Words matter. These are the best Ian Mckellen Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I don’t think many people will re-read ‘The Da Vinci Code.’
There’s no sex in Middle Earth.
I have heard of people dying from prostate cancer, and they are the unlucky ones, the people who didn’t know they had got it, and it went on the rampage.
It is really, really wonderful that in your old age you are protected by specialists who understand your problems and sort them out for you. Well, isn’t that what we all need?
I live for the text. It’s my job.
I’m not someone who wears shades all the time and ducks into a darkened car in case I’m recognized – that would be absolute misery.
What I particularly like about Broadway is the camaraderie and the friendship of other people in other shows. Everybody knows you’re opening and cares about you. There’s a real village atmosphere.
One thing Middle-earth is short on is the feminine.
When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that – in real life – I wasn’t doing.
It was wrongly assumed that I wished to become some sort of leader among gay activists, whereas in reality I was happier to be a foot soldier.
The strength of British theatre should be that these actors in their middle years know what they’re doing and are good at it. Not rich, not famous, but making a living.
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.
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.
I love working in New York.
Anyone in public life who comes out, comes out primarily for themselves, and their life is immediately improved. That’s what happened to me.
I always walk up the escalator on the Tube, and I live in a house with a lot of stairs, and that’s good exercise, but you need more than that.
My ambition is to get better as an actor.
On the whole, actors shout when they don’t know what they’re doing, trying to make an impact.
When I appeared in ‘Coronation Street,’ I lived in Manchester and enjoyed it very much.
When I’ve been asked what should be on my gravestone, I’ve said: ‘Here lies Gandalf. He came out.’ Two big achievements.
If I was a star, it would be difficult to go off and do ‘Coronation Street.’ So I guess I’m not a star.
The conventional wisdom is that if you are gay, you cannot play the romantic straight lead in a movie.
Doing some of the ‘Lord Of The Rings’ press junkets got a bit claustrophobic.
‘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.
There’s lots of Tolkien that must be confusing to people.
I have lots of fans, they are mostly under the age of 12, boys and girls.
I’m not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.
There’s something wholesome about the theatre.
If you are playing King Lear you are the centre of attention anyway. You don’t need to draw attention to yourself. It’s all laid out for you.
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.
Until I came out, my acting was all about disguise, and thereafter it became about telling the truth.
Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: ‘I’m waiting to win the lottery. I’m waiting to fall in love’. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came.
I learned that coming out was crucial to self-esteem.
I don’t have Gandalf the White’s certainty about everything.
The wonderful thing about modern medicine is that so many of these complaints that used to signify old age and decline can be coped with.
What’s nice for me, having identified myself for years as being rather shy, is now, wherever I am, in public, there tends to be a friendly face who’s pleased to see me, and I like that.
No actor wants to play to an empty house.
The whole atmosphere of the book, the tone of ‘The Hobbit,’ is of a kid’s adventure story, told in the first person by Tolkien, who is introducing young people to the notion of Middle-earth. A lot of it is very light-hearted.
When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I’d been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality.
I’m the sort of person who doesn’t write in ink. I only write in pencil, so it can be rubbed out.
I’ve always had very catholic tastes.
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.
I’ve got a waistline to develop.
You might be surprised by how interested young people are in older people.
Capitalism offers you freedom, but far from giving people freedom, it enslaves them.
You won’t hear me talk about my politics, you won’t hear me talk about my vegetarianism, you won’t hear me comment on the Iraq war. You’ll only hear me talk about being gay and being an actor. I am just public on those two issues.
I got better as an actor, and still I’m getting better. That’s only been possible because there’s always been work.
Magneto wants to cope with the difficulties thrust upon him by society and by his own nature.
To be allowed for the first time in your later career to play leading parts in extremely popular movies is not a situation to worry about.
I don’t normally take to Yorkshiremen.
Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I’ve ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn’t even realized I was carrying.
When you grumble about a taxi being dirty, people your own age will absolutely agree with you, whereas younger people say, ‘You should be so lucky to have a taxi – I walk to work!’ So I have lots of young friends, who fortunately don’t treat me as a guru, a person that knows all the answers.
I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887 – 1976) lived and painted.
Some relationships get easier as you get older, depending on what sort of person you are. I don’t think I’ve got any better at them.
I remember Tom Stoppard saying to me when I came out, ‘I feel so sorry for you, because you’ll never have children.’ These days I would say, ‘Well, why not, Tom?’
There are people who’ve enjoyed my work in the theater, and they let me know that it was special for them. I’m not going to say, ‘Well, you should have seen me as Gandalf!’
‘The Da Vinci Code’ is the most popular book of our times.
Will I miss Gandalf? Well, I don’t miss him, because people are constantly coming up to me mentioning him and talking about him, so I don’t feel that I’ve lost contact.
It’s an interesting but useless bit of information that every single character in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ wears a wig, and many of them wears a prosthetic – false ears, feet, hands. In my case, nose.
The battle going on over gay marriage in America reveals an awful lot. The Bible belt – people hate gay people. Because the Bible tells them? No, the Bible tells them an awful lot of things that they ignore.
Acting is a very big part of what human beings do. A dog is always a dog, but we’re always changing.
I’ll never put my memoirs in print.
Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend… they can all go drifting by unseen if you’re not careful.
The BAFTAs give the British point of view, and the Oscars give the American point of view, but the truth is we’re all working in an international industry.
In the ’50s and ’60s, the life of a gay man was a secret. Homosexuality was illegal, so you didn’t draw attention to yourself.
There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement that if all our skins turned lavender overnight, the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity, and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice forevermore.
My friends are my family.
There are some fantastic parts for older actors.
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.
People on television have trouble with fame because audiences think they’re their mates.
I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying, ‘This is fiction.’
Who does understand life?
Tolkien is as good as Dickens at sketching a scene.
Thanks to every gay person in public and non-public life who has come out.
I had never come across the ‘X-Men’ comics till I was asked to play Magneto, so I just jumped into that job.
I can’t take on all the worries of the world, you know. I can only talk about being gay and being an actor. I’ll have to leave those other battles to somebody else.
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