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Flixster members are collaborating to create the definitive resource for Ian McKellen information on the Internet. We're adding all the images, info, and ideas that best tell this actor's unique story. To add your knowledge of Ian McKellen, just log in and click the EasyEdit button at the top of the wiki pages. (Click here for help.) | | Ian McKellen 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.
--- Sir Ian McKellen
| | Sir Ian Mckellen MiniBio | Birth Name: Ian Murray McKellen
Date of Birth: 25 May 1939, Burnley, Lancashire, England, UK
 Sir Ian Murray McKellen CBE is a veteran English stage and screen actor, the recipient of a Tony Award and two Oscar nominations.
McKellen is best known to moviegoers in recent years for his roles as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and as Magneto in the X-Men trilogy.
His work has spanned genres from serious Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. He was made a CBE in 1979 and knighted in 1991 for his outstanding work and contributions to the theatre. McKellen is openly homosexual and is a prominent campaigner for gay equality
| | Sir Ian's Early Life |
Sir Ian Mckellen was born on 25 May, 1939 in the town of Burnley, Lancashire, Northern England, and he's the son of Denis McKellen (a civil engineer) and Margery Lois McKellen. At the time he was born the couple also had a five year old daughter named Jean. When Ian was but a few weeks old, just before WW2 broke out, the family moved to Wigan.
With the Nazis bombing the industrial north of England, Ian ought to sleep under a bomb-proof table in the dining-room. At only 3 years old, under such problematic times, besides the Nazi pressures, Ian suffered from Diphtheria, an upper respiratory tract illness, a disease that later, when he was cured of it determined him to attend the nursery school attached to the Dicconson Street Wesleyan Primary School in the centre of the town. At the age of eleven, he was at Wigan Grammar School for Boys but a year later transferred to Bolton School, of which he is still a supporter, when his father was made Borough Engineer and Surveyor of Bolton.
 "My upbringing was of low nonconformist Christians who felt that you led the Christian life in part by behaving in a Christian manner to everybody you met."
McKellen's acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which theatre he is now its patron. Ian, was sincerely supported by his parents to attend to theatre classes, and his first play to be seen was Peter Pan at the Manchester Opera House.
Later, when he was 9, he and Jane attended together to Wigan's Little Theatre performing plays such as Twelfth Night (his first experience with the life on stage), Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the role of Bottom played by Jane McKellen.
Later, when he was eighteen, recieved a scolarship from St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge and this is how his acting career truly began...
 Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one. * | | Sir Ian McKellen Career |
Ian started his career as an actor in 1969 with the movies Alfred the Great and The Promise, but the movie role that made him famous was the one from his first movie A Touch of Love. Still, he made a promicing start, but it was not until the 1990s that he became more widely recognised in this medium, through several roles in blockbuster Hollywood movies.
 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. In the late 1993, McKellen received a supporting role in the sleeper hit: Six Degrees of Separation, movie that represented for him his first big Hollywoodian role, in which also starred names as Will Smith, David Sutherland and Stockard Channing. Ian continued his series of successful movies with Last Action Hero, I'll Do Anything, The Shadow, Jack and Sarah, Richard III (movie in which he had his part to the script, he co-wrote in the Shakespearean adaptation, as well as he co-produced for it). His performance in the title role was critically acclaimed, and he was nominated for Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, and won the European Film Award for best actor.
Before those excellent performances, it was his time for the BIG roles. In 1998, he played the severe former Nazi camp concentration Officer, Kurt Dussander, in Apt Pupil a remake from the Stephen King's novel. After this followed a little role in the movie David Copperfield (1999), which was nominated for Emmy Awards, where he co-starred with Emilia Fox, Maggie Smith and Daniel Radcliffe as the Young David Copperfield.
Exactly one year later, he received the role of the comic book character, Eric Lensherr or shall we better say "Magneto", in X-Men (2000) and again in its sequels X2: X-Men United and the last of the trilogy X-Men: The Last Stand. It was while filming X-Men that he was cast as the Academy Award nominated wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's trilogy adaptation The Lord of the Rings, consisting of The Fellowship of the Ring (4 Oscars received), The Two Towers (2 Oscars received) and The Return of the King (11 Oscars received). He also voiced Gandalf in the video game adaptions of the film trilogy as well as in The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age and in the sequel from the first video-game Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II - Rise of the Witch King, and he will be playing the same Gandalf for his upcoming movie The Hobbit (2011).
Later, Ian made some roles for the little public especially, playing in animated movies such as The Magic Roundabout (starring along with Kilye Minogue, Billy Nighy and Robbie Williams), Doogal (2006), Flushed Away (2006), playing an evil toad and a hilarious at the same time, sharing the cast with some big names form Hollywood such as: Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Jean Reno, Billy Nighy and his former Lord of the Rings colleague Andy Serkis ("Gollum").
Maybe his most disputed movie from all besides Apt Pupil and more was the intriguing and Golden Globe nominee "The Da Vinci Code" (2006), in which he plays Sir Leigh Teabing, movie about he describes in an interview as being nothing more than pure "fiction".
