http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/articles/23040382

We still have a fight on our hands
By Lucy Cavendish, Evening Standard
3 July 2006

Sir Ian McKellan answers the door of his home in Limehouse looking
very colourful. He has on a blue tight T-shirt, a chunky belt round
his hips, a pair of distressed jeans with studs on them and trendy red
plastic clogs on his feet. His house, in which he has lived for more
than 25 years, is beautiful. It is narrow and modest but wonderfully
furnished with a bar and a tea-making area that pop up from behind a
wooden screen. There is original art on the walls and books such as
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters and the new Cormac McCarthy on the
coffee table. It is terribly peaceful with the water of the river
outside gently slapping against the banks as the occasional boat
passes by.

But Sir Ian McKellen is obviously feeling a bit irascible. His spiky
grey hair is bobbing up and down and he is speaking into his telephone
in his mellifluous actor's voice but with an edge.

"I can't believe it!" he is saying to whoever it is on the phone,
"I've just tried to get some money out of a hole in the wall and it
would only give me £20. God! It's so ridiculous."

It is, of course, utterly ridiculous for Sir Ian McKellen must be one
of our most bankable stars: Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy,
Magneto in the X-Men films, Sir Leigh Teabag in The Da Vinci Code.
When he's not on the silver screen, he's popping up in Coronation
Street (briefly, playing a con man), in panto as Widow Twankey, twice,
at the Old Vic, and then often on stage. He has played most of the
classicalroles and done a stint at the RSC. Next year, he will
collaborate with Trevor Nunn, the director, to do a yearlong King
Lear. "I've known Trevor since we were at Cambridge together," he
says.

Won't it be exhausting? McKellen raises an eyebrow."Well, it's off and
on. We'll be touring with it as well. I should think it will be
exciting but it is true that it will leave me little time for
everything else."

For this - the everything else - is the other part of 67-year-old
McKellen's life. Since he outed himself in 1988 during a debate on
Radio 4 with Peregrine Worsthorne, now also a Sir, then editor of a
Right-wing newspaper, his life has changed "utterly for the better",
he says. "We were having a debate about Section 28 and Worsthorne kept
going on about 'them' and in the end I just said: 'Well I am one of
them!'"

It was a momentous piece of radio. "Well it was for me," says
McKellen. "I had spent years hugging this secret to myself. It almost
became paralysing. I was frightened of what people's reactions would
be.

"Everybody gets frightened but, you know, it has changed my life in a
very positive way. I am much more self-confident. I actually went to
receive my knighthood at the same time as Worsthorne." Did he talk to
him? McKellen laughs dryly. "No," he says.

But since that moment, McKellen has become quite a spokesperson for
gay rights. He is a founder member of gay rights campaigning group
Stonewall, along with Michael Cashman and Angela Mason.

"It was founded in 1988 in this house," he says. "It is a very serious
organisation that political parties recognise as having a well-
researched and valid voice."

On Saturday McKellen was on the EuroPride march where he spoke to
half-a-million people. "It's a gathering of LGBTs - lesbians, gays,
bisexuals and transsexuals, to be exact," he says. "The march was just
like Gay Pride but this year it was special because the Euro-Pride
march is held in different capital cities. Last year, it was in Oslo.
It used to be political, about repealing Section 28 or supporting
civil partnerships, but this year it was more of a celebration."

Why was that? "Because so much has changed," he says. "When I was as
much as 27 years old, you could not make love legally to another man.
It was still illegal in Ireland and Scotland until the Eighties. Now
homosexuality is not just legal but you can 'marry' here. As such,
your partner and you can adopt children, and there is legislation
going through which will make sure that gay couples cannot be
discriminated against when booking into hotels, for example." This is
all a far cry from when he was growing up in Wigan, the son of Denis,
a civil engineer, and Lois, who died of breast cancer when he was 12.
His father then remarried to Gladys, to whom McKellen is very close.
In the past he has said, "I was so glad I came out. My stepmother said
to me: 'Thank goodness you're not living a lie now.'"

Other people, however, kept telling him his career would crash and
burn. "People always say to me, 'Why did you come out? Didn't you
think it would ruin your career?' But of course I did not think that
at all. I don't want to be cut off from heterosexuality. I think it's
a fascinating little phenomenon. I couldn't play Magneto or Macbeth if
I did not want to continue that side to my acting repertoire. But,
yes, I also have a side of my work which is gay."

Some people point to his flamboyant, highly enjoyable turn as Sir
Leigh Teabag and his camping it up in his evil cape in X-Men: The Last
Stand. "What's interesting in X-Men is that the Marvel people (the
creators of the X-Men comic strip) say that they aim it towards young
black men and young gay men. In XMen 2 a boy 'comes out" as a Mutant
and in X-Men 3 they find a cure for it - and some people, namely the
Scientologists, believe there IS a cure for [homosexuality]. Mad,
isn't it? It's a nasty world, you see." But, it has changed for the
better, he says. "One of my main concerns is for schoolchildren who
think they are gay and get bullied in the playground. Gay now has a
new definition. Young people use it to mean rubbish - how awful is it
for a young adolescent boy or girl to think that they are rubbish?

