Ian Mckellen famous quotes

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

#Lying #Gravestone

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.'
-- Ian Mckellen

#Character #Vices #Directors

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Writing #People #Trying

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

#Imagination #Special #Use

There's no sex in Middle Earth.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Sex #Earth #Middle Earth

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

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Couple #Responsibility #Gay

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#New York #Past #Men

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!
-- Ian Mckellen

#Brother #Doors #Feet

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Gay #Men #Thinking

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Character #Personality #Acting

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Play #Long #House

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.'
-- Ian Mckellen

#Drama #School #Thinking

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

#Ambition #Tvs #Latecomers

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#People #And Love #Would Be

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Bullying #School #Gay

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Lying #Important #Done

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Inspiration #Thinking #Done

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#People #Essentials #Care

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

#Gay #Ideas #People

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Thinking #Years #Joy

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

#Television #Storytelling #Form

I am very lucky to be man because women have a terrible time getting older parts. It's much more difficult.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Men #Getting Older #Lucky

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

#Character #Gay #Old Fashioned

Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Stories #Actors #Mediums

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Sorry #Character #Attention

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Men #Talking #Years

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

#Drama #Broadway #Enthusiasm

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

#School #Kids #Twelve

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

#Gay #Thug #Giving

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

#Old Friends #Unseen #Architecture

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#America #People #Ordinary

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Play #Trying #World

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Real #Acting #Way

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Careers #California #Actors

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Night #House #Theatre

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Gay #Reality #Feet

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Cute #Character #Play

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Girlfriend #Fun #Men

I'm cheaper than Anthony Hopkins.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Hollywood #Film #Cheaper

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Play #Comedian #Acting

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Gay #Worry #Battle

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Democracy #Cable Tv #Care

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

#Fiction #Should #Disclaimers

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Good Life #Believe #Thinking

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

#Lancashire

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#People #Lord #Bigs

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Falling In Love #Children #Winning

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Taken #Hard Work #Gay

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Play #Acting #Want

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Taken #Adventure #Play

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Energy #Actors #Proud

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Sweet #Waiting #Theatre

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.
-- Ian Mckellen

#Believe #Ideas #People