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" It's easier to go from theatre to film than the other way round. In film you're absolutely loved and cossetted and cared for. In film your director makes your performance. In theatre you're carrying it all. "

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" 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

Heard

People

Cancer

" I don't have Gandalf the White's certainty about everything. "

" One thing Middle-earth is short on is the feminine. "

" Anyone in public life who comes out, comes out primarily for themselves, and their life is immediately improved. That's what happened to me. "

Ian Mckellen

Who

Happened

" How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play. "

" I just followed my parents' example and advice on living, which was to leave the world a better place than you found it. They were professional do-gooders, ministers of the church, social workers, teachers, and missionaries, that sort of thing. "

" There are deaths in public places on the grounds that the victim is gay. "

" People who are truly horrible are often the most interesting people in the room. You look at them and just say, 'Why?' "

" 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. "

" You mustn't upstage the bride. "

Ian Mckellen

Bride

You

" Shakespeare's villains are fabulous because none of them know that they are villains. Well, sometimes they do. "

" I increasingly see organized religion as actually my enemy. They treat me as their enemy. Not all Christians, of course. Not all Jews, not all Muslims. "

Ian Mckellen

See

Treat

" 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. "

" The spirit of the four hobbits in 'Lord of the Rings,' I suppose I miss that. "

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

" 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

White

Job

" 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. "

" No actor wants to play to an empty house. "

" 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. "

" I'll never put my memoirs in print. "

Ian Mckellen

In Print

Put

" There are not many things in my life I can be absolutely proud of or certain I got right, but one of them is that I've got better as an actor. I've learnt how to do it. And I still have enough energy to do it. "

" The most likely explanation is the most practical. 'Macbeth' is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of 'Macbeth'. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting. "

" I don't normally take to Yorkshiremen. "

Ian Mckellen

Take

Normally

" Imagine trying to be a gay actor, a gay anything in modern Russia? Where to be positively oneself, to be affectionate in public with someone you love of the same gender, or to talk of that love in the hearing of anyone under 18, will put you prison? "

" I can't make up my mind whether I want to dance like Josef Brown or dance with Josef Brown. "

Ian Mckellen

Want

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

" Fame creeps up on you. "

Ian Mckellen

Creeps

You

" 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. "

" Thanks to every gay person in public and non-public life who has come out. "

" 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. "