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The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.
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
Material
Thinking
Directors
Materials
Created
Actor
Actors
Performance
Director
True
Performances
Think
More quotes by Ian Mckellen
Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.
Ian Mckellen
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
Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, Will there be an audience?
Ian Mckellen
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
I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.
Ian Mckellen
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
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
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
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
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
I think I'm a bit gruffer than I used to be, and I'm certainly older.
Ian Mckellen
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.
Ian Mckellen
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
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
[There's] nothing special about an actor's imagination, except that he uses it a lot.
Ian Mckellen
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
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
All other areas of my life, I'm hopeless. I can't even be certain how to boil an egg.
Ian Mckellen
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
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
