Sir Ian McKellen

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2003

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor Sir Ian McKellen. Ian grew up in Lancashire attending Wigan Grammar school and then Bolton School where he was Head Boy. His first trip to the theatre was as a three year old when he went to see Peter Pan at Manchester Opera House. At seven, a treasured Christmas present was a fold-away Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres. Ian's older sister Jean introduced him to Shakespeare - taking him to see Twelfth Night at Wigan's Little Theatre. His first Shakespeare performance was playing Malvolio from the same play at the amateur Hopefield Miniature theatre when he was thirteen years old.

Ian won a scholarship to read English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge and was soon appearing in regular productions, including appearing alongside now famous alumni such as Derek Jacobi, David Frost, Trevor Nunn and Margaret Drabble. By the time Ian graduated in 1961 he had decided to become an actor, and got his first job in a production of A Man for All Seasons at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. He has not been out of work since, appearing at the National Theatre and the RSC, and he has also forged a successful film career. He's played an acclaimed Richard III for which he also wrote the screenplay, and had parts in X-Men, Gods and Monsters, for which his performance was Oscar-nominated, and, most recently, playing Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Ian was made a Knight of the British Empire for services to the performing arts in the Queen's New Year Honours of 1990.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2003, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an actor. He's made his name as one of our greatest living classical
0:34.9	actors, the heir to Olivier, they've called him. But these days, you're just as likely to see him
0:39.4	starring in a Hollywood movie as on the West End stage. He's had no formal training brought up in a
0:44.9	middle class family in Lancashire. He went to Cambridge and then straight into the
0:48.8	theatre. It wasn't long before he was attracting attention. He played a famous double bill of Richard
0:53.8	the 2nd and Edward the 2nd, was greatly acclaimed as Macbeth at the RSC and won a Tony as
0:59.4	Salieri in Amadeus on Broadway. For the last 10 years he's worked increasingly in films. He was
1:05.8	nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Gods and Monsters and has been seen more recently
1:10.9	doing his bit for box office receipts as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. seen more
1:13.7	recently doing his bit for box office receipts as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. A more
1:16.2	contented man he feels since he came out as gay 15 years ago. He's pretty
1:21.3	unromantic about his job. People like me are sloggers he says I'm not a
1:25.8	born actor I've learned how to do it he is Ian McKellen so if you slog at it
1:32.0	and if it's like a trade or a craft, does that mean that it's a different one for the stage as for the cinema?
1:38.6	Now, I don't make much of a distinction, actually.
1:41.1	But I've had to learn how to do everything and you have to learn
1:43.9	how to get your voice heard by in a large theatre. You had to have the God-given
1:48.1	talent in the first place didn't you? What you're saying is you've just sort of honed
1:51.4	it. I think the talent that I had was an enthusiasm to
1:54.3	communicate rather an ability to act. I mean some people like Kenneth Branagh
	...

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