Recently played several roles in motion pictures such as For the Love of God (2007), Stardust (2007) - as the Narrator of the story, The Golden Compass (2007) - voicing the brave Iorek Byrnison and his last production, the Shakespearean adaptation "King Lear" in which he got the leading role as King Lear.
“I have never wanted to be typecast, one of those actors who plays a variation on a one-note theme. So just as I enjoy playing a wide variety of characters, from good to bad to ugly to cute - so I have enjoyed of late working in film and television, as well as in theatres of various sizes and shapes.” *
NEWS:* Sir Ian McKellen has disappointed X-MEN fans by insisting he won't appear in a spin-off sequel based on his character MAGNETO. The veteran actor starred in three X-Men films as the magnetic villain and movie bosses are said to be planning a new movie to reveal the character's beginnings. The project will follow in the footsteps of X-Men Origins: Wolverine which featured Hugh Jackman's X-Men alter-ego. But MCKellan, 70, is adamant a spin-off featuring Magneto will not involve him - he's too old to play such a demanding part. He tells EmpireOnline, "There's meant to be a Magneto script floating around, but I've not read it, so I suspect it wouldn't involve me. I think it would be about the younger Magneto, and the most I could hope for would be to top and tail that. They can't have someone whose face is as lined as mine any longer!" 12 November 2009 * Ian McKellen has slammed British comedian Matt Lucas for his portrayal of homosexual characters - because he fears the camp comedy sketches fuel prejudices. The openly gay comedian pokes fun at homosexuality in hit TV show Little Britain, playing a flamboyant Welshman who dresses in tight latex clothing and proudly proclaims himself "the only gay in the village."
But MCKellen thinks such outrageous television skits only serve to publicise offensive stereotypes.
He says, "I have to confess that I am a little disquieted at times by the way that gays are portrayed, particularly on television. I know Matt Lucas will say that he is gay and it is not offensive but I don't think it gets the right message across. If you are gay you don't have to be camp."
And the veteran star wants the word "gay" to be dropped altogether in a bid to curb prejudices: "The word gay has become used as a derogatory term and this is something which education can help to resolve. Either that or we choose another word to describe ourselves. I rather like another G word - glorious.
"People come to know themselves at different times. I was 49 before I understood who I was. I think that if the world had been different when I was young, then I might have had the courage to come out sooner."
30 November 2009 |
VITAL STATS
|  Ian McKellen Information: Sir Ian Murray McKellen CBE is a veteran English stage and screen actor, well-known for his roles as Gandalf and Magneto from trilogies The Lord of the Rings as well as X-Men.
| | Birth Name: Ian Murray McKellen | | Birth Date: 25 May, 1939 | Zodiac: Gemini
| | Eye color: Blue | | Height: 5' 11" (1.80 m) | Nickname(s):
| | Notable feature(s): | | Education: | | Family: | | Resides in: | | Religious affiliations: | | Political affiliation: | | Personal interests/hobbies: | | Charities/Causes: | Other:
* He played the vampire in the video for "Heart" by Pet Shop Boys.
* He had a tattoo of the Elvish character for 9 along with all the other members of the fellowship in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
* Before performing the role of Gandalf, he listened to a recording of J.R.R. Tolkien reading Gandalf lines from the novel. He used this as a base for creating the character, and imitated the accent used by Tolkien in the recording.
* Began acting as a means of escape from mourning after his mother's death and constant bullying at school from fellow students.
* He used the phrase "old friend" in both the X-Men and The Lord of the Rings film series. In both cases (to Christopher Lee as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings and Patrick Stewart as Xavier in X-Men) it is said to an ally who has become a nemesis and "old friend" is said mockingly.
* He said that appeal of the X-Men films to him was the concept of mutants being shunned, something he says he identifies with as he was repeatedly shunned as an open homosexual.
* Hadn't read either The Golden Compass (aka. Northern Lights) by Philip Pullman, or any of the "Lord of the Rings" books by J.R.R. Tolkien before he was cast in the movie adaptations.
| | Sir Ian's Last 3 Movies | King Lear (2008) The Golden Compass (2007) Stardust (2007) Personal Quotes:
* [on his first theatre experience, "Peter Pan"] I wasn't over-impressed. For one thing it wasn't a real crocodile and I could see the wires.
* I am encouraged by the theatricality of [J.R.R. Tolkien's] readings - full of rhythm and humor and characterization. Without question Gandalf is like Tolkien but then so, I suspected, are Frodo and Aragorn.
* "The Lord of the Rings" is a mythology, it is a fairy tale, it's an adventure story. It never happened. Except somewhere in our hearts.
* 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.
* It may be my rather puritanical upbringing at odds with my inborn laziness that makes me feel guilty at the end of the day, unless I am able to point at some achievement. But this need be no more impressive than cooking a meal or going for a long walk.
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