Ian Mckellen Quotes
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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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You won't hear me talk about my politics, you won't hear me talk about my vegetarianism, you won't hear me comment on the Iraq war. You'll only hear me talk about being gay and being an actor. I am just public on those two issues.
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I'm not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.
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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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The conventional wisdom is that if you are gay, you cannot play the romantic straight lead in a movie.
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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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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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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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One thing Middle-earth is short on is the feminine.
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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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I was a shy gay man at a time when it was illegal to be gay.
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I love working in New York.
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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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Why not celebrate those who want to marry and bring up a family?
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'Macbeth' was a very lucky play for me.
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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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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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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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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
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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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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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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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If I have any audience, they can know that anything I am in, I would go see, with the expectation of being really satisfied.