"Schools and school teachers need to be trained how to help these
children. If you can't go to your parents or church or youth club, who
else can you confide in? Teachers need to know how to be understanding
and proactive. I was one of the speakers in Trafalgar Square at the
weekend and I suggested we abandon that word and use another word
beginning with G. Gorgeous. I said: 'Look at me. I am gorgeous!"

Did he feel gorgeous as a child then? "No," he said." I wasn't bullied
because I did not reveal how I felt. I mean, I suppose I knew I was
gay at about the same time others know they are heterosexual. I was
attracted to my own sex and not the other, but there was not much I
could do about it and it was a lonely life.

"Actually, I think we're all probably bisexual but we make choices in
the world and that was mine. It was only when I went to university
that I met other men who felt the same way as I did, but, still, we
were a pretty downtrodden lot. Our heads and hearts were not in good
shape. Everything was secretive.

"There were no gay nightclubs or bars. Can you imagine how dreadful it
was to walk into a room and not know who was gay or not, to look
someone up and down and then think: 'Was there a glimmer in his eye?'
It was all difficult. We called ourselves queer. What does that mean?
We were just normal people being made to feel as if we were abnormal
in our own skin."

He gravitated towards acting through his sister Jean, who died of a
head injury some years ago. She used to take him to the theatre. "I
used to go and see the variety shows at the theatre in Bolton and I
loved them."

With this in mind, he also pulled off the triumphant feat of pulling
together a cast of 253 actors, performers and musicians who took over
the Royal Albert Hall last night for EuroPride06 - The Show.

"It was a real knees-up," he says. "But it was a nightmare to organise
really. Every morning I would wake up and think, 'Oh God, what's
wrong?' and then I'd remember I was responsible for sorting out this
night's entertainment."

It sounds as if it was very impressive, though. He had Stephen Fry
compering one half and Sandi Toksvig the other. He also got Graham
Norton, Julian Clary, Boy George, Carrie Fisher, Ruby Wax, Billy Jean
King - "lesbians' favourite icon," he says - and his old friend Elton
John involved. "It was a fantastic night and a sentimental occasion
when our little group took over the nation's concert hall for a night.
I think feeling better about oneself is a good use of theatre."

Is this why he became an actor in the first place? "I think that if
you cannot be openly emotional in your own life, then to be able to be
an actor and publicly be able to use your full emotional range is very
enticing."

He says that there are lots of American gay actors who will probably
never "come out" because they, or their agents and the Hollywood
studios who work with them, are terrified they will lose their fan
base.

"Some of them are Oscar nominees!" he says. "The Right-wing
establishment in the States thinks Hollywood is heaving with liberals
but it is not. They only tolerate me because they think I am English
and eccentric. The received idea is that if you come out, you are done
for."

But haven't films such as Brokeback Mountain changed anything? "No!"
he says, hooting with mirth. "I thought that film was pretty
mainstream, actually. It really would have broken the mould if one of
the lead actors actually had been gay. Now that would have been
something!"

Could this happen? "Oh yes. A young openly gay actor will come along
and he'll light everything up. I am sure of that. But, at the moment,
all gay characters are portrayed pretty negatively. They are either
killed or miserable."

Finally I ask him about the most momentous thing that has happened
this year, the right for gay couples to get married, as such. "Ah yes,
but we can't get married, can we?" he says, raising an eyebrow. "The
fight is not yet over. On the march, and at the RAH, we had many
couples who have been through the ceremony, such as Elton John and
David Furnish, and of course it is a step forwards.

"I see people like Antony Sher and Michael Cashman who have been with
their partners for many years and it is truly wonderful that they are
now legally able to make this commitment but..."

Then he sort of explodes. "It's so silly! Why can't we just call it a
marriage. Why can't gay people marry like heterosexual people do? Now
they have a law that is almost above and beyond heterosexuals who
cannot have civil partnerships. It's just hedging bets, isn't it? If
we have gay marriage then soon we can have gay divorce."

He's had two eight-year relationships - one that began when he was 25,
with Brian Taylor, the drummer with the Tom Robinson Band; and, in his
forties, with a stage director, Sean Matthias, who remains a good
friend and directed him as Widow Twankey. "Oh, she's always desperate
to get her old fishnets on," he says.

Does he think he will "get married"? "Not at the moment," he says. "If
I thought I was in what felt like a longterm relationship then I would
consider it. But it is a serious thing and nothing to be entered into
lightly. I also like living on my own but I do worry that maybe, as I
get older, I might get lonely.

"I am seeing someone, though. You know, we were walking back here the
other night holding hands and this man came up and called us faggots
and told us he had a gun underneath his coat and that I should give
him my mobile phone. I said: 'I don't have a mobile phone', and he
went away. In the past I would have thought that was a homophobic
attack but now I don't really."

Why not? "I don't really know," he says a bit bemused. "Oh dear, maybe
I'm just getting used to it all. What a terrible thought!"


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