New York, New York – September 11, 2024 – GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization, today shared a new interview with Sir Ian McKellen, in promotion of the highly anticipated film The Critic, following its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023.
The Oscar nominated and Tony-winning actor shared what connects him to his character in the film, Jimmy Erksine, a cutthroat and out gay critic in 1930s London. McKellen also reflected on a dramatic and painful fall he experienced while portraying Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Parts One and Two on The West End. The actor fractured both his wrist and neck. Lastly, McKellen looked back on his legacy and coming out in the 80’s.
Watch the full interview here.
Sir Ian McKellen on his connection to his role in The Critic:
“Jimmy Erskine, my critic, in the film had been an actor in his time. It was a great disappointment to him that he wasn’t a very good actor, so I could sympathize with that side of his nature. Crucially, he’s gay. So, the … brilliant negative writing that he visits on performances he doesn’t approve of in the theater perhaps comes from the cruelty and the misunderstanding that’s been visited on Jimmy as a gay man at a time when it was illegal. A prisonable offense to make love to another man. If you’re cruel to people for long enough, don’t be surprised if they turn out to be a bully themselves. So, I was able to hang on to that as a point of reference.”
Sir Ian McKellen on his injury-inducing fall onstage on the West End:
“I was playing Falstaff, [a] wonderful part in Shakespeare. And I lost my footing, I got my foot caught in something that was on the stage. I couldn’t shake it off and then trying to shake it off, I slid, on the polished surface of the stage [and] the front row of the audience. And I fractured a wrist and my neck. And I shouted loudly,
‘Help me, help me! I’m sorry,’ I shouted. And then I said, ‘I don’t do this.’ These are words that came out. ‘Don’t move your head Ian,’ they said as I lay back. I met yesterday the woman who was holding my head. And [she said] you also shouted, “I’m dying.” So, what I’m left with now, particularly as I know the truth of that particular situation is I’m emotionally still in a bit of a state, and I feel I thought it was the end of something. It was the end of my performance as Falstaff, but I I felt guilty. I felt ashamed. I’d done something that was avoidable. I don’t know. It was an accident. But I’m fine.”
Sir Ian McKellen on coming out in the late 80’s and the public’s response:
“When I came out, people in my business who’d been out before me, rather than welcome me into the fold, said: ‘Right now: prove yourself. Now you must become a queer artist. This was the view of Derek Jarman, the filmmaker, at the time. And I said ‘What you mean I can’t play Macbeth or Hamlet or Coriolanus or Richard III or Yaga or Richard II or Romeo, because I’m gay? And vice versa? Acting is acting!”
Sir Ian McKellen on LGBTQ rights, and supporting transgender people:
“If I had a message to anybody, [it’s] ‘Let people be themselves.’
Sir Ian McKellen on future projects, and his dream role:
“There’s a part in Shakespeare that I hope I might still get to play.
The Merchant of Venice … Antonio the gamer. … Antonio’s gay and the story starts for him. He is so sad because his boyfriend has just announced that he wants to get married. … And he’s the Merchant of Venice! He’s right at the heart of that story, and he is Shakespeare’s gayest character. [Shakespeare] also had a character also called Antonio in Twelfth Night, and he declares his love for another man very clearly. So don’t start telling me Shakespeare himself was gay. Shakespeare was everything. He did write about it.”
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