Ian mckellen quotes

Ever since the invention of the camera, people have been trying to create 3D, because we see things in 3D, and everyone's aware that the camera doesn't.

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.

Acting is no longer about lying. It's now about revealing the truth. People are at ease with me now. Honesty is the best policy.

On the day after 9/11, I walking through the smoke and the smells of New York. There were knots of policemen everywhere. As I went past one officer, he called out: "Hi, Magneto." That's an indication of X-Men's extraordinary reach.

I have been reluctant to lobby on other issues I most care about - nuclear weapons (against), religion (atheist), capital punishment (anti), AIDS (fund-raiser) because I don't want to be forever spouting, diluting the impact of addressing my most urgent concern - legal and social equality for gay people worldwide.

No one needs to feel sorry for me or anyone else who has fallen victim to success.

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.

I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived and painted.

It is so painful watching yourself act, particularly because you can't do anything about it, it's all done and dusted.

My memory of 3D movies is Fernando Lamas in a swashbuckling movie. And I suppose it had been the fifties, in which swords came out at you, bullets came out at you, things were thrown into the auditorium, apparently. All that sort of cheap, "Oh, look at us, we've got 3D" isn't in the film.

It is very, very, very difficult for an American actor who wants a film career to be open about his sexuality. And even more difficult for a woman if she's lesbian. It`s very distressing to me that that should be the case. The film industry is very old fashioned in California.

Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, "Will there be an audience?"

Quite low down in the list is "How much am I going to be paid?"... my main feeling about money is that I don`t want to feel as though I`m being taken advantage of... The other actors they asked to play Gandalf wouldn`t go to New Zealand on that money for that length of time. I thought it would be a bit of an adventure... I`m an eccentric actor, and there`s a lot of us around.

I think the point to be understood is that we're all different. I've never been a fan of theories of acting. I didn't go to drama school, so I was never put through a training that was limited by someone saying, 'This is the way you should act.'

If you've got Mystique as your girlfriend the fun you could have in bed - I've just imagined X-Men 3 might open with me in bed with Patrick Stewart.

It's a joy to be up close to Derek Jacobi's work. Alas, we haven't worked very much, over the years, since we were at university together, but I don't think I've missed many of his great shows and performances.

It may be my rather puritanical upbringing at odds with my inborn laziness that makes me feel guilty at the end of the day, unless I am able to point at some achievement. But this need be no more impressive than cooking a meal or going for a long walk.

I love the Broadway audiences, who relish live drama and don't hesitate to display their enthusiasm.

The thing you notice here after America is how refreshingly ordinary people look, because they haven't had their chin wrapped around the back of their ears.

In fact, my face has shrunk in the meantime, but it won't be particularly noticeable because it's covered up with hair. So I hope I'm not alarmed if I ever do sit through the five movies.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.

My acting stopped being about disguise and became about truth which suits the camera, so my film career took off when I came out.

In the theatre, the actor is in total control. The director wasn't in the house last night, the designer wasn't there, the author's dead. It's just us and the audience.

There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.

Television can take anything. It can take the most exaggerated of storytelling forms.

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.

I tend to discourage people from calling me 'Sir Ian,' because I don't like being separated out from the rest of the population. Of course, it can be useful if you're writing an official letter, like trying to get a visa or something passed through Parliament. They're impressed by these things.

Try and understand what part you have to play in the world in which you live. There's more to life than you know and it's all happening out there. Discover what part you can play and then go for it.

The audience's expectations are ever-present.

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.

All other areas of my life, I'm hopeless. I can't even be certain how to boil an egg.

I think if I were asked to do as many as fifty takes, I would assume the director had no idea what he wanted, and was just hoping, eventually, to see it.

I'm dead against the idea that you should try to "cure" people of being gay.

We are very lucky to be men because women have a terrible time getting older parts. It's much more difficult.

I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly.

When you're on stage with an audience, the director's nowhere to be seen. He's onto the next job.

I think I'm a bit gruffer than I used to be, and I'm certainly older.

You would be surprised how many directors don't know what they want. They might not know what they want until they see it, they might know what they want but no idea how to get it out of the actor, then you've both got a problem.

It's only fair that stable gay relationships of long standing should have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. I know the image of gay marriage is to some people horrific and ludicrous.

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.

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've had enough of being a gay icon! I've had enough of all this hard work, because, since I came out, I keep getting all these parts, and my career's taken off. I want a quiet life. I'm going back into the closet. But I can't get back into the closet, because it's absolutely jam-packed full of other actors.

My reaction to 3D is subtly. Things don't come out at you, but rather you - The audience come into the film.

I headed out to have a breather at the stage door, dressed in my tramp costume. I had my bowler hat between my feet and there were passers-by, and one of them turned back and said, 'Do you need help, brother?' And $1 fell into my hat!

