Ian McKellen net worth is $55 Million. Also know about Ian McKellen bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

Ian McKellen Wiki Biography

Ian Murray McKellen was born on 25 May 1939, in Burnley, Lancashire England, and is one of the most successful and experienced actors in the film industry, known for appearing in such movies as “X-Men”, “The Lord of the Rings”, “Asylum”, “Stardust” and many others. In addition to this, Ian has also appeared in various television shows and has acted in numerous plays. During his career, Ian has been nominated for and has won various awards; some of them include, Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, Academy Award, Florida Film Critics Circle Award, Genie Award and many others. There is no doubt that Ian McKellen is one of the most acclaimed actors in both movie and television industries. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 for services to the entertainment industry.

If you consider how rich Ian McKellen is, it can be said that Ian’s estimated net worth is $55 million. Clearly, the main source of this sum of money is Ian’s extraordinary career as an actor, as he has appeared in many successful movies and television shows, and has been active in the industry for more than 50 years. What is more, McKellen has involved himself in other activities as well and they also add to his net worth.

Ian studied at Bolton School and soon became a part of the Bolton Little Theatre, where he started learning the art of acting. Later Ian continued his studies at St. Catherine College, Cambridge, where he belonged to its theatre club, called “The Marlowe Society”. Soon he acted in such plays as “Doctor Faustus”, “Cymbeline”, “Henry IV” and others. In 1961 he appeared in the play called “A Man for All Seasons” and this was the time when Ian’s net worth began growing. Soon Ian became a well-known actor of British theatre and had an opportunity to portray many important roles. In 1964 Ian appeared in his first television show, called “The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling”, and one year later he appeared in “Sunday Out of Season”. Step by step McKellen’s popularity grew and he started receiving more invitations to portray a variety of roles in television shows and movies. In 1980 he was cast in the movie entitled “Priest of Love”, and this added a lot to his net worth.

Since then, he has appeared in various other movies and in 2000 he was cast in one of his most famous roles, that of Magneto in the movie “X-Men”. This movie gained huge acclaim and success and it made Ian’s net worth even higher. During the making of this movie, McKellen worked with such actors as Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, James Marsden and others. Later Ian appeared in other “X-Men” movies and became one of the most popular actors.

Ian then received an invitation to appear in what became other successful movies, “The Lord of the Rings” series, which of course also had a huge impact on the growth of Ian’s net worth, and Ian became one of the most famous and acclaimed actors all over the world. Other movies and television shows that Ian has appeared in include “King Lear”, “Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny”, “Flushed Away”, “The Da Vinci Code”, “Mr.Holmes” and others. All these appearances made Ian’s net worth higher.

If to talk about Ian’s personal life, it can be said that he is a homosexual and has publicly spoken about that. In 1964 he started dating his first partner, Brian Taylor. Their relationship ended in 1972 and in 1978 he started a relationship with Sean Mathias, which they ended it in 1988. What is more, Ian is a very active person and he has participated in various campaigns and charity events. All in all, it can be said that Ian McKellen is a very talented and interesting personality, who has achieved acclaim in movie and television industries and in theatre as well. Although he is now 76 years old he still continues receiving invitations to act in different projects and hopefully he will be able to continue his career for a long time.

IMDB Wikipedia “The Da Vinci Code” $55 Million 1939 5 ft 10 in (1.8 m) 60th Primetime Emmy Awards 65th Primetime Emmy Awards 67th Academy Awards Academy Award Actor Actors American Broadcasting Company Andy Samberg BDSM Bolton Little Theatre Breaking Bad Brian Taylor British people Burnley Businessperson CBE CH Coronation Street E. L. James Emmy Award English literature Entertainment Entertainment_Culture Epic films Fifty Shades of Grey Film Film criticism Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Gay actors Gina Rodriguez Golden Globe Award Halle Berry HBO Hugh Jackman Ian Ian McKellen Ian Mckellen Net Worth Ian Murray Ian Murray McKellen James Marsden Jimmy Kimmel King Lear Knights Bachelor Kt. May 25 More Patrick Stewart Primetime Emmy Award Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny Samsung Galaxy Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screenwriter Sean Mathias Sir Ian McKellan Sir Ian McKellen Sir Ian Murray McKellen Television Critics Association The CW Television Network The Da Vinci Code (film) The Lord of the Rings film trilogy The Prisoner Tony Award United Kingdom University College London Vicious Voice Actor X-men

