Ian Mckellen Quotes

Try and understand what part you have to play in the world in which you live. There's more to life than you know and it's all happening out there. Discover what part you can play and then go for it.

I often thought my gravestone would say, 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out,'

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.

To know you are in the company with people who love and care for each other, as well as for whatever they are working on, is almost essential.

I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.

You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk.

We are very lucky to be men because women have a terrible time getting older parts. It's much more difficult.

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.

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.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.

No one needs to feel sorry for me or anyone else who has fallen victim to success.

In fact, my face has shrunk in the meantime, but it won't be particularly noticeable because it's covered up with hair. So I hope I'm not alarmed if I ever do sit through the five movies.

[There's] nothing special about an actor's imagination, except that he uses it a lot.

Why live outside the US? Do you want health care or safe food products or democracy or something? They're all overrated. Stay for the excellent cable TV.

In the theatre, the actor is in total control. The director wasn't in the house last night, the designer wasn't there, the author's dead. It's just us and the audience.

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.

My reaction to 3D is subtly. Things don't come out at you, but rather you - The audience come into the film.

Acting is no longer about lying. It's now about revealing the truth. People are at ease with me now. Honesty is the best policy.

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.

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.

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

The audience's expectations are ever-present.

I suspect the base that I'm working from is not particularly one of inquiry, but of memory of what I did last time.

All other areas of my life, I'm hopeless. I can't even be certain how to boil an egg.

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.

Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: 'I'm waiting to win the lottery. I'm waiting to fall in love'. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came.

My acting stopped being about disguise and became about truth which suits the camera, so my film career took off when I came out.

The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.

Success in the movies has pushed me to places I didn't know I was allowed to go.

Elijah looks angelic but his beauty of spirit is what makes his Frodo leap out of the screen. Unalloyed goodness is one of the most difficult attributes to act.

Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.

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.

It is so painful watching yourself act, particularly because you can't do anything about it, it's all done and dusted.

I'm a latecomer to popular TV. This is rather new to me, being in a sitcom. It's been an ambition of mine.

For old actors, just remember that inside you're only 14. Acting is for kids. You poor old grown-ups, you've forgotten how to do what kids know automatically.

Kids are coming out earlier and earlier - some, as young as twelve now - and schools need to take that into account.

Ever since the invention of the camera, people have been trying to create 3D, because we see things in 3D, and everyone's aware that the camera doesn't.

I love the Broadway audiences, who relish live drama and don't hesitate to display their enthusiasm.

When you're on stage with an audience, the director's nowhere to be seen. He's onto the next job.

I think if I were asked to do as many as fifty takes, I would assume the director had no idea what he wanted, and was just hoping, eventually, to see it.

I think I'm a bit gruffer than I used to be, and I'm certainly older.

As for the clarity of the 48 frames, I've heard people say that it looks odd, it's too demanding, there's too much information, you don't know where to look.

Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, "Will there be an audience?"

Television can take anything. It can take the most exaggerated of storytelling forms.

2D looks so flat. Well, it is, of course, it's flat. But 3D isn't. And for an adventure story that takes you into a long-distant, fictional world, it's ideal, I think.

That's the imagination that happens in the theater. That imagination is translated in film by the film magicians and all the technology.

I'm not someone who wears shades all the time and ducks into a darkened car in case I'm recognized - that would be absolute misery.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if you're not careful.

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.

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.