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Ian McKellen

Celebrity
Ian McKellen
Birthday
May 25th, 1939
From
Burnley, Lancashire, England, UK
Actor

Ian McKellen Biography

Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He has played roles on the screen and stage in genres ranging from Shakespearean dramas and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. He is regarded as a British cultural icon and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. He has received numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, six Olivier Awards, and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards and five Emmy Awards.

McKellen made his stage debut in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre as a member of its repertory company, and in 1965 made his first West End appearance. In 1969, he was invited to join the Prospect Theatre Company to play the lead parts in Shakespeare's Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II. In the 1970s, McKellen became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain.

He has earned five Olivier Awards for his roles in Pillars of the Community (1977), The Alchemist (1978), Bent (1979), Wild Honey (1984), and Richard III (1995). McKellen made his Broadway debut in The Promise (1965). He received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1980). He was further nominated for Ian McKellen: Acting Shakespeare (1984).

He returned to Broadway in Wild Honey(1986), Dance of Death (1990), No Man's Land (2013), and Waiting for Godot (2013), the latter two being a joint production with Patrick Stewart. McKellen achieved worldwide fame for his film roles, including the titular King in Richard III(1995), James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), Magneto in the X-Men films, Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) trilogies.

Other notable film roles include A Touch of Love (1969), Plenty (1985), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Restoration (1995), Flushed Away (2006), Mr. Holmes (2015), and The Good Liar (2019). McKellen came out as gay in 1988, and has since championed LGBT social movements worldwide. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in October 2014.

McKellen is a cofounder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots. He is also patron of LGBT History Month, Pride London, Oxford Pride, GayGlos, LGBT Foundation and FFLAG. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ian McKellen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

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Ian McKellen Movies

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Ian McKellen Quotes

Debate on Historical Evidence and Beliefs

Robert Langdon: [Dismissively] This is an old wives tale.
Sir Leigh Teabing: The original one, in fact!
Robert Langdon: There's virtually no empirical proof!
Sir Leigh Teabing: He knows as well as I do, there's much evidence to support it!
Robert Langdon: Theories. There are theories.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [Zooms out on the screen, to show Jesus and Mary in the same frame. They are wearing blue on their outside arms and a bright colour on their inside arms; their clothing illuminates as the rest of the picture darkens, to heighten Teabing's point.] Notice how Jesus and Mary are clothed. Mirror images of each other!
Robert Langdon: The mind sees what it chooses to see.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [he highlights the area, which resembles a triangle pointing down] And venturing into the even more bizarre, notice how Jesus and Mary appear to be joined at the hip and are leaning away from each other, as if to create a shape in the negative space between them. Leonardo gives us...the chalice!
Robert Langdon: Hmm.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [laughs briefly; He brings a representation of Mary over to Jesus' left side, so it looks like she has her head on His shoulder.] Yes. Ooh, and Robert, er, notice what happens when these two figures change position.
Sophie Neveu: Just because Da Vinci painted it doesn't make it true.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [[Gospel of Philip|Gospel according to Philip] No. But history, she does make it true! Now, listen to this. It's from the ].
Sophie Neveu: Philip?
Sir Leigh Teabing: [reading from a book] Yes, it was rejected at the Council of Nicea, along with any other gospels that made Jesus appear human and not divine. "And the companion of the Saviour was Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her on -
Sophie Neveu: [interrupting] But this says nothing of marriage!
Sir Leigh Teabing: Well, actually, um, Robert...?
Robert Langdon: Actually, in those days, the word "companion" literally meant "spouse".
Sir Leigh Teabing: [crossing the room to another book on a lectern] And this is from the gospel of Mary Magdalene herself.
Sophie Neveu: She wrote a gospel?
Robert Langdon: She may have.
Sir Leigh Teabing: Robert, will you fight fair?
Robert Langdon: She may have.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [reading; To Sophie; He sits down and illuminates figures on the screen.] And Peter said, does He prefer her to us? And Levi answered, Peter, I see you contending against a woman like an adversary. If the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her?!'" Yes. And then, my dear, Jesus goes on to tell Mary Magdalene that it's up to her to continue His Church. Mary Magdalene. Not Peter. The Church was supposed to be carried on by...a woman. Few realise that Mary was descended from kings, just as her husband was. Now, my dear, the word in French for "holy grail".
Sophie Neveu: Le Sangrine.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [He writes the word on the screen, using his tablet.; He divides it into two four-letter words.] From the Middle English, "Sangreal", of the original Arthurian legend. Now, as two words. Can you translate for our friend?
Sophie Neveu: Sang Real, it means "royal blood".
Sir Leigh Teabing: When the legend speaks of the chalice that held the blood of Christ, it speaks, in fact, of the female womb that held Jesus royal bloodline.
Sophie Neveu: But how could Christ have a bloodline, unless...
Sir Leigh Teabing: [He gets up.; [France] Mary was pregnant at the time of the Crucifixion. For her own safety, and for that of Christ's unborn child, she fled the Holy Land and came to ]. And here, it is said that she gave birth to a daughter, Sarah.
Sophie Neveu: They know the child's name?
Robert Langdon: A little girl.
Sir Leigh Teabing: Yes.
Robert Langdon: If that were true, it's adding insult to injury.
Sophie Neveu: Why?
Robert Langdon: [[Paganism|Pagans] The ] found transcendence through the joining of male and female.
Sophie Neveu: [[sex] People found God through ]?
Robert Langdon: [[Heaven; [salvation] In Paganism, women were worshipped, as a route to ], but, the modern church has a monopoly on that, in ] through Jesus Christ.
Sir Leigh Teabing: And he who keeps the keys to Heaven rules the world.
Robert Langdon: Women, then, are a huge threat to the Church. The Catholic Inquisition soon publishes what may be the most blood-soaked book in human history.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [[Malleus Maleficarum; He throws a book at Langdon, who catches it.] The ]!
Robert Langdon: The Witches Hammer.
Sir Leigh Teabing: It instructed the clergy on how to locate, torture and kill all free-thinking women.
Robert Langdon: Over three centuries of witch-hunts, fifty thousand women are captured and burned alive at the stake.
Sir Leigh Teabing: [To Sophie] Oh, at least that! Some say millions! Imagine then, Robert, that Christ's Throne might live on in a female child? You asked what would be worth killing for. Witness the greatest coverup in human history. This is the secret the Priory of Sion has defended for over twenty centuries. They are the guardians of the royal bloodline, keepers of the proof of our true past. They are the protectors of the descendants of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

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