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
I live for the text. It's my job.
acted amateur brought deal great north school theater university
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.
till
I had never come across the 'X-Men' comics till I was asked to play Magneto, so I just jumped into that job.
I'm the sort of person who doesn't write in ink. I only write in pencil, so it can be rubbed out.
I'm an eccentric English actor, and there's a lot of us around.
critic deal edinburgh great harold owe richard
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.
bullies discussion homophobic issues playground stopping unbiased work
In the U.K. there is still work to be done, particularly in schools, stopping the homophobic bullies in the playground and introducing unbiased discussion on gay issues in the classroom.
children die kids news prejudices react reaction strongly
In the past, kids didn't tell their parents they were gay, so there were never the bust-ups. Some parents react so strongly to the news that their children are gay that the reaction is, 'Get out of our house.' There's a residue of old prejudices that are going to die hard.
bit offer offered people pregnant quite tube
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.'
organized religion
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.
awful discovered less rather requiring seeing theater
I came rather late to film. I've done an awful lot of theater before - before I discovered the camera, you know, seeing everything, requiring much less acting and - and much less presentation, much less projecting, more just being.
asked famous until
I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.
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.