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
great liberal school tradition
Bolton School has a great tradition in the liberal arts.
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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.
challenged great join joys life playing seeing
'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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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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I owe a great deal to Harold Hobson, doyen drama critic of the 'U.K. Sunday Times,' who championed me as Shakespeare's Richard II at the 1969 Edinburgh Festival.
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The spirit of the four hobbits in 'Lord of the Rings,' I suppose I miss that.
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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.
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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.
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There have been many gay knights in the past - like Sir Noel Coward or Sir John Gielgud.
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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.
The press like to talk to actors. They mustn't be surprised when actors talk back to them.