Gandalf is gay
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And not just in this country – far away. Following his knighthood he became known within the gay community as "Serena". I can imagine what it’s like to behave badly, although I try not to behave badly in real life.”
He says it was “easy enough” to get into character as Jimmy, not just because of the critics he’s encountered in his own life, from whom he could draw inspiration, but also, Sir Ian he puts it: “He’s gay, for one thing, which I am too”.
At several points, the veteran performer is keen to reiterate that The Critic “shouldn’t be categorised as a gay movie” (“That sounds as if there’s some sort of agenda on behalf of the production to proselytise,” he claims.
It’s offensive to anyone who is - like myself - homosexual, apart from the whole business of what can and cannot be taught to children.” And that April, he helped to found the LGBT rights charity Stonewall, named after the riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village, external of 20 years earlier.
Section 28 was eventually fully repealed in 2003., external
Sir Ian has spoken about his experiences in coming out on several occasions.
Ian McKellen received a Lifetime Achievement Award in the IoS Pink List 2011. “That’s what I enjoy, and that’s how I judge myself. “You would have been [living] a life of deceit and disguise.”
“If this film had been made in the 1930s… well, it couldn’t have been made, really,” Sir Ian remarks.
“‘I don’t know any queers’, ‘I don’t want my son to grow up a Nancy boy’, ‘he will be if he meets other queers’... “It would have been too outrageous! He is a prominent spokesman for Stonewall Equality Limitedand was one of its founding members.
Ian McKellen: Gandalf isn’t gay
Sir Ian McKellen has revealed that he doesn’t think his Hobbit character Gandalf is gay.
The actor, who reprises his role as the wizard in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, was asked about Gandlaf’s sexuality in an interview with Wall Street Journal.
He said: ‘He’s 7,000-years-old and he doesn’t seem to be interested in sex and I would leave it at that.
‘All his friends are male in the films with the exception of Galadriel but that’s more on Tolkien than that is on Gandalf.
‘No, I don’t think sexuality is part of his make-up.’
Sir Ian McKellen recently hit out at Damian Lewis after the Homeland actor appeared to make a dig at him.
Lewis told The Guardian that he didn’t want to become ‘one of these slightly over-the-top, fruity actors who would have an illustrious career on stage, but wouldn’t start getting any kind of film work until I was 50 and then start playing wizards’.
He has since apologised to McKellen claiming the comments were refering to him.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is out now on general release.
Few actors working together fit the title of “national treasure” quite like Sir Ian McKellen.
His work has included supporting various causes and groups relating to the community and co-founding the charity and advocacy group Stonewall.
Still, the actor is surprisingly modest when it comes to his own contributions to progress, insisting he’s “never been in the vanguard of change”.
Instead, he claims, his role has “really been supporting others who understood how to make change happen”.
“But I’m aware, because people tell me, that it was helpful to them in their own journey to read about, and be aware of, people like me and Michael Cashman and Stephen Fry, and so many others,” he says.
“We’re all connected aren’t we?
The devil has the best lines.”
Todd Eyre/New Line/Mgm/Wingnut/Kobal/Shutterstock
In that case, Sir Ian is well and truly in his element in his new film The Critic, playing Jimmy Irskine, a merciless and self-involved theatre pundit who’s never happier than when he’s issuing one of his dreaded takedowns.
When Jimmy’s long-held position at the paper where he’s worked for decades looks in doubt, he employs his most manipulative and ruthless tactics to hold onto it – no matter what or who stands in his way.
“What I basically enjoy about acting is not being myself,” he says with a laugh.
He was number 2 in the Pride Power List 2011, number 7 in the World Pride Power List 2012. Back in July 2000 when he was filming Lord Of The Rings, he wrote in The Independent, external: “The only good thing I can think to say about Section 28 is that it finally encouraged me to come out. A bit late in the day, but it remains the best thing I ever did.” Then in 2015, he said that coming out actually made him a better performer, external.
And it’s a terrible problem, and they need as much help as possible.
“The nature of that help can be debated, but it does remind me that when society disregards a minority – and, worse than that, imposes laws and restrictions on their behaviour, which is really unfair – then that’s when society is going off the rails, and we have to attend to it.”
Magnus Sundholm/Shutterstock
The fight for LGBTQ+ rights is one with which Sir Ian has been synonymous for decades.
Jimmy’s behaviour could not have been filmed.”
Indeed, despite Sir Ian’s insistence The Critic is “on the whole, just a really entertaining 90 minutes”, the film is quite radical in many ways, not least because despite the character’s advancing years, we still see Jimmy enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle, engaging in anonymous public sex, unapologetically enjoying all-nighters with his close circle and winding up law enforcement when given the opportunity.
The film also doesn’t shy away from the role which the state and law enforcement played in the oppression of queer people during this time before the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and nor does its star during our interview.
The time period of The Critic, Sir Ian points out, was one in which gay people “were being bullied by the state”.
“I think that all scars Jimmy’s spirit,” he shares.
and number 10 in the World Pride Power List 2013.
“And probably, we’re in kind of a transition where people understand there is – for some people – a problem. So, to bear witness just by saying that you’re gay can be a wonderful help to people.”
via Associated Press
Of his own coming out in 1988, Sir Ian claims: “I just did what I did, and discovered in being honest about myself that I was then connected to lots of other people.
But on the whole, you want to play the baddies.
He was born in Burnley, Lancashire, and studied English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. The post has received many supportive comments.
Ian McKellen
He was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts.
In 2024 McKellen fell off the stage while performing in Player Kings at the Noël Coward Theatre in London, injuring himself and a woman who he landed on in the front row.