In the Life: Interview with Ian McKellen [unedited footage]

[Ian McKellen:] Well, Shakespeare wrote some of it quite a long time ago. but […]. [Interviewer:] Oh, I see. [Producer:] We're rolling whenever you're ready. [Interviewer:] Okay. So I'm just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about "A Knight Out at the Lyceum". [McKellen:] But they've missed it. What do you mean? [Interviewer:] Because, okay, what's going to be happening is we're doing clips of that. [McKellen:] You are? [Interviewer:] Probably. [McKellen:] All right. [Interviewer:] Talk... we're... we're showing all of the festivities that happened during that, [McKellen:] I see. [Interviewer:] and a little bit about what your thinking was in writing it and in wanting to do it at Stonewall 25, [McKellen:] Yes. [Interviewer:] and being part of that event. That's basically what it will be. How you feel being part of that event. [McKellen:] Yes. Okay, okay. [Interviewer:] My first question would be is, what was your thinking going into it? And, and was it, it's about the gay experience in your life? And just, just can you tell us a little bit about what went into the creating of it? [McKellen:] There's only been one place that any gay man or lesbian could be in June 1994, and that was New York City to celebrate Stonewall 25 and knowing that I was coming, it seemed too good an opportunity not to come back to Broadway, which I've just done for a few nights leading up to the actual celebrations themselves. And the show, "A Knight Out at the Lyceum" was me, I suppose, basically showing off, but presenting the two sides of my life that perhaps people are interested in. The, the knight side is the, is the very respectable actor who's had a very mainstream career in England and in the United States. And the out side is, is the new part of my life, the, the activism as opposed to the acting, in which I've been trying to change laws in the United Kingdom which discriminate against lesbians and gay men. And the show tries to cover both those grounds in an entertaining way. It's a mixture of stand-up, classical acting and the op-ed page, I suppose. [Interviewer:] Yes, and as far as changing laws in the United States and the United Kingdom, you, you're the leader of a group, or founder of a group called Stonewall, yes? [McKellen:] In 1988, the dreadful Mrs. Thatcher passed anti-gay legislation in the United Kingdom which offended so many of us and it seemed only fair and honest, if I was going to publicly attack that move, if I were to explain why I took it so personally. And suddenly I found myself at last completely out as a public figure and during that experience, it was obvious that there was a need in the United Kingdom for a group rather like the Human Rights Campaign Fund in the United States, that could be a focus of not just the activities of lesbians and gay men themselves, but a place where the media could go and get reliable information as to what our aspirations are and, and an organization that governments and parliamentarians could talk to and begin to perhaps change their own attitudes to our problems. And in looking around for a name to call ourselves it seemed only proper really, to salute the beginning of the gay rights movement. And so we became the Stonewall group and have had considerable success changing a few laws and, and we've got our eye on our major legislation, which I think is optimistically might happen in the, in quite, in the near future. [Interviewer:] What about 28? Has anything happened with that yet? We should know this in America, but maybe some of us don't. [McKellen:] Section 28 was a very mean-spirited little law that Mrs. Thatcher brought in to stop local authorities, cities, spending very small sums on improving the lot of gay and lesbian citizens. That legislation is still on the statute books, and it inhibits schools from talking positively to pupils about what it means to be, to be a homosexual. It means that in city libraries, the gay and lesbian sections have - although they're still there the label which defines them as such, has been removed lest, lest any one should be corrupted by the reading material. That sort of stupidity. It's of course, course, politically... mmm, you are gonna be able to cut this, aren't you? [Interviewer:] Yes, well... [McKellen:] Well, anyway, I think I'd reached the end of what I wanted to say there. But Section 28 is just one of many pieces of anti-discrimination legislation, some of them much, of much longer standing than that. The law that put Oscar Wilde in prison over a hundred years ago is still on the statute books. And it's got to be removed. It's been slightly amended. The legal age of consent for a gay man is now 18. Used to be 21. But for everybody else in the country, it's 16. It's, it's a ridiculous state of affairs, that doesn't really apply anywhere else in Europe. And Great Britain as usual is late catching up with the real and modern world. And it's groups like Stonewall who keep chivvying away and reminding people that the laws could be better. [Interviewer:] You call the group Stonewall, because obviously, it was such a pivotal moment in gay and lesbian history. Is there anything similar that happened in Great Britain that would be parallel to Stonewall? That happened maybe afterwards? I'm just wondering about that. Has there been any riots or any major...? [McKellen:] When recently the Houses of Parliament decided to reduce the age of consent for gay men to 18 but not equalize it with the rest of the population at 16, the disappointment was understandably so strong that the 6,000 lesbians and gays who very quietly in the streets outside Parliament had held a candlelight vigil. It was just after the