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" 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. "

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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. "

Ian Mckellen

People

Gay

Government

" 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. "

" The press like to talk to actors. They mustn't be surprised when actors talk back to them. "

" One school invited me down, as two pupils had come out, and the headmaster didn't know what to do about it. I said, 'How many students here are gay?' and he said, 'Just these two.' Clearly not. 'How many gay members of staff have you got?' He had no idea. And this was a concerned man. "

" I've got a waistline to develop. "

Ian Mckellen

Develop

Got

" 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. "

" The strength of British theatre should be that these actors in their middle years know what they're doing and are good at it. Not rich, not famous, but making a living. "

" 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. "

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

Ian Mckellen

Performance

Ballet

" I'm not being offered a constant stream of wonderful parts with wonderful directors that would keep me away from the theatre. When they turn up, I do them. "

Ian Mckellen

Turn

Wonderful

" I think New York audiences are some of the brightest in the world, and certainly the most enthusiastic. "

" Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces around him rather than artistic integrity doesn't know the guy or the body of his work. "

" '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. "

" I think I've become more modest as the years have gone on. "

Ian Mckellen

Modest

Think

" There's no sex in Middle Earth. "

" 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. "

" You put anyone in the outfit, and they look like Gandalf. Not that clever. "

" 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. "

" I think the point to be understood is that we're all different. I've never been a fan of theories of acting. I didn't go to drama school, so I was never put through a training that was limited by someone saying, 'This is the way you should act.' "

" Eventually, before I die, I hope to have written about every part I've played. "

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

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

Ian Mckellen

Villain

Well

" I've always had very catholic tastes. "

" 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. "

" I'm fortunate to be famous for two rather imposing characters like Magneto and Gandalf. "

Ian Mckellen

Famous

Fortunate

" 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? "

" There are a lot of actors - I'm probably one - who are most at home when they're on stage. "

" The battle going on over gay marriage in America reveals an awful lot. The Bible belt - people hate gay people. Because the Bible tells them? No, the Bible tells them an awful lot of things that they ignore. "

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