I try to basically keep my opinions to myself when it comes to people who are charged with crimes that I don't know anything about.
Your job is not just to do what your parents say, what your teachers say, what society says, but to figure out what your heart calling is and to be led by that.
Even people who believe they deserve to be happy and have nice things often don't feel worthy once they have them.
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. - Ian McKellen
Establishing the rights for gay people to be married would cost the Australian government nothing financially and would gain for you worldwide respect from people like us and, of course, would change lives enormously - the lives of gay people and of their friends and of their families and therefore of Australia as a whole. - Ian McKellen
Every time you work is a challenge. There's a constant worry about it, and it's a side of acting I don't like. - Ian McKellen
Gandalf the Grey was always the guy I prefer. Gandalf the White was driven to do a particular job, whereas Gandalf the Grey is a bit more humane. - 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. - Ian McKellen
I can't take on all the worries of the world, you know. I can only talk about being gay and being an actor. I'll have to leave those other battles to somebody else. - Ian McKellen
I certainly don't disparage someone whose attitude towards their work is utterly different from mine - that's up to them. - Ian McKellen
I don't any longer make any quality judgement between theater and cinema. They are different experiences for the audience, and they also are for the actors - although they have a lot in common. - Ian McKellen
I don't make any distinction between a popular TV series or blockbuster film and doing Shakespeare. They're different, but as long as the material is good and the intention is honourable, it's all the same to me. - Ian McKellen
I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly. - 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. - Ian McKellen
I have heard of people dying from prostate cancer, and they are the unlucky ones, the people who didn't know they had got it, and it went on the rampage. - Ian McKellen
I just followed my parents' example and advice on living, which was to leave the world a better place than you found it. They were professional do-gooders, ministers of the church, social workers, teachers, and missionaries, that sort of thing. - Ian McKellen
I know actors who have had to turn down good roles because they just don't pay enough. It's hard. - Ian McKellen
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?' - Ian McKellen
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