Quotes by Ian Mckellen

About Ian Mckellen:

Sir Ian Murray McKellen is an English actor. He is the recipient of six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and two Critics' Choice Awards. He has also received two Academy Award nominations, four BAFTA nominations and five Emmy Award nominations. McKellen's work spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. His film roles include Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies and Magneto in the X-Men films.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It's my impression that I've done every job that I've been asked to do.

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 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

Why do you act? You act for an audience. In the theatre, you're in their presence. Film stars don't know what it is to have an audience.

Ian Mckellen

Tony Blair is not a villain, but he's played the part very well.

Ian Mckellen

You mustn't upstage the bride.

Ian Mckellen

There's something wholesome about the theatre.

Ian Mckellen

There's lots of Tolkien that must be confusing to people.

Ian Mckellen

When I came out, I told my stepmother Gladys, and she just said she had known for years and was glad I wasn't lying anymore.

Ian Mckellen

I used to comfort myself when I became an actor that it was a useful job, entertaining people. And it was important to do it as well as you possibly can.

Ian Mckellen

Bill Gallagher's new version of 'The Prisoner' is an enthralling commentary on modern culture. It is witty, intelligent and disturbing. I am very excited to be involved.

Ian Mckellen

It's an interesting but useless bit of information that every single character in 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' wears a wig, and many of them wears a prosthetic - false ears, feet, hands. In my case, nose.

Ian Mckellen

I have heard of people dying from prostate cancer, and they are the unlucky ones, the people who didn't know they had got it, and it went on the rampage.

Ian Mckellen

The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.

Ian Mckellen

There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement that if all our skins turned lavender overnight, the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity, and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice forevermore.

Ian Mckellen

When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I'd been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality.

Ian Mckellen

Acting is a very big part of what human beings do. A dog is always a dog, but we're always changing.

Ian Mckellen

Gandalf saves the world and saves the soul of the world, really.

Ian Mckellen

Gandalf is in Middle-earth to keep an eye on everybody, and that can be a rather serious matter.

Ian Mckellen

Gandalf the Grey was always the guy I prefer. Gandalf the White was driven to do a particular job, whereas Gandalf the Grey is a bit more humane.

Ian Mckellen

Doing some of the 'Lord Of The Rings' press junkets got a bit claustrophobic.

Ian Mckellen

Author Bio

  • NameIan Mckellen
  • DescriptionBritish actor
  • BornMay 25, 1939
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionActor; Voice Actor
  • AwardsLaurence Olivier Award; Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire; Donostia Award; Annie Award