Ian Mckellen
Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: 'I'm waiting to win the lottery. I'm waiting to fall in love'. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came.Collection: Christmas
I increasingly see organized religion as actually my enemy. They treat me as their enemy. Not all Christians, of course. Not all Jews, not all Muslims.Collection: Religion
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.Collection: Amazing
I certainly don't disparage someone whose attitude towards their work is utterly different from mine - that's up to them.Collection: Attitude
I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.Collection: Famous
Capitalism offers you freedom, but far from giving people freedom, it enslaves them.Collection: Freedom
I have got prostate cancer, and I have to keep monitoring that. It's no problem, it's under control and I'm very cool about it, but other people are dying from it.Collection: Cool
Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you're gay.Collection: Romantic
It's only fair that stable gay relationships of long standing should have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. I know the image of gay marriage is to some people horrific and ludicrous.Collection: Marriage
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.Collection: Experience
Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if you're not careful.Collection: Architecture
What I particularly like about Broadway is the camaraderie and the friendship of other people in other shows. Everybody knows you're opening and cares about you. There's a real village atmosphere.Collection: Friendship
The huge difference in my lifetime is that you can just go up to somebody and make a pass. You couldn't do that in the 1950s if you were gay. There were secret handshakes, a secret language. There was nowhere you could go to be romantic outside of people's houses.Collection: Romantic
The conventional wisdom is that if you are gay, you cannot play the romantic straight lead in a movie.Collection: Romantic
People who are truly horrible are often the most interesting people in the room. You look at them and just say, 'Why?'
Tony Blair is not a villain, but he's played the part very well.
Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.
Eventually, before I die, I hope to have written about every part I've played.
When I came out, I told my stepmother Gladys, and she just said she had known for years and was glad I wasn't lying anymore.
If I was on a march at the moment I would be saying to everyone: 'Be honest with each other. Admit there are limitless possibilities in relationships, and love as many people as you can in whatever way you want, and get rid of your inhibitions, and we'll all be happy.
When I was playing Gandalf, I didn't think, 'Oh my dear, I'm playing a 7,000 year old wizard,' because I've never met one, and I don't know what they're like.
Every anti-gay remark from the Church gives the thug a license to be cruel.
How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play.
I got better as an actor, and still I'm getting better. That's only been possible because there's always been work.
Until I came out, my acting was all about disguise, and thereafter it became about telling the truth.
Tolkien is as good as Dickens at sketching a scene.
It's nice for me to be in touch with a younger generation.
Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.
I often get mistaken for Dumbledore. One wizard is very much like another.
There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement that if all our skins turned lavender overnight, the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity, and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice forevermore.
In Singapore, Malcolm X type of activity would be extremely difficult because the government can be very harsh on lawbreakers.
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.
You always think that 70 is the end of the road: 'Somebody died when they were 73; good life'. You're closer to death, and you better make sure you don't waste too much of your time doing things you don't want to do. No point in saying things you don't believe in.
I'm brilliant at cooking my stepmother's scrambled egg recipe. The secret is to put eggs, butter, milk, and seasoning together in the saucepan, and to keep stirring with a wooden spoon under a low heat until the preferred consistency is reached.
I came rather late to film. I've done an awful lot of theater before - before I discovered the camera, you know, seeing everything, requiring much less acting and - and much less presentation, much less projecting, more just being.
I think with Shakespeare you can be required to do absolutely anything at the turn of a sixpence - suddenly you go into a battle, suddenly you utter something passionate.
Before I ever acted as an amateur - which I did a great deal at school and at university - I used to go to the theater with my parents in the north of England, where I was born and brought up... Theater of all sorts.
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.'
The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo.
No actor wants to play to an empty house.
Magneto wants to cope with the difficulties thrust upon him by society and by his own nature.
When I appeared in 'Coronation Street,' I lived in Manchester and enjoyed it very much.
I've always felt that 'X-Men' was about something serious. It wasn't just fantasy.
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.
If you've got Mystique as your girlfriend the fun you could have in bed - I've just imagined X-Men 3 might open with me in bed with Patrick Stewart.
It was wrongly assumed that I wished to become some sort of leader among gay activists, whereas in reality I was happier to be a foot soldier.
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.
The thing you notice here after America is how refreshingly ordinary people look because they haven't had their chin wrapped around the back of their ears.
Try and understand what part you have to play in the world in which you live. There's more to life than you know and it's all happening out there. Discover what part you can play and then go for it.
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.