People who are truly horrible are often the most interesting people in the room. You look at them and just say, ‘Why?’ – Ian Mckellen
If you’ve been in a film that’s seen by millions and millions and millions of people, you’re more likely to be recognized for that than for your theater performances, which were seen by considerably less people. Why would I get upset by that? – Ian Mckellen
I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887 – 1976) lived and painted. – Ian Mckellen
I don’t any longer make any quality judgement between theater and cinema. They are different experiences for the audience, and they also are for the actors – although they have a lot in common. – Ian Mckellen
The press like to talk to actors. They mustn’t be surprised when actors talk back to them. – Ian Mckellen
If we just made one movie, ‘The Hobbit,’ the fact is that all the fans, the eight-, nine- and 10-year-old boys, they would watch it 1,000 times. Now, they’ve got three films they can watch 1,000 times. – Ian Mckellen
What’s nice for me, having identified myself for years as being rather shy, is now, wherever I am, in public, there tends to be a friendly face who’s pleased to see me, and I like that. – Ian Mckellen
I certainly don’t disparage someone whose attitude towards their work is utterly different from mine – that’s up to them. – Ian Mckellen
The thing you notice here after America is how refreshingly ordinary people look because they haven’t had their chin wrapped around the back of their ears. – Ian Mckellen
Magneto wants to cope with the difficulties thrust upon him by society and by his own nature. – Ian Mckellen
There have been many gay knights in the past – like Sir Noel Coward or Sir John Gielgud. – Ian Mckellen
I’m brilliant at cooking my stepmother’s scrambled egg recipe. The secret is to put eggs, butter, milk, and seasoning together in the saucepan, and to keep stirring with a wooden spoon under a low heat until the preferred consistency is reached. – Ian Mckellen
The conventional wisdom is that if you are gay, you cannot play the romantic straight lead in a movie. – Ian Mckellen
I have little routines in the theater. Once I’ve established something, like the order of putting on makeup and a costume, I have to invariably do it in the same order every time, even if I only did it by chance the first time round. – Ian Mckellen
I don’t make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare – in fact, unless you’re a good comedian, you’re never going to be able to play Hamlet properly. – Ian Mckellen
Because I was in the business of translating the ‘X-Men’ from the very successful comics, and taking the most popular book of the 20th century in ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ and making it into three movies, I hope people realize I wouldn’t get involved in anything I didn’t think was really going to be worth their while. – Ian Mckellen
Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you’re gay. – Ian Mckellen
Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces around him rather than artistic integrity doesn’t know the guy or the body of his work. – Ian Mckellen
Until I came out, my acting was all about disguise, and thereafter it became about telling the truth. – Ian Mckellen
I can’t make up my mind whether I want to dance like Josef Brown or dance with Josef Brown. – Ian Mckellen
The huge difference in my lifetime is that you can just go up to somebody and make a pass. You couldn’t do that in the 1950s if you were gay. There were secret handshakes, a secret language. There was nowhere you could go to be romantic outside of people’s houses. – Ian Mckellen
The wonderful thing about modern medicine is that so many of these complaints that used to signify old age and decline can be coped with. – Ian Mckellen