Ian Mckellen
Ian Mckellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBEis an English actor. He is the recipient of six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and two Critics' Choice Awards. He has also received two Academy Award nominations, four BAFTA nominations and five Emmy Award nominations...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth25 May 1939
CityBurnley, England
gay men thinking
The demographic of our audience is young. It also contains a high proportion of black, Jewish and gay people, who have all been encouraged by society to think of themselves as oddities or mutants. I hope that's why X-Men chimes with them - it's certainly why I was attracted to the idea in the first place.
ambition tvs latecomers
I'm a latecomer to popular TV. This is rather new to me, being in a sitcom. It's been an ambition of mine.
bullying school gay
I am going around British secondary schools, as a gay man talking about my life, and encouraging schools to get rid of homophobic bullying and to care for their gay members of staff and their gay students.
school kids needs
Kids are coming out earlier and earlier - some, as young as twelve now - and schools need to take that into account.
character directors lines
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.'
stories actors mediums
Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.
television storytelling form
Television can take anything. It can take the most exaggerated of storytelling forms.
character gay old-fashioned
In the old-fashioned sitcoms, to be gay was, in itself, funny, and you laughed at the characters rather than with them.
men talking years
A few years ago, a friend said to me: "You do realize, Ian, when X-Men and Lord of the Rings come out, your life will totally change?" I didn't know what he was talking about, but he was right. My life has totally changed - but in a good way. Unbeknownst to me, it's given me a lot more confidence.
inspiration thinking done
Baz [Luhrmann] paid me one of the greatest compliments ever. I don't know him, really, but when I first met him I was congratulating him on ROMEO + JULIET - which I think is a wonderful adaptation - and he said, "Oh, well we couldn't have done it without your RICHARD III, which was an inspiration!" I've never quite checked up on the dates to see whether or if, in fact, we did our film before he did his.
knows
Success in the movies has pushed me to places I didn't know I was allowed to go.
drama enthusiasm broadway
I love the Broadway audiences, who relish live drama and don't hesitate to display their enthusiasm.
new-york past men
On the day after 9/11, I walking through the smoke and the smells of New York. There were knots of policemen everywhere. As I went past one officer, he called out: "Hi, Magneto." That's an indication of X-Men's extraordinary reach.
memories lasts inquiry
I suspect the base that I'm working from is not particularly one of inquiry, but of memory of what I did last time.