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
characters famous imposing
I'm fortunate to be famous for two rather imposing characters like Magneto and Gandalf.
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.'
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.
cute character play
I have never wanted to be typecast, one of those actors who plays a variation on a one-note theme. So just as I enjoy playing a wide variety of characters, from good to bad to ugly to cute - so I have enjoyed of late working in film and television, as well as in theatres of various sizes and shapes.
sorry character attention
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.
character personality acting
Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different.
miss suppose
The spirit of the four hobbits in 'Lord of the Rings,' I suppose I miss that.
australian change cost families gain gay government lives married people respect rights therefore worldwide
Establishing the rights for gay people to be married would cost the Australian government nothing financially and would gain for you worldwide respect from people like us and, of course, would change lives enormously - the lives of gay people and of their friends and of their families and therefore of Australia as a whole.
trying
On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.
life public
Thanks to every gay person in public and non-public life who has come out.
desperate films job
Very, very rare that you do a job knowing that the audience is desperate for you to do that job. Most films you make don't get released, is the fact.
john knights sir
There have been many gay knights in the past - like Sir Noel Coward or Sir John Gielgud.
illegal man time
I was a shy gay man at a time when it was illegal to be gay.
hope left life stage
I still hope I've got a lot of life left on stage and making films.