Ian McKellen Quick Info

Ian McKellen Trademarks

1. Frequently works with ‘Peter Jackson’, ‘Patrick Stewart’ and Andy Serkis
2. Distinctively calm style of speaking
3. Rich yet flawless voice, combined with Shakespearean bearing

Ian McKellen Quotes

• Before Michael Mann had devised Miami Vice (1984) he directed The Keep (1983) and produced it and wrote it. He cast me as the heroine’s father, a Romanian academic who gets caught up with Nazis and a monster trapped deep in the Keep. Ever-diligent, I had specially made my first trip to Bucharest and then had a couple of lessons from a dialect coach in London. So by the first day of filming I was ready to sound and feel authentically Romanian. Just before my first take as Dr. Cuza, Michael said: “Drop the accent – make him more Chicago.” Well, if the writer/producer/director makes a request, you jump to it. [June 2000]
• [on the Academy Awards] If you are trying to have a career, as a black or Hispanic actor in a state – California – where white people are now the minority, and you are being judged by an Academy where the vast majority are white, male, middle-aged and old … well, perhaps that is the wrong yardstick. [2016]
• [on the Oscars] My speech has been in two jackets … ‘I’m proud to be the first openly gay man to win the Oscar.’ I’ve had to put it back in my pocket twice. [2016]
• I’ve always loved dictionaries and encyclopedias. Now you get all that on your computer. It’s fantastic. You’re looking up something about Dickens and you’re invited to explore more and more. I don’t know if that’s wasting time or not but it doesn’t help me to learn lines.
• I don’t think I’m top choice. In theatre – for Shakespeare – I’m quite near the top, but not for all directors. In film, I’m way, way down. Spielberg’s never asked to work with me, Tarantino has never asked, Sam Mendes has never asked. It isn’t as if there’s a long list of films I’ve turned down but there are plenty I wish I’d had a go at. That’s the truth.
• [at a reunion, to observer Michael Fassbender] I just want to say how lovely it is to be back in California. I feel safe here now that you’ve got rid of Proposition 8. I’m looking for a husband. It’s great to meet you Michael.
• I get offered a lot of parts that require long beards. I’ve turned down God on a number of occasions.
• I like fantasy movies, I like musicals, I like variety shows, I like Tony Bennett – it’s all the same to me. The fact that some things are more popular than others doesn’t make them better, and it certainly doesn’t make them worse.
• I don’t approve of titles. I think they get in the way. I do however approve of medals for public service, and that’s how I choose to look at it.. [But] other actors said to me, ‘Please we need a knighthood. Because when a knight knocks on the door of a government office, it has to open’.
• Peter [Jackson] and I were just so thrilled that Gandalf the White wasn’t in ‘The Hobbit’. We prefer Gandalf the Grey. He can have a smoke and a drink and a chat , and do a few little tricks. It was a great relief.
• I’m a snob about standards. But I don’t find anything odd at all in being known for playing Gandalf. I couldn’t be happier about it. Other people tend to get snobbish on my behalf. ‘It must be dreadful to always be thought of as Gandalf’, they say. Well I can’t always be thought of as Richard III.
• [on ‘coming out’ as being gay] I immediately felt better in every way. I felt relieved that I wasn’t lying. You know, when I was growing up in England, there were no gay clubs I knew about. There were no bars. Homosexuals were shamed publicly and imprisoned. You were on your own, looking over your shoulder all the time, hoping in the handshake of a stranger that he might be somebody gay. The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo. I was just a little bit worried about whether I could carry out the bed scenes.
• I often get mistaken for ‘Dumbledore’. One wizard is very much like another.
