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Ian McKellen
10 quotes
“I think this country will be a healthier place if people in public life who are gay, announce that they are gay and left it at that so that the majority in society would understand that homosexuals are their friends, their supporters and a major contribution to the cultural and healthy life of this nation.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Third Ear (BBC Radio 3, 27 January 1988) on Section 28 with Peregrine Worsthorne and Robert Hewison. Transcript taken from "How I Came Out, Live on National Radio", mckellen.com
“The audience I play to really is the bright 14-year-old: someone who is capable of sitting still and listening and watching and feeling for even three hours. I know, as I did at that age, they'll potentially have their lives changed.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think this is why a lot of actors, at least in the past, have been gay: the only place where they could be themselves, express themselves, at a time when it was illegal [...] to be homosexual, was in public, protected by the play. You could come up with real emotions for real situations but not of course your own.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Richard Ridge (moderated by), Conversations with Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart (March 2014)
“Heterosexuality is far too interesting a phenomenon to be ignored.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, nobody looks to Hollywood for social commentary, do they? They only recently discovered that there were black people in the world.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Catherine Shoard in "Ian McKellen: half of Hollywood is gay, yet in movies gay men don't exist", The Guardian (23 May 2018).
“Hollywood has mistreated women in every possible way throughout its history. Gay men don't exist.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Catherine Shoard in "Ian McKellen: half of Hollywood is gay, yet in movies gay men don't exist", The Guardian (23 May 2018).
“There aren't many plays in which a character says "Has the doctor looked at my sample yet?" He knows he is old, that soon he will die. The Henry plays are the great England plays: you get a sense of the country from top to bottom, from monarch to prostitute, from Westminster to Cheapside. But they are also about death. The plays are immortal and I am not. So I hitch a lift on the back.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]n the theatre, life is happening now. That's Falstaff's first word: "Now!" It's not reported life, it's life right there.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview with Claire Allfree, as cited in "Ian McKellen: ‘Whenever I fall in love, I wonder: are they going to leave me one day?’", The Telegraph (24 February 2024)
“Any actor who has had his marriage photographed by the press has proclaimed his heterosexuality. Now, apart from one member of the House of Commons [Chris Smith], there are no gay members of the House of Commons? There are no gay members of the House of Lords? This is the times we are living in. That homosexuality is an invisible minority. Of course it's a minority. I would claim that it is between 5-10% of the population. Not converted to it, born with it, happy with it, would like to live with it, inoffensively and contributing to society. You [Peregrine Worsthorne] suspect they might be corrupting society.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must accept that there are very very few famous homosexuals in this country. There are no sportsmen who declare that they are gay because they don't like to because they are frightened of what will happen to them. And this is the area in which schoolchildren, to get back to the Bill, the schoolchildren who having no role models in society discover, fear, that they are gay, they go to their parents where they get a dusty answer, they go automatically, of course, to the other adults in their lives, they go to their teachers. And their teachers need to be in a position to be able to discuss that sexuality and reassure them that it is not against the law, it is not wrong and they must feel at ease with it, if they have decided at the end of their experimentation with their sexuality that they are one thing or the other. And this Bill will restrict dangerously that perfectly proper activity of the schools.”
Ian McKellen (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source