Sir Ian McKellen - interview

The relationship between Vladimir and Estragon is the heart of Waiting for Godot. As old friends, do you and Roger Rees in any way resemble your characters?
The nature of the relationship is the story of the play in one sense. Some people said they're like a married couple, but they're not because they don't live together. They meet each day, each evening, and when the moon comes up and it's night, they separate. That's rather like my life, and Roger's life. We're not married, but we meet each evening, and we do the play, and then we separate.

We thought perhaps in the past, in the old days, [Vladimir and Estragon] had been theatre performers, and that the place they keep coming back to, because it's familiar territory, is a theatre. What's the first thing they do when they come onto the stage? They look out into the audience and say "Charming prospect. Let's go."

Beckett's constantly making references to the fact that the play is happening, constantly telling the audience that they are privy to lives which are very private, but at the same time being performed. So their relationship is one based in the theatre. That's the revelation of this production.

Are you looking forward to your run at the Sydney Opera House?
Well of course! It's one of the iconic buildings, isn't it? And it will be very nice, next time I see a picture of it, to say to myself "Ooh, I did Waiting for Godot there!" I suppose that's the excitement; my chance to say I've been there, and I've worked there. The best way to visit any city is to work.

How do you plan to spend your time in Sydney, apart from working?
Well, I daresay I'll find out where the gay bars are...

You've done everything from Shakespeare to action movies. What are your criteria for taking a role?
Is it a part that I think I can't do? I rather like that. Is it the sort of part I've not played before? I like that. Who's directing it? I want it to be someone I either know well or feel I want to get to know well, like Guillermo del Toro, who's going to direct The Hobbit. Is it something I would want to see as an audience? If it isn't, why should I bother being in it?

I don't have a family, I don't have a lot of responsibilities. I bought my house a long time ago, so money ain't that crucial to me. For some of my colleagues it's the major reason - they are basically earning a living. I do earn a living, and I'm very grateful to be a professional actor but it would be awful if that were the only positive about a job - that it was a lot of money.

Do you have a favourite character?
The answer always has to be the part I'm currently playing. I can't go on on Thursday night as Gogo saying, "Of course the part I really want to be playing tonight is Macbeth, or Richard the Third, or Gandalf"! But those are three parts I've really enjoyed and look back on with a lot of affection.

How about a least favourite character?
I've only done a couple of jobs that I didn't enjoy, and therefore regretted having done. And they're such a long time ago I can't remember what they were [laughs]. So I've been very lucky. I've enjoyed everything I've done really.

How has The Lord of the Rings affected your career?
Well, now I've got lots of friends, all over the world. And lots of them are pre-teens, young kids who are thrilled to meet somebody who knows Gandalf. They don't think that I am Gandalf, but some of them will come and see me act in the theatre. When I did King Lear, there was a little boy of seven who came to see it in Stratford-upon-Avon. I was at the stage door afterwards and he said, "That was the best play I have ever seen in my entire life!"

Gandalf has made me famous, and the fame I have is very nice to someone who is basically shy. Wherever I go now, I have friends. It's lovely.

And will you be returning to New Zealand soon for The Hobbit?
We're talking about the contracts, yes, and I've read the first drafts of the scripts and liked them very much indeed. So I'm assuming it's going to happen, but who knows? I hope by the end of the year it will all come together.

You recently played Number 2 in the remake of the cult 60s show The Prisoner. Were you a fan of the original?
No, because I didn't have a chance to be! When The Prisoner first came out on British TV I was working at night, in the theatre. You couldn't record it, there were no video recorders, so you had to wait until it was repeated. That's why I never sat down like everybody else and watched it week after week after week.
But when I saw the scripts and saw the variations the scripts were making on the original material, I thought it was well worth doing. In the original series what bothered their writers most I think was the possibility that we might be living in a Soviet state, but we've gone beyond that. It's about psychiatry, it's about observation, and the effects it has on our love life, our family life, our education, our religious beliefs, and I found it very intriguing.

You're one of the most prominent openly gay actors in Hollywood. Since you came out in the 1980s, Hollywood would appear to have made strides in its depiction of gay characters...
I don't know about strides. Shuffles, maybe.

Shuffles, then. Where do you feel there is room for improvement?  
Well, I think every gay person throughout the world should be able to feel that if they were honest about their sexuality their lives would be improved, because mine was. And two things have to happen for that to come about. One is we have to get rid of laws which inhibit people from being honest about themselves, and then the next step is to continually to talk about and present to the world at large the difficulties of being gay, which are visited upon us by other people who don't approve.

Why do you think that is?
Why they don't approve is a very interesting question. It's not rational. People say "Oh, it's against my religion." Well, it isn't, on the whole. Religion has little to say about homosexuality - very, very little. And of course there are many Muslims and Christians and Jews who are gay and happily get on with their faiths and are at ease with themselves.

Religious leaders... I think don't realise how cruel they're being when they talk about homosexuality. It probably is that they are a victim of what a lot of gay people are victims of: this sheer ignorance, misunderstanding, which is summed up in the word homophobia. They're phobic about homosexuality. And it's nothing for anyone to be worried about!

You're clearly very passionate about the subject.
It's been part of my journey through life as an actor and as a human being. The world has changed and I've helped to change it. And I'm very, very pleased that I was able to put my weight behind the changing laws and so on.

When I first thought of myself as a sexual being, it was illegal for me to make love. You could be put in prison for making love. That went on until I was 27, 28 years old. In some countries it's still the situation, you can be put in prison. In some extreme circumstances you can be put to death by the state, for your God-given nature.

I spend free time visiting schools and talking about being gay. A few years ago that would have been illegal in the UK, but now it's understood that young people should understand homosexuality, that it exists.

What's happening is that kids are coming out younger and younger, and have a confidence which I never did have as a child. And that's wonderful, because they can get the problems of being gay out of the way when they are young and feel "I'm just the same as everybody else" and then get on with their lives. Kids' jaws drop when they hear what it was like to be gay when I was their age. So I'm a bit of history going in there and talking to them. It's been a big part of my life, and very important to me. 

Waiting for GodotSydney Opera House, 15 Jun–10 Jul

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