Ian Mckellen
Ian Murray Mckellen wonderfully portrayed Gandalf the wizard. His birth-date is May 25, 1939. His home town is Burnley, England, UK.
Quotes
Fun Facts
Quotes
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.'
- So it's joyful to me, in my 71st year, to be able to be in a play that is absolutely right for my age and my experience, and that is a popular success. What more could you ask as an actor?
Fun Facts
- Was knighted in 1990
- Publicly came out as gay in a 1988 BBC radio interview. Since then, he's been active in the Gay Rights movement.
- Was the vampire in the music video "Heart" by the Pet Shop Boys.
- He is a vegetarian.
- He was offered to be Mission Commander Swanbeck in "Mission: Impossible 2," but was not able to do it because he was too busy at the time.
- Wore a false nose as Gandalf
- Studied at Cambridge University
- Called the crebain (Saruman's crows) "Spies from Star Wars" (LotR was being filmed in New Zealand, while Star Wars was being filmed in Australia)
- Based Gandalf's accent on the accent of Tolkien himself
- Gandalf's painful encounter with a ceiling beam in Bilbo's hobbit-hole was not in the script--Ian banged his forehead against the beam accidentally, not on purpose. But Peter Jackson thought Ian did a great job "acting through" the mistake, and so kept it in.