got?' He had no idea. And this was a concerned man.
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'Macbeth' was a very lucky play for me.
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The strength of British theatre should be that these actors in their middle years know what they're doing and are good at it. Not rich, not famous, but making a living.
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I think the point to be understood is that we're all different. I've never been a fan of theories of acting. I didn't go to drama school, so I was never put through a training that was limited by someone saying, 'This is the way you should act.'
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That was the big effect Lord of the Rings had on me. It was discovering New Zealand. And even more precious were the people- not at all like the Australians.
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What's upsetting about an autobiography is that the final chapter is always missing. I mean, you want the death, don't you?
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Magneto wants to cope with the difficulties thrust upon him by society and by his own nature.
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When I appeared in 'Coronation Street,' I lived in Manchester and enjoyed it very much.