Quotes from Ian Mckellen

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

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

If I have any audience, they can know that anything I am in, I would go see, with the expectation of being really satisfied.

Gandalf saves the world and saves the soul of the world, really.

There's no sex in Middle Earth.

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

I'm the sort of person who doesn't write in ink. I only write in pencil, so it can be rubbed out.

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.

The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.

When we'd suggested doing it, the Theatre Royal management had said, 'Nobody wants to see Waiting for Godot.' As it happened, every single ticket was booked for every single performance, and this confirmation that our judgment was right was sweet. Audiences came to us from all over the world. It was amazing.

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

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

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

You mustn't upstage the bride.

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

I can't make up my mind whether I want to dance like Josef Brown or dance with Josef Brown.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 one seems to wash in Middle-earth.

In any human-rights campaign, everybody must do what they can.

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.