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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

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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
Ever
Carrying
Done
Hadn
Important
Personally
Even
Shoulders
Things
Realized
Lies
Coming
Millstone
Lying
Lifting

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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I suspect the base that I'm working from is not particularly one of inquiry, but of memory of what I did last time.
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Every anti-gay remark from the Church gives the thug a license to be cruel.
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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.
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The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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