• Don’t give up the projects you really want for some extra time with your girlfriend or because you don’t want to miss a holiday with your family. They’ll understand. Just don’t have any regrets.
• When I act, some people fancy me and some of them are women. There we are! What’s the problem? They don’t believe me when I say I am in love with a woman?…They don’t believe me when I say I am a wizard? They believe me even though they know I am not. It’s all nonsense. Everyone knows we are acting. [In a Reuters interview, responding to those who say that gay actors shouldn’t come out because then no one will find them believable in romantic scenes with actors of the opposite gender.]
• I didn’t like my character. He didn’t seem very deep. He just seemed a representative of evil. – On Apt Pupil (1998).
• About the 2008 death of Brad Renfro: “I first caught sight of Brad Renfro when he was kicking a football around with Bryan Singer on the half-built set of Apt Pupil (1998) in Hollywood. He was a kid having fun and that’s how I shall always remember him. But he was more than that. He was a proper actor and when we worked together he was determined to be accepted as such. On set, he was blusteringly confident although it was obvious he would have benefited from training as an actor. Yet, as Todd, the disturbed teenager in Apt Pupil, he tapped into an inner demonic world and carried the film on his young shoulders. He longed to belong in the alien world which perhaps in the end overwhelmed him. He was only 25 and it is dreadful we shan’t see all that he might have achieved.”
• I looked down from my terrace hanging over the Thames one morning. It was low tide and there, stranded on the pebbles, was a four-legged corpse – hairless, white and bloated. Was it a calf or a sheep or a goat or a dog? I stared at it until the tide rose and washed it away. For 24 hours I was off my food. When I started eating again, I couldn’t face meat – fresh or tinned. Overnight I was vegetarian and I have been for 15 years or more. I’ve seen the pictures of factory farming and followed the politics of mad cow disease and felt effortlessly superior. Yet it’s not reason or conscience that keeps me off meat and fowl–and these days fish, too–just a memory of that unidentifiable, decomposing body on the beach.
• In theatre, I have been able to take parts I didn’t think I could do – you have time to rehearse and learn. In movies, they want you to do what they know you can do – there isn’t the time.
• My confidence only really peaked when I was 49 and said, “Yes, I’m gay.”
• It is very, very, very difficult for an American actor who wants a film career to be open about his sexuality. And even more difficult for a woman if she’s lesbian. It’s very distressing to me that that should be the case. The film industry is very old fashioned in California.
• I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer at the front saying, “This is fiction.” I mean, walking on water? I mean, it takes an act of faith.
• 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.
• It may be my rather puritanical upbringing at odds with my inborn laziness that makes me feel guilty at the end of the day, unless I am able to point at some achievement. But this need be no more impressive than cooking a meal or going for a long walk.
• Nobody has ever looked to Hollywood for social advance. Hollywood is a dream factory. I love the way that conservatives think that Hollywood is a bed of radicalism – it couldn’t be more staid and old-ladyship if it tried. The audience don’t give a blind whatever about the sexuality of actors. Gay people fancy straight people and vice-versa. It’s all in the head, so what does it matter? You’re not going to meet ‘Heath Ledger’. You’re not going to find out . . . It’s the image you’re looking at and falling in love with. There will be girls who go and see those two unhappy gay cowboys and go home and have fantasy dreams about them. Lovely!
• If I was a star, it would be difficult to go off and do Coronation Street (1960). So I guess I’m not a star.
