Quote

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

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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
Helping
Fell
Tramp
Back
Turned
Bowlers
Need
Door
Tramps
Needs
Doors
Costume
Brother
Headed
Feet
Costumes
Passers
Stage
Dressed
Breather
Help
Hats
Bowler

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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.
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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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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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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.'
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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.
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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.
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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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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
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[There's] nothing special about an actor's imagination, except that he uses it a lot.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is so painful watching yourself act, particularly because you can't do anything about it, it's all done and dusted.
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I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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