Ian Mckellen

What's upsetting about an autobiography is that the final chapter is always missing. I mean, you want the death, don't you?

There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company.

I don't normally take to Yorkshiremen.

I got better as an actor, and still I'm getting better. That's only been possible because there's always been work.

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.

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.

Who does understand life?

I don't really like being with people my own age for long periods, because all we talk about is our decrepitude, how the world is changing for the worse even though it isn't.

We're very lucky, men, that there are these fabulous parts. Women - once you've done all the parts in Shakespeare, they start running out. So you can pick and choose and find something to energise you.

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!'

The whole atmosphere of the book, the tone of 'The Hobbit,' is of a kid's adventure story, told in the first person by Tolkien, who is introducing young people to the notion of Middle-earth. A lot of it is very light-hearted.

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.

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

I've got a waistline to develop.

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 don't make any distinction between a popular TV series or blockbuster film and doing Shakespeare. They're different, but as long as the material is good and the intention is honourable, it's all the same to me.

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.

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

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

There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company. But you also end up in the company of people you don't admire, including some rather dodgy politicians.

Tolkien is as good as Dickens at sketching a scene.

What I particularly like about Broadway is the camaraderie and the friendship of other people in other shows. Everybody knows you're opening and cares about you. There's a real village atmosphere.

Actors don't, in fact, retire, do they? It took me a while to remember that.

My friends are my family.

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.

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

'The Lego Movie?' I've never heard of it.

I don't think many people will re-read 'The Da Vinci Code.'

'Lord of the Rings' was about saving the world, big time, big duties.

I've always felt that 'X-Men' was about something serious. It wasn't just fantasy.

I think with Shakespeare you can be required to do absolutely anything at the turn of a sixpence - suddenly you go into a battle, suddenly you utter something passionate.

Before I ever acted as an amateur - which I did a great deal at school and at university - I used to go to the theater with my parents in the north of England, where I was born and brought up... Theater of all sorts.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I owe a great deal to Harold Hobson, doyen drama critic of the 'U.K. Sunday Times,' who championed me as Shakespeare's Richard II at the 1969 Edinburgh Festival.

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.'

The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo.

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

There have been many gay knights in the past - like Sir Noel Coward or Sir John Gielgud.

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.

No actor wants to play to an empty house.

Capitalism offers you freedom, but far from giving people freedom, it enslaves them.

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.

When I've been asked what should be on my gravestone, I've said: 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out.' Two big achievements.

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.

I learned that coming out was crucial to self-esteem.

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.

I'm only an actor. I'm not a writer. I'm not going to leave any legacy. All I've ever done is learn the lines and say them.

People on television have trouble with fame because audiences think they're their mates.

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.

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

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

I used to comfort myself when I became an actor that it was a useful job, entertaining people. And it was important to do it as well as you possibly can.

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

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

You won't hear me talk about my politics, you won't hear me talk about my vegetarianism, you won't hear me comment on the Iraq war. You'll only hear me talk about being gay and being an actor. I am just public on those two issues.

I don't any longer make any quality judgement between theater and cinema. They are different experiences for the audience, and they also are for the actors - although they have a lot in common.

I used to think 'King Lear' was an analysis of insanity, but I don't really think it is. When Lear is supposed to be at his most insane, he is actually understanding the world for the first time.

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

I'm not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.

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.

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

When you grumble about a taxi being dirty, people your own age will absolutely agree with you, whereas younger people say, 'You should be so lucky to have a taxi - I walk to work!' So I have lots of young friends, who fortunately don't treat me as a guru, a person that knows all the answers.

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.

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

To be allowed for the first time in your later career to play leading parts in extremely popular movies is not a situation to worry about.

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.

I often get mistaken for Dumbledore. One wizard is very much like another.

You see people in Hollywood trying to make blockbuster after blockbuster, but it's not possible. There's some god up there saying, 'You will fail now.' But I suppose that's true of us all.

Very, very rare that you do a job knowing that the audience is desperate for you to do that job. Most films you make don't get released, is the fact.

Fame creeps up on you.

Why not celebrate those who want to marry and bring up a family?

I am lucky, I don't have aches and pains. I do Pilates regularly, which is a series of stretching exercises, and I recommend it to anyone of my age because the temptation is not to exercise when you get older. Well, you should.

I got intrigued by working in small theatres.

It's my impression that I've done every job that I've been asked to do.

Theatre is relatively easy if you're British - you're living in the theatre capital of the world, London - there are so many places you can work, still. If I had begun to think of myself as a film actor, I think I would have got distracted.

That was the big effect Lord of the Rings had on me. It was discovering New Zealand. And even more precious were the people- not at all like the Australians.

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.

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.

I certainly don't disparage someone whose attitude towards their work is utterly different from mine - that's up to them.

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.

I remember Tom Stoppard saying to me when I came out, 'I feel so sorry for you, because you'll never have children.' These days I would say, 'Well, why not, Tom?'

I love working in New York.

It's only fair that stable gay relationships of long standing should have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. I know the image of gay marriage is to some people horrific and ludicrous.

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.

In the U.K. there is still work to be done, particularly in schools, stopping the homophobic bullies in the playground and introducing unbiased discussion on gay issues in the classroom.

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've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying, 'This is fiction.'

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?

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.

Magneto wants to cope with the difficulties thrust upon him by society and by his own nature.

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

If I say often enough that I'm going to be in 'King Kong,' I'm hoping that Peter Jackson will take the hint.

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'll never put my memoirs in print.

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