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" 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. "

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" There are still times in my life where I pull back from being totally honest, and I can't imagine a single straight person who would understand that. "

Ian Mckellen

Person

My Life

Life

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

Ian Mckellen

Performance

Ballet

" You always think that 70 is the end of the road: 'Somebody died when they were 73; good life'. You're closer to death, and you better make sure you don't waste too much of your time doing things you don't want to do. No point in saying things you don't believe in. "

" I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book. "

" When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that - in real life - I wasn't doing. "

" There's something wholesome about the theatre. "

" 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

" I know actors who have had to turn down good roles because they just don't pay enough. It's hard. "

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

" 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. "

" My own death threats have declined considerably. "

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

" When I appeared in 'Coronation Street,' I lived in Manchester and enjoyed it very much. "

" 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. "

" Gandalf's a good guy, and it's a good part. He says the right things, he believes the right things. An actor can have fun with it. "

" Quakers are terrific. "

Ian Mckellen

Quakers

Terrific

" No one seems to wash in Middle-earth. "

Ian Mckellen

Seems

Wash

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

" Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you're gay. "

" In the past, kids didn't tell their parents they were gay, so there were never the bust-ups. Some parents react so strongly to the news that their children are gay that the reaction is, 'Get out of our house.' There's a residue of old prejudices that are going to die hard. "

" 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. "

" If you've got Mystique as your girlfriend the fun you could have in bed - I've just imagined X-Men 3 might open with me in bed with Patrick Stewart. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I get pretty grumpy about TV. "

Ian Mckellen

Get

About

" On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact. "

" Every time you work is a challenge. There's a constant worry about it, and it's a side of acting I don't like. "

" Establishing the rights for gay people to be married would cost the Australian government nothing financially and would gain for you worldwide respect from people like us and, of course, would change lives enormously - the lives of gay people and of their friends and of their families and therefore of Australia as a whole. "

" 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

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