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" Thanks to every gay person in public and non-public life who has come out. "
Ian Mckellen
Person
Thanks
Come
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" There are people who've enjoyed my work in the theater, and they let me know that it was special for them. I'm not going to say, 'Well, you should have seen me as Gandalf!' "
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" I like sleeping a lot. "
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" I get pretty grumpy about TV. "
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" In Singapore, Malcolm X type of activity would be extremely difficult because the government can be very harsh on lawbreakers. "
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" 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. "
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" If I was on a march at the moment I would be saying to everyone: 'Be honest with each other. Admit there are limitless possibilities in relationships, and love as many people as you can in whatever way you want, and get rid of your inhibitions, and we'll all be happy. "
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" 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. "
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" People on television have trouble with fame because audiences think they're their mates. "
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" 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. "
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Attention
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" The conventional wisdom is that if you are gay, you cannot play the romantic straight lead in a movie. "
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" Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different. "
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" Anyone in public life who comes out, comes out primarily for themselves, and their life is immediately improved. That's what happened to me. "
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" 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. "
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Trying
" The wonderful thing about modern medicine is that so many of these complaints that used to signify old age and decline can be coped with. "
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Age
Old
Old Age
" I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly. "
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Never
Acting
" '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 got intrigued by working in small theatres. "
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Got
" I don't have Gandalf the White's certainty about everything. "
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White
Everything
Certainty
" Actors don't, in fact, retire, do they? It took me a while to remember that. "
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" 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. "
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Fun
Guy
Good
" 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. "
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Book
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" 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? "
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" 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. "
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" I've always felt that 'X-Men' was about something serious. It wasn't just fantasy. "
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" There are deaths in public places on the grounds that the victim is gay. "
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" 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. "
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" One thing Middle-earth is short on is the feminine. "
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One Thing
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