Quote

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

Ian Mckellen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Cobbled
Painted
Industrial
Brought
Road
South
Lived
Lancashire

More quotes by Ian Mckellen

Image
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
Image
The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.
Ian Mckellen
Image
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.
Ian Mckellen
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I suspect the base that I'm working from is not particularly one of inquiry, but of memory of what I did last time.
Ian Mckellen
Image
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
Image
You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk.
Ian Mckellen
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Ian Mckellen
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Ian Mckellen
Image
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
Image
In the old-fashioned sitcoms, to be gay was, in itself, funny, and you laughed at the characters rather than with them.
Ian Mckellen
Image
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