death of the filmmaker Derek Jarman. That, though there was a storming of the medieval doors of Parliament itself and some danger or hope that those doors would be broken down, there were very few police in attendance. Some people tried to claim that as our own Stonewall. And I suppose in the sense it was, but it's a happy feature of activism in the United Kingdom, that the, the groups who take the cry out into the streets, and who practice civil disobedience do work hand in hand with groups like Stonewall group, although they might think that we will be misnamed because we are rather polite organization that works behind doors and, and tries to change things that way. This - those two groups differing in methods but sharing aims do work together. [Interviewer:] You, you had such an impact in Great Britain certainly and in here with coming out on top of the career you've had and I'm drawn to something that I saw in a number of articles about, what with Tyrone Guthrie, who was one of your mentors. And he said, "Don't settle for what you are, discover what you can do and be bigger than you are." Which, and I just wonder that was certainly said for the stage, but has coming out possibly had a similar effect? Have you discovered you are bigger than you are, by coming out? By doing something like that? That kind of, that kind of statement. And it seems like it has done major things. [McKellen:] One of the reasons I became an actor was because I hoped to meet some queer men. And so it proved. And one of the reason that other gays and lesbians, I think, become professional actors is that they, they have a need to express themselves emotionally and tell the truth about themselves. And yet they are inhibited from doing so by the pressures on them from society to remain in the closet. So a gay actor has the chance of declaring that he's gay through his work, and being op- absolutely honest about himself. And yet in his private life or in public interviews can go on being closeted. That only works for so long and it's bad for the soul to be in the closet and it's bad for the individual. Of course, it's bad for society as well. And the only happy situation is when a person reaches enough confidence, self-confidence, to cast aside that millstone and, and be absolutely honest in every situation. Whether that then affects his work will depend on the individual. It's perhaps a little bit late for me in my early 50s to suddenly become a radical actor and an exclusively gay actor as it were, as opposed to an actor who is gay. But I - people do seem to think that I'm a better actor than I used to be. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was true because acting is not about pretense. It's not about disguise. It's about honesty and truth, and perhaps you can only be fully that, if you're honest with yourself and then honest with everybody else. [Interviewer:] I just wanted to ask you a bit about Armistead Maupin, because he's such a good friend of yours, and because he was key in your coming out. I guess - two-part question really, because you must have feel - a certain feeling about the, the amazing success the "Tales of the City" had in the States. It was one of the most popular, most watched shows ever. So you must have feelings about that. And you must have feelings about the recent flack and PBS's cowardice, or whatever you want to call it. So. [McKellen:] Mmmm. It's an odd thing about my coming out that nobody [Production:] Sorry, stop. You've got to be careful […] [Interviewer:] I'm sorry. [Production:] Okay. Let's start, don't stop. [McKellen:] It's an odd thing about my gay life is that nobody ever suggested to me that I should come out. They just let me go along my own sweet way, ignorant of the gay rights movement, not joining in, not helping and thinking that it was irrelevant to me. The revelation of coming out, of course, is to make contacts. And in making contacts and connections you become political. It's almost a definition of what politics is. And the possibilities of that, were only ever explain to me by Terry Anderson and his lover Armistead Maupin when I was working in San Francisco and happily met them and had conversations about being honest and open and coming out. They pointed out to me, not that this was a reason why I should do it, that there was no other actor who was pretty successful or celebrated who was at that time out. And they thought this was very disappointing and a great lack in the gay rights movement. They were talking about the United States as well as the United Kingdom. And, it's been encouraging to me that since I came out other well-established actors in the United Kingdom have come out too, Nigel Hawthorne, who was recently here with the Royal National Theatre's production of "George III" came out when he was in America. Tony Sher, a wonderful actor of - in his 40s is out in England. Alec McCowen who in his 60s came out and said he was gay. And a lot of younger actors, too That pattern has not yet been established anywhere else in the world actually and although I'm - it's lovely to see some young actors in, on Broadway coming out and actors in films and TV have a harder time, I think, because they're under pressure from their agents and managers and indeed the advertisers who present the commercials in between the shows they appear in on television. Educate them to lie, in order to perpetuate the bigger lie that we're all the same. But we're not all the same. We're all different. Thank God. And it's the diversity of life who should, which we should be celebrating not, not the sameness. This was Armistead's point and, and, and I think he and Terry dedicate their lives really to encouraging people to come out. And the blessing