Ian Mckellen Quotes
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My ambition is to get better as an actor.
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Bill Gallagher's new version of 'The Prisoner' is an enthralling commentary on modern culture. It is witty, intelligent and disturbing. I am very excited to be involved.
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It's easier to go from theatre to film than the other way round. In film you're absolutely loved and cossetted and cared for. In film your director makes your performance. In theatre you're carrying it all.
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The press like to talk to actors. They mustn't be surprised when actors talk back to them.
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I'm the sort of person who doesn't write in ink. I only write in pencil, so it can be rubbed out.
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The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo.
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I'm not experienced enough, or certain enough of my acting on the screen to say to a director, "You are wrong, I am right. I will only do it this way." I could never feel that, I wish I could be absolutely certain. But on the stage, it's different. I know where I am on the stage.
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There's something wholesome about the theatre.
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I just followed my parents' example and advice on living, which was to leave the world a better place than you found it. They were professional do-gooders, ministers of the church, social workers, teachers, and missionaries, that sort of thing.
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It's my impression that I've done every job that I've been asked to do.
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Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.
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My own death threats have declined considerably.
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The most likely explanation is the most practical. 'Macbeth' is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of 'Macbeth'. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.
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If I was a star, it would be difficult to go off and do 'Coronation Street.' So I guess I'm not a star.
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Bolton School has a great tradition in the liberal arts.
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I don't really like being with people my own age for long periods, because all we talk about is our decrepitude, how the world is changing for the worse even though it isn't.
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I've always felt that 'X-Men' was about something serious. It wasn't just fantasy.
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Most actors are not rich - they are very poor indeed. What keeps them going is that they just love the job.
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Theatre is relatively easy if you're British - you're living in the theatre capital of the world, London - there are so many places you can work, still. If I had begun to think of myself as a film actor, I think I would have got distracted.
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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. But you also end up in the company of people you don't admire, including some rather dodgy politicians.
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I'm an eccentric English actor, and there's a lot of us around.
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No actor wants to play to an empty house.
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Before I ever acted as an amateur - which I did a great deal at school and at university - I used to go to the theater with my parents in the north of England, where I was born and brought up... Theater of all sorts.
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When I was playing Gandalf, I didn't think, 'Oh my dear, I'm playing a 7,000 year old wizard,' because I've never met one, and I don't know what they're like.