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" 'King Lear,' I've been seeing all my life. I mean, the great actors of my lifetime... to join their company, as it were, by playing a part that's challenged them, is one of the great joys of being an actor who does the classics. "

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" I quite like it when I'm on the Tube and people offer me their seat. Sometimes I take it. The other day I was offered a seat by a pregnant lady. I thought, 'That's going a bit far.' "

Ian Mckellen

People

Day

" When I was playing Gandalf, I didn't think, 'Oh my dear, I'm playing a 7,000 year old wizard,' because I've never met one, and I don't know what they're like. "

" I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887 - 1976) lived and painted. "

Ian Mckellen

Down

Road

" 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. "

" I came rather late to film. I've done an awful lot of theater before - before I discovered the camera, you know, seeing everything, requiring much less acting and - and much less presentation, much less projecting, more just being. "

" I have lots of fans, they are mostly under the age of 12, boys and girls. "

" I'm an eccentric English actor, and there's a lot of us around. "

Ian Mckellen

English

Eccentric

" 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

You

Language

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

" 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. "

" If you get criticized, good - I don't think people get criticized enough. People talk behind your back and they criticize you, but they don't often come up and say it to you. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I had never come across the 'X-Men' comics till I was asked to play Magneto, so I just jumped into that job. "

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

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

Ian Mckellen

In Print

Put

" I love the Broadway audiences, who relish live drama and don't hesitate to display their enthusiasm. "

" I have got prostate cancer, and I have to keep monitoring that. It's no problem, it's under control and I'm very cool about it, but other people are dying from it. "

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

" In the '50s and '60s, the life of a gay man was a secret. Homosexuality was illegal, so you didn't draw attention to yourself. "

" Will I miss Gandalf? Well, I don't miss him, because people are constantly coming up to me mentioning him and talking about him, so I don't feel that I've lost contact. "

Ian Mckellen

Him

Feel

" Some relationships get easier as you get older, depending on what sort of person you are. I don't think I've got any better at them. "

" My ambition is to get better as an actor. "

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

Ian Mckellen

Villain

Well

" 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. "

" Try and understand what part you have to play in the world in which you live. There's more to life than you know and it's all happening out there. Discover what part you can play and then go for it. "

" I love musicals; I love the ballet, opera, the circus. It's all performance to me. "

Ian Mckellen

Performance

Ballet

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

" 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. "

" It was wrongly assumed that I wished to become some sort of leader among gay activists, whereas in reality I was happier to be a foot soldier. "