Quote

I think it's one thing to declare your sexuality, if you care about what that is. It's another thing to start talking in public about what you do in private and who you do it with. It's not that they [my significant others] don't want to be identified as gay, but that they don't want to be identified as ... with me.

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
Thing
Significant
Think
Private
Thinking
Public
Start
Talking
Identified
Others
Declare
Another
Sexuality
Care
Gay

More quotes by Ian Mckellen

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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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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.
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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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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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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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Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.
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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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There's no sex in Middle Earth.
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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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Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, Will there be an audience?
Ian Mckellen
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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.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
Ian Mckellen