• If The Da Vinci Code (2006) had been filming in a place where it rains a lot, I probably wouldn’t have done it. Quite low down in the list is “How much am I going to be paid?” I’d say I was quite cheap, but my main feeling about money is that I don’t want to feel as though I’m being taken advantage of. Certainly, I’m cheaper than Anthony Hopkins. The other actors they asked to play Gandalf wouldn’t go to New Zealand on that money for that length of time. I thought it would be a bit of an adventure. Tony Hopkins didn’t think it would be an adventure. Tony is part of Hollywood. I’m an eccentric English actor, and there’s a lot of us around.
• They didn’t call it marriage, although you can call it anything you want. The one thing you cannot mention is God, that is absolutely verboten. I suppose I’m a bit mean-spirited, but I really can’t see why the government couldn’t just say gay people can get married – that would have been true equality and so much simpler. But that hasn’t been done because they couldn’t face the furore. So they’ve passed a law that is not available to straight people – straight people cannot have a civil partnership, they have to get married – extraordinary.
• They’ll let me play a gray-bearded wizard, but they still wouldn’t cast a young gay actor – who was out – in a straight romantic lead.
• [12/5/03, on initially thinking it crazy to release the LOTR trilogy 12 months apart] I thought people wouldn’t remember what happened a year ago. But I hadn’t factored that they would be so successful at the box office, and that so many people would buy the DVD and videos in between the release of each film. I had thought the whole enterprise was doomed, because of the release pattern. I’m very happy to have been proved wrong.
• [12/5/03, about the cheering fans outside the InterContinentel Hotel, where he was staying in Wellington, New Zealand:] It’s like several Christmases all come at once. They all love Gandalf, but I’m like Father Christmas in the shop. I’m not the real one.
• It wasn’t exactly a mistake, but if there’s anything I regret, it’s probably having disguised my own native accent. Actors of my generation all tended to speak RP [received pronunciation]. Of course, it’s all different now and drama students are encouraged to keep their regional accents and be able to do RP when required. Even at the BBC these days there’s no standardised accent, and I rather think that’s a good thing.
• “The Lord of the Rings” is a mythology, it is a fairy tale, it’s an adventure story. It never happened. Except somewhere in our hearts.
• Acting is no longer about lying. It’s now about revealing the truth. People are at ease with me now. Honesty is the best policy.
• I … think of the Bible as great literature rather than great history; great imagination rather than reliable witness. Whatever, it is not as a law book that I respect the Bible.
• I’ve had enough of being a gay icon! I’ve had enough of all this hard work, because, since I came out, I keep getting all these parts, and my career’s taken off. I want a quiet life. I’m going back into the closet. But I can’t get back into the closet, because it’s absolutely jam-packed full of other actors.
• I am encouraged by the theatricality of [J.R.R. Tolkien’s] readings – full of rhythm and humor and characterization. Without question Gandalf is like Tolkien but then so, I suspected, are Frodo and Aragorn.
• When I, as Gandalf, meet Bilbo or Frodo at home, I bump my head on the rafters. [J.R.R. Tolkien] didn’t think to mention it.
• Many unthinking people just don’t like the idea of gays joining in their games, nor in the military and, it would seem, in the movies.
• I think it’s one thing to declare your sexuality, if you care about what that is. It’s another thing to start talking in public about what you do in private and who you do it with. It’s not that they [my significant others] don’t want to be identified as gay, but that they don’t want to be identified as … with me.
• [on his first theatre experience, “Peter Pan”] I wasn’t over-impressed. For one thing it wasn’t a real crocodile and I could see the wires.

