2024-01-20 11:27:17
The story of Sir Ian McKellen It is inspiring, a true manual on how to live freely, in addition to demonstrating that at 84 years old, it is possible to have an honest existence with oneself and the outside world.
McKellen’s life took a drastic turn on January 27, 1988, when a milestone occurred that marked him forever.
The then parsimonious Ian, known for performing the works of William Shakespeare as Rey Lear y Ricardo III On stage, he handled his personal affairs smoothly at 49 years old.
However, article 28 was being discussed in the government of Margaret Thatcher. In short, the measure imposed a ban on teaching about homosexuality, which at the time was taboo in rigid British society.
In this sense, the actor was invited to the debate organized by BBC Radio to discuss the bill, criticized by the community LGBTQ+ as homophobic. Without turning back, McKellen saw how part of the group was displaced from public places. At that moment, Ian confirmed his sexual orientation to the public tuning in to the debate.
“I’ve been gay all my life, I just hadn’t come on television to say it,” revealed after being asked about his seemingly sudden interest in the discussion. “And now I feel the need to do it, because the government, with this new law, has brought my private sexuality into the public arena by writing a law about it, and that is why I have felt that I had to oppose it, not only as an actor who fears censorship, but also as a homosexual who does not like the climate of opinion that is being fostered with this law.”
For this reason, years later, the actor recalled that the event marked a before and after in his life. “I usually use the image of a weight that you didn’t even know you had on your back. That weight fell off, and I felt better physically. “I had felt shy all my life about being gay, about something I couldn’t say, and now I could walk into a room and feel proud.” expressed the actor in 2017 for the documentary “Taking sides”, which reviews his career.
Ian McKellen’s childhood
McKellen had a difficult childhood. Born in Burnley, 25 May 1939. His family moved to Bolton when he was very young. He grew up in an environment in which he knew how to appreciate the performing arts, which served to channel his shyness. However, he experienced the death of his mother Margerie at the age of 12, while his father, Denis, died at the age of 24, which was a hard blow because they never knew about his sexual orientation.
Namely, the actor has an older sister named Jean, with whom he grew up.
The theater completely captivated him, with traditional shows being his first approach to acting. Also in this space, he had his first sexual awakening. In the documentary of his life, he indicated feeling “attracted by the workers with greasy hair and hats who operated the ferris wheel and the fairground attractions”.
So it was that in acting he found an authentic way to “deal with emotions and express myself publicly, something I couldn’t do in my real life”he stated about his first years in the closet, because “Acting is a deeply human activity. At school I used a different accent than at home to fit in.”.
Along these lines, the interpreter reflected on how acting overlaps with the experience of living, stating that “People always act. When they get up in the morning, they choose the costume they will wear, the impact they are looking for, what facet of their personality they are going to show.he highlighted subtly.
However, for much of his adulthood “There was a silence in everything related to sexuality”this being his reason for not coming out of the closet, since maintaining a homosexual relationship was illegal, according to the laws of the time. “I was repressed, I was developing in a way that was not healthy, but by acting I managed to express myself and deal with my feelings. It was a substitute for my interest in sex.”he reflected in the documentary.
Success at the hands of Shakespeare
With great humility, the artist has said that he never learned an acting technique, since he did not attend a theater school. For McKellen, the method begins with reading the script, as the text gives him clues about his characters’ motivations as he outlines their stories.
In particular, part of their art is thinking about how they move, the clothes they wear, the inflection of their voice, he explained to Variety.
For this reason, his colleagues have expressed that he always showed talent for the stage, highlighting when at 29 years old he played Hamlet for the first time. To this day she is considered a Royal Shakespeare Company legend for starring in ‘Macbeth’ y ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
Meanwhile, thanks to his performance as Salieri in the play ‘Amadeus’, won a Tony Award in 1981, the highest award in the theatrical arts. His name in the United Kingdom resonated as an outstanding actor.
In this regard, Ian mentions in each interview that his revelation on television also allowed him to improve at his job.“What happened, according to my friends, is that I not only became a happier person, but a better actor.”he told the BBC.
What’s more, Mckellen stated that since then he can feel that he got rid of a weight that he didn’t know he was carrying.
A late entry to the cinema
By coincidence or not, the British actor’s statement came just when from Hollywood they called him to star “Gods and Monsters”the film directed by Bill Condon – who was amazed by the professionalism of the performer, who always places his trust in directors who handle a sensitive chord -.
In the plot, the film reviews the last days of the director James Whalewho directed Frankenstein. Here, McKellen plays Whale, who is gay, as he forms a friendship with gardener Clayton Boone, played by Brendan Fraser.
Likewise, the fiction is a criticism of the Hollywood system and the prejudices around homosexuality.
The effort earned him a nomination for best actor, but he lost to Roberto Benigni, who stood out for his performance in “Life is Beautiful”. Although the play generated good reviews for the role of Sir Ian, success at the awards would have elevated the Englishman as the first openly gay actor to win an award.
Through a poignant reflection, McKellen argued that “no gay has ever won the Oscar; I wonder if that is prejudice or coincidence?picked up Vanity Fair. In fact, although Marlon Brando and Kevin Spacey were Oscar winners, both revealed themselves to be bisexual and gay – respectively – after their awards.
Magneto and Gandalf: the great characters of Ian McKellen
But the best was yet to come, since in the early 2000s, Ian’s talent shone in two formidable pop culture characters, Magnetoarchenemy of the X-Men y Gandalfthe Ishtar of The Lord of the rings of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Especially in the role of the mutant, the Englishman expressed his pleasure in bringing him to life on the screen. “Magneto is a political warrior, hurt, stubborn, someone worth playing. In every fight for civil rights there is someone like him, willing to use violence, compared to the attitude of Professor Xavier, who wants to be proud of who he is but at the same time help society “collect The Seville Diary.
On the other hand, for the “gray pilgrim” of Middle Earth, the actor clarified that it was a role that keeps him fascinated because filming the saga for 15 months is a memory that makes him feel “loved,” since the cast members formed a deep friendship.
Ian McKellen stays active
In conversation with Variety, the interpreter gave no signs of an early retirement at 84 years old. “I have never been without work, but I am aware that at any moment something can happen to me that prevents me from going back to work”he added at the outset.
“But as long as the knees hold and the memory remains intact, why shouldn’t I keep going? I really feel like I’m pretty good at acting.”he declared to the North American media.
Also as if the decades were not in vain, together with Patrick Stewart, the artists share a friendship that goes back more than 40 years.
However, since they starred in the movies of the X-Men, their friendship grew stronger. “On those kinds of films, you spend more time sitting in the trailer than in front of the camera, so Ian and I went out together, had tea, and maybe something a little stronger in the afternoon, and we got to know each other. The charm of this was that we discovered that we had a lot in common.”Stewart said in an interview for the YouTube series, Web’s Most Searched Questions.
The admiration is such that both share iconic moments where they have kissed, Ian even married Patrick, in an official ceremony with his wife, singer Sunny Ozell.
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