Ian McKellen talks to “Details”

Just finished reading parts of the new Details and I gotta say, it’s still so nice to still be able to tuck a magazine under your arm and head over to a coffee house and have some reading time.

I haven’t gotten to the Adam Lambert cover piece yet because I went straight to the back of the book to read a Q&A with the great actor Ian McKellen who sounds as interesting in an interview as in any role he’s played.

Here are a few excerpts from Ian Daly’s chat with the Oscar-nominated star of Gods & Monsters who gained all kinds of younger fans through his roles in the Lord of the Rings and X-Men movies.

Details: I heard you were dreading turning 70. Why?
Ian McKellen: 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. When you grumble about a taxi being dirty, people your own age will absolutely agree with you, whereas younger people say, “You should be so lucky to have a taxi—I walk to work!” So I have lots of young friends, who fortunately don’t treat me as a guru, a person that knows all the answers. I’m just one of the gang—trying to get through it, you know?

Details: You didn’t come out until you were 49. Did having to put on an act make it easier to do so professionally?
Ian McKellen: That’s a very good point. I think that explains why a lot of actors of my generation are gay. Acting was a means to publicly display my emotions in a way that was illegal for me to do as a private person. Outside London where I lived, there was no gay pub or bar you could go to. And even if you found one, it was “Knock three times and ask for Louis.” It was horrible living this secret life. You could feel a little bit what it was like to be a Jew in central Europe during a certain period. It was horrible.

Details: Have you ever wanted to get married?
Ian McKellen: It’s never crossed my mind that it’d ever be possible for me. That’s the scar that I and so many others bear—we believed ourselves to be second-rate citizens for so long, the idea of being able to say “This is my husband, these are my children” was not an option. I remember Tom Stoppard saying to me when I came out, “I feel so sorry for you, because you’ll never have children.” These days I would say, “Well, why not, Tom?” But 20 years ago I accepted his judgment.

Here is a LINK to the entire piece.