Ian McKellen Important Facts

• £5,000,000
• £4,000,000
• He was awarded he 1998 Back Stage Garland Award for Outstanding Performance for “An Enemy of the People” in a Royal National Theatre production at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
• Was considered for the role of Judge Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996).
• Turned down the role of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). He was quoted saying “I had enough trouble living up to one legend. Two would be to much to hope for.” (referring to his role as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings).
• Was considered for the role of Clayton in Tarzan (1999).
• He was offered the role of King Charles VI of France in Henry V (1989) but he turned it down. Paul Scofield was eventually cast.
• Although he played Maggie Smith’s son in Richard III (1995), he is less than five years her junior in real life.
• He has two roles in common with Michael Fassbender: (1) McKellen played Macbeth in A Performance of Macbeth (1979) while Fassbender played him in Macbeth (2015) and (2) McKellen played Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto in X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), The Wolverine (2013) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) while Fassbender played him in X: First Class (2011) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
• Although he was 56 when he played the title character in Richard III (1995), King Richard III was only 32 years old when he died on August 22, 1485.
• He has three Shakespearean roles in common with Laurence Olivier: (1) Olivier played Hamlet in Hamlet (1948) while McKellen played him in Hamlet (1970), (2) Olivier played King Richard III in Richard III (1955) while McKellen played him in Richard III (1995) and (3) Olivier played King Lear in King Lear (1983) while McKellen played him in King Lear (2008).
• Along with Cate Blanchett, he is one of only two actors to appear in all six of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).
• He played the British Conservative MP John Profumo in Scandal (1989) and the British film director James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998). Both of these men had connections to Valerie Hobson: Profumo was married to Hobson from December 31, 1954 until her death on November 13, 1998 while Whale directed her in Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
• He has made six films with Hugh Jackman: X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Flushed Away (2006), The Wolverine (2013) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
• Performed Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” at the National Theatre in London with a young Johnny Neal. Johnathon also appeared in A Christmas Carol (1999) with Patrick Stewart, one of Sir Ian’s closest friends.
• “The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling” (with Gregory Peck) in 1966 would have been his feature film debut but for the hostile snowy Swiss location weather. The production, a World War I film with a script by Roald Dahl to be directed by David Miller, was abandoned after 5 weeks filming.
• London E14, England [December 2007]
• Revealed in December 2012 that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
• At 74 years old, he is the oldest actor to be cast in the role of Sherlock Holmes.
• Has English, Northern Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
• Had Maggie Smith play his mother in Richard III (1995), and then played her on an episode of “Saturday Night Live”. In the BBC Radio production of “Goldfinger”, he worked with her real son, Toby Stephens. Smith’s former husband, Sir Robert Stephens, also played Aragorn in the BBC Radio version of “The Lord of the Rings”.
• Received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster on February 3, 2013.
• Close friends with Rachel Weisz.
• Played Magneto in three consecutive films – the only other actors to play comic book criminals in three films, as of 2008, are James Franco as Harry Osborn, Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor and his X-Men (2000) co-star, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique.
• Had not read either “The Golden Compass” (aka “Northern Lights”) by Philip Pullman, or any of the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien before he was cast in the movie adaptations.
• Marched at London’s Gay Pride Parade July 5, 2008.
• Was Head boy at Bolton School.
• Ranked #45 in the 2008 Telegraph’s list “the 100 most powerful people in British culture”.
• Is good friends with Monica Lewinsky. The two met at the The 71st Annual Academy Awards (1999). She accompanied him to the London premiere of Gods and Monsters (1998).
• He was awarded the Companion of Honour in the 2008 Queen’s New Year Honours List for his services to drama and to equality.
• Has played both a Holocaust victim (X-Men (2000)) and a Nazi (Apt Pupil (1998), both in movies directed by Bryan Singer.
• When he appeared on “Desert Island Discs” (the long-running BBC radio program that asks prominent people what eight pieces of music they would take to a deserted island), the pieces he chose were: 1. “Stars and Stripes Forever” (John Philip Sousa) performed by Vladimir Horowitz; 2. Part of “Adagio for Strings” (Barber) performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Simon; 3. Part of 2nd movement of Late Quartet No.13 in B flat Opus 130 (Ludwig van Beethoven) performed by the Lindsay String Quartet; 4. “Rose’s Turn” (Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim) performed by Ethel Merman; 5. “Stormy Weather” (Koehler/Arlen) performed by Lena Horne; 6. “Mississippi Goddam” (Nina Simone) performed by Simone; 7. “Harrison’s Clocks (Birtwhistle) performed by Joanna McGregor; 8. “Dancing Queen” (B. Andersson/S.Andersson/Ulvaeus) performed by ABBA; His one allowed book was “A Dictionary of Flora and Fauna”, and his luxury was a grand piano.
• In the Independent of Sunday 2006 Pink List – a list of the most influential gay men and women – he came no. 1, up from no. 2, knocking Elton John from top spot.