In the old-fashioned sitcoms, to be gay was, in itself, funny, and you laughed at the characters rather than with them.

[There's] nothing special about an actor's imagination, except that he uses it a lot.

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.

Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.

That was the big effect Lord of the Rings had on me. It was discovering New Zealand. And even more precious were the people- not at all like the Australians.

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.

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.

The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.

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.

Some directors don't tell you that it's not your fault, so you get increasingly depressed that you're not delivering what's required, and then you discover it's not you at all, it's something in the background that's out of focus.

Elijah looks angelic but his beauty of spirit is what makes his Frodo leap out of the screen. Unalloyed goodness is one of the most difficult attributes to act.

For old actors, just remember that inside you're only 14. Acting is for kids. You poor old grown-ups, you've forgotten how to do what kids know automatically.

You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk.

When we'd suggested doing it, the Theatre Royal management had said, 'Nobody wants to see Waiting for Godot.' As it happened, every single ticket was booked for every single performance, and this confirmation that our judgment was right was sweet. Audiences came to us from all over the world. It was amazing.

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.

I'm cheaper than Anthony Hopkins. The other actors they asked to play Gandalf wouldn't go to New Zealand on that money for that length of time. I thought it would be a bit of an adventure. Tony Hopkins didn't think it would be an adventure. Tony is part of Hollywood. I'm an eccentric English actor, and there's a lot of us around.

A few years ago, a friend said to me: "You do realize, Ian, when X-Men and Lord of the Rings come out, your life will totally change?" I didn't know what he was talking about, but he was right. My life has totally changed - but in a good way. Unbeknownst to me, it's given me a lot more confidence.

Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.

There's no sex in Middle Earth.

If I was on a march at the moment I would be saying to everyone: Be honest with each other. Admit there are limitless possibilities in relationships, and love as many people as you can in whatever way you want, and get rid of your inhibitions, and we'll all be happy.

Baz [Luhrmann] paid me one of the greatest compliments ever. I don't know him, really, but when I first met him I was congratulating him on ROMEO + JULIET - which I think is a wonderful adaptation - and he said, "Oh, well we couldn't have done it without your RICHARD III, which was an inspiration!" I've never quite checked up on the dates to see whether or if, in fact, we did our film before he did his.

I've always longed for the theatre and acting to be popular. No actor wants to play to an empty house. We only do it for an audience. The more the merrier. I don't make any distinction between a popular TV series or blockbuster film and doing Shakespeare. They're different, but as long as the material is good and the intention is honourable, it's all the same to me.

Success in the movies has pushed me to places I didn't know I was allowed to go.

There are not many things in my life I can be absolutely proud of or certain I got right, but one of them is that I've got better as an actor. I've learnt how to do it. And I still have enough energy to do it.

Kids are coming out earlier and earlier - some, as young as twelve now - and schools need to take that into account.

I often thought my gravestone would say, 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out,'

I think it's one thing to declare your sexuality, if you care about what that is. It's another thing to start talking in public about what you do in private and who you do it with. It's not that they [my significant others] don't want to be identified as gay, but that they don't want to be identified as ... with me.

Why live outside the US? Do you want health care or safe food products or democracy or something? They're all overrated. Stay for the excellent cable TV.

I'm not experienced enough, or certain enough of my acting on the screen to say to a director, "You are wrong, I am right. I will only do it this way." I could never feel that, I wish I could be absolutely certain. But on the stage, it's different. I know where I am on the stage.

I've played an awful lot of people that other people would call villains, but that isn't a very helpful attitude to have if you're about to play them. They are just people, and they may do dreadful things and say dreadful things, but your job as an actor is to know why they do them or say them.

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.

I suspect the base that I'm working from is not particularly one of inquiry, but of memory of what I did last time.

2D looks so flat. Well, it is, of course, it's flat. But 3D isn't. And for an adventure story that takes you into a long-distant, fictional world, it's ideal, I think.

Every anti-gay remark from the Church gives the thug a license to be cruel.

As for the clarity of the 48 frames, I've heard people say that it looks odd, it's too demanding, there's too much information, you don't know where to look.

I'm a latecomer to popular TV. This is rather new to me, being in a sitcom. It's been an ambition of mine.

I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.

I am going around British secondary schools, as a gay man talking about my life, and encouraging schools to get rid of homophobic bullying and to care for their gay members of staff and their gay students.

To know you are in the company with people who love and care for each other, as well as for whatever they are working on, is almost essential.

That's the imagination that happens in the theater. That imagination is translated in film by the film magicians and all the technology.

You always think that 70 is the end of the road: 'Somebody died when they were 73; good life'. You're closer to death, and you better make sure you don't waste too much of your time doing things you don't want to do. No point in saying things you don't believe in.