Top 250 Quotes & Sayings by Ian Mckellen - Page 3
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English actor Ian Mckellen.
Last updated on December 25, 2024.
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.
Who does understand life?
Gandalf is ever-present in my life. I like it.
You might be surprised by how interested young people are in older people.
I know actors who have had to turn down good roles because they just don't pay enough. It's hard.
Why not celebrate those who want to marry and bring up a family?
Shakespeare's villains are fabulous because none of them know that they are villains. Well, sometimes they do.
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?
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.
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.
In Singapore, Malcolm X type of activity would be extremely difficult because the government can be very harsh on lawbreakers.
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.
I love musicals; I love the ballet, opera, the circus. It's all performance to me.
I got intrigued by working in small theatres.
Actors don't, in fact, retire, do they? It took me a while to remember that.
Eventually, before I die, I hope to have written about every part I've played.
Imagine trying to be a gay actor, a gay anything in modern Russia? Where to be positively oneself, to be affectionate in public with someone you love of the same gender, or to talk of that love in the hearing of anyone under 18, will put you prison?
I don't normally take to Yorkshiremen.
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 press like to talk to actors. They mustn't be surprised when actors talk back to them.
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.
I've always felt that 'X-Men' was about something serious. It wasn't just fantasy.
I think with Shakespeare you can be required to do absolutely anything at the turn of a sixpence - suddenly you go into a battle, suddenly you utter something passionate.
I certainly wouldn't define myself as a northerner. I'm not even really sure what that means. I've lived in London for 50 years. I wasn't born here, but I have spent most of my life here. So I don't make much of it, to be honest. I'm just myself.
Bolton School has a great tradition in the liberal arts.
I can't make up my mind whether I want to dance like Josef Brown or dance with Josef Brown.
Every time you work is a challenge. There's a constant worry about it, and it's a side of acting I don't like.
I'll never put my memoirs in print.
What's upsetting about an autobiography is that the final chapter is always missing. I mean, you want the death, don't you?
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.
Most actors are not rich - they are very poor indeed. What keeps them going is that they just love the job.
I have lots of fans, they are mostly under the age of 12, boys and girls.
I often get mistaken for Dumbledore. One wizard is very much like another.
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.
Gandalf's a good guy, and it's a good part. He says the right things, he believes the right things. An actor can have fun with it.
I don't think many people will re-read 'The Da Vinci Code.'
In any human-rights campaign, everybody must do what they can.
I just followed my parents' example and advice on living, which was to leave the world a better place than you found it. They were professional do-gooders, ministers of the church, social workers, teachers, and missionaries, that sort of thing.
I think I've become more modest as the years have gone on.
Fame creeps up on you.
I live for the text. It's my job.
I love the Broadway audiences, who relish live drama and don't hesitate to display their enthusiasm.
It's my impression that I've done every job that I've been asked to do.
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.
There are some fantastic parts for older actors.
When I appeared in 'Coronation Street,' I lived in Manchester and enjoyed it very much.
There have been many gay knights in the past - like Sir Noel Coward or Sir John Gielgud.
The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo.
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.
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.
You see people in Hollywood trying to make blockbuster after blockbuster, but it's not possible. There's some god up there saying, 'You will fail now.' But I suppose that's true of us all.
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.
The huge difference in my lifetime is that you can just go up to somebody and make a pass. You couldn't do that in the 1950s if you were gay. There were secret handshakes, a secret language. There was nowhere you could go to be romantic outside of people's houses.
Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you're gay.
I'm not being offered a constant stream of wonderful parts with wonderful directors that would keep me away from the theatre. When they turn up, I do them.
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.
It's nice for me to be in touch with a younger generation.
People on television have trouble with fame because audiences think they're their mates.
The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.
I don't have Gandalf the White's certainty about everything.
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