• Says the same line, “The war has begun”, in the trailers of both the major, unrelated blockbusters X2 (2003) and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).
• Has appeared in the Lord of the Rings and X-Men, both of which required a lead character to be recast soon after production started. In the Lord of the Rings, Stuart Townsend was replaced by Viggo Mortensen, and in X-Men (2000), Dougray Scott was replaced by Hugh Jackman.
• Only performer to receive an acting Academy Award nomination for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Has appeared with Bruce Davison in four different films: Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Apt Pupil (1998), X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). The first of these is the only one not directed by Bryan Singer.
• Like his The Da Vinci Code (2006) character, Sir Leigh Teabing, he has been knighted. As such, prior to being cast, he spotted two errors in the book’s portrayal of Knighthood. Knights neither receive ID badges nor are granted any of the special privileges Teabing demands as a result of Knighthood.
• Was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the same time as Patrick Stewart.
• He said that appeal of the X-Men films to him was the concept of mutants being shunned, something he says he identifies with as he was repeatedly shunned as an open homosexual.
• Has worked with two Faramirs. Prior to appearing in the Lord of the Rings films with David Wenham, he appeared in the film Plenty (1985), with Andrew Seear. Seear played Faramir in the BBC radio adaptation, opposite Ian Holm.
• He used the phrase “old friend” in both the X-Men film series and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In both cases (to Christopher Lee as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings and Patrick Stewart as Xavier in X-Men) it is said to an ally who has become a nemesis and “old friend” is said mockingly.
• Won Broadway’s 1981 Tony Award as Best Actor (Play) for originating the role of Antonio Salieri in “Amadeus”. He was nominated in the same category in 1984 for “Ian McKellen Acting Shakespeare”.
• Was set to play Antonio in Michael Radford’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (2004), but had to drop at the last minute due to scheduling conflicts.
• Has played cult characters in two of the biggest franchises; he played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Magneto in the X-Men film series.
• Wore a prosthetic nose to play Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford Upon Avon, England.
• Shares his middle name, Murray, with both Michael Hordern (Michael Murray Hordern), his predecessor in the role of Gandalf, and F. Murray Abraham, his successor in the role of Antonio Salieri.
• Originally aspired to be a journalist.
• Studied at St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, when he was 18, with Sir Derek Jacobi, and with whom he had been “desperately in love”, as he confessed on Inside the Actors Studio (1994). In an article in “The Advocate”, issue dated December 11, 2001, he further explained that what he had felt for Jacobi in their youth was “a passion that was undeclared and unrequited”.
• Graduated with a 2:2 in English from Cambridge University.
• He was awarded the 1989 London Critics Circle Theatre Award (Drama Theatre Award) for Best Actor for his performance in “Othello”.
• He was awarded the 1984 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor for his performance in “Coriolanus”.
• He was awarded the 1989 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor for his performance in “Othello”.
• Began acting as a means of escape from mourning after his mother’s death and constant bullying at school from fellow students.
• Before performing the role of Gandalf, he listened to a recording of J.R.R. Tolkien reading Gandalf lines from the novel. He used this as a base for creating the character, and imitated the accent used by Tolkien in the recording.
• He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1991 (1990 season) for Best Actor in “Richard III” at the Royal National Theatre.
• He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1985 (1984 season) for Best Actor in a Revival for “Wild Honey”.
• The original Lord of the Rings books, and X-Men comics, both feature a character named Sauron, and a book entitled “The Return of the King”. The X-Men graphic novel “The Return of the King” is, appropriately, about the return of Magneto.
• According to an interview, one of the last things Margaret Thatcher did as Prime Minister was recommending him for a knighthood.
• While being a guest on Jay Leno (December 26, 2003), he said that he had not seen X2 (2003) when it opened in theaters, he only saw it when the DVD hit the stores. He then called up Bryan Singer and asked, “Is there going to be X-Men 3?” Singer replied, “Yes”. In his excitement, he got Singer six theater tickets to go see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). As it turned out, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) would not be directed by Singer.
• Has played Maggie Smith in a “Weekend Update” skit on an episode of Saturday Night Live (1975) that he hosted.
• He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1979 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.
• Was offered the part of Mission Commander Swanbeck in Mission: Impossible II (2000). He was not able to accept the role, due to a prior theatre engagement in London. The part eventually went to Anthony Hopkins.
• Is a vegetarian.
• Had a tattoo of the Elvish character for 9 along with seven other members of the fellowship in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
• Originated the role of Antonio Salieri in the Broadway production of “Amadeus”.
• Has played the vampire in the music video “Heart” by Pet Shop Boys.
• He was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1991 Queen’s New Year Honours List for his services to drama.

Ian McKellen Filmography

Ian McKellen Awards