Ian Mckellen Quotes
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I got better as an actor, and still I'm getting better. That's only been possible because there's always been work.
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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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Eventually, before I die, I hope to have written about every part I've played.
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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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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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People on television have trouble with fame because audiences think they're their mates.
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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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There are deaths in public places on the grounds that the victim is gay.
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When I appeared in 'Coronation Street,' I lived in Manchester and enjoyed it very much.
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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
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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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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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I'm not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.
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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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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 are not many things in my life I can be absolutely proud of or certain I got right, but one of them is that I've got better as an actor. I've learnt how to do it. And I still have enough energy to do it.
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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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One thing Middle-earth is short on is the feminine.
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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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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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'Macbeth' was a very lucky play for me.
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I quite like it when I'm on the Tube and people offer me their seat. Sometimes I take it. The other day I was offered a seat by a pregnant lady. I thought, 'That's going a bit far.'
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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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I've got a waistline to develop.