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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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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
Certain
Even
Life
Boil
Hopeless
Eggs
Areas

More quotes by Ian Mckellen

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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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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 I'm a bit gruffer than I used to be, and I'm certainly older.
Ian Mckellen
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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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Every anti-gay remark from the Church gives the thug a license to be cruel.
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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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
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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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Kids are coming out earlier and earlier - some, as young as twelve now - and schools need to take that into account.
Ian Mckellen
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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
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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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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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.
Ian Mckellen
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2D looks so flat. Well, it is, of course, it's flat. But 3D isn't. And for an adventure story that takes you into a long-distant, fictional world, it's ideal, I think.
Ian Mckellen
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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.
Ian Mckellen
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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.
Ian Mckellen
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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.
Ian Mckellen
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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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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