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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

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Ian Mckellen
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: May 25
Actor
Film Actor
Preface Author
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Theatrical Director
Voice Actor
County of York
Sir Ian Murray McKellen
Ian Murray McKellen
Happening
Understand
Part
Live
Play
Trying
Life
Happenings
World
Discover

More quotes by Ian Mckellen

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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
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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
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I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.
Ian Mckellen
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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.
Ian Mckellen
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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.
Ian Mckellen
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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
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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
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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
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I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived and painted.
Ian Mckellen
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I think I'm a bit gruffer than I used to be, and I'm certainly older.
Ian Mckellen
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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
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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.
Ian Mckellen
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Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, Will there be an audience?
Ian Mckellen
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Every anti-gay remark from the Church gives the thug a license to be cruel.
Ian Mckellen
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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
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Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.
Ian Mckellen
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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
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All other areas of my life, I'm hopeless. I can't even be certain how to boil an egg.
Ian Mckellen
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In the old-fashioned sitcoms, to be gay was, in itself, funny, and you laughed at the characters rather than with them.
Ian Mckellen
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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
Ian Mckellen