of coming out, of course, is not a political one. It is not the contribution you can then make and the effect you can have another people's lives. It's the effect you've single-handedly had on your own life. And you feel so much better. You're a better friend. You're a better lover. You're a better family member. And of course, you're a better member of society, too. Now Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City", a historic book in that it introduced to a mainstream audience the diversity of life in San Francisco in the '70s. Couldn't find anybody in the United States who believed in it enough to make it into a television program and that was left up to Channel 4 in England, ironically to do it and it was Channel 4 who did "Lost Language of Cranes", wasn't it? Too, another American novel that reached America via the United Kingdom. [Interviewer:] Channel 4 is also supporting "In the Life" now. This show, […] Stonewall 25. [McKellen:] Why anyone should think that the American public wasn't yet old enough and mature enough to appreciate the felicities of "Tales of the City" and to understand that that was a truthful although fictional version of real life. And why that it might in some way be corrupting to American standards, I cannot think. If anyone believes that, they're stupid and they certainly shouldn't be running a great public television network. And I hope they either change their minds or get the hell out. [Interviewer:] I just have one more thing I want to ask you. You mentioned earlier, the Human Rights Campaign Fund. And you have won numerous awards, and but one award that you won was they - what was it? - the Gay Rights... Work. Gay Rights Work in the Arts, which I guess you received in Washington while you're on the "Richard III" tour. And you've received so many awards for so many performances, and how do you feel about that particular award? And within all the other ones that you've received? [Interviewer:] If you can mention the award in your answer, it would help, the television... audience. [McKellen:] I'm not a great believer in awards, I think. Basically at heart, as far as your work is concerned and your self esteem, the Tony Awards mean nothing, the Oscars mean nothing and the equivalents in my country mean nothing. The important thing is the work if it's then appreciated then that is wonderful, and it's very nice of course to be patted on the back and please Mummy and Daddy and get an award that you could put on the mantelpiece or in my case in the garden, where they weather rather nicely as the rain falls on them. I've had a few awards from, from gay rights organizations, and they are precious because it just acknowledges that we're all in the same fight. And what's very pleasing for me coming to the States is to meet people who are doing exactly what I'm trying to do with friends and colleagues in the United Kingdom. And it makes me very humble because of course in the States, you are so much more advanced in your organisations and your determination than we are. And we have a lot of catching up to do, although the particular fights that we have are slightly different because our political systems are different. The reward for that work is the contacts you make and the people you meet, and how your life just expands beyond yourself, beyond yourself and you realise that the closet is an inhibiting, dangerous place to be. Closets are full of skeletons and dust and, and dirt, and things you don't want to have anything to do with. And it's best to get out in the open and the open air in which you breathe and share with other people. And to get an award for that, well, that's just the cherry on the icing, isn't it? [Interviewer:] I don't know, where are we on...? Leslie's gonna ask one or two things for Next Magazine. [McKellen:] Oh, yes, that's right. [Production, unintelligible] [McKellen:] Now Bob, do you not like me saying the Tony Awards mean nothing? [Bob:] No. [McKellen:] Is that going to upset anybody? [Interviewer:] Can I ask how much time is left on that 20 minute... [Bob:] No. [McKellen:] No. [Man laughs] [Woman:] Hiyee. How are you? [Interviewer:] Okay, are we ready? [McKellen:] Yeah. Your first confession or public admission of your sexuality was on a BBC radio. Is that right? [McKellen:] Mmm. I don't have to worry about the camera, do I? Yes, go on. [Interviewer:] And I want to know how planned that was. And what was going through your head the first time that you... decided to publicly... [McKellen:] I don't think it really occurred to me that it was - you'll hear other actors say this who are still in the closet - anyone else's business what I did in my private life. Until... about seven years ago when I first had serious conversation, significantly for me, not in the United Kingdom, but, but, but in the United States with Armistead Maupin and Terry Anderson, his lover. And they set out the arguments for being, at least nominally involved with the gay rights movement. And they think, as I do, that it's very important for people in public life if they can, to be honest about their sexuality and not lie about it. Now, I never had lied about it, I just had avoided telling the truth, which is not quite the same thing. But it wasn't till I was mature enough as a person. I think my maturity came from my self-confidence. One of the reasons I became an actor was because I was not confident as a person and I needed the confidence of rehearsing and preparing for my public appearances, rather like, rather, which is unlike most people who just go out and are themselves. I had to... my, my life was in a sense, a pretense and a deceit. Once that had happened, I'd sort of made up my mind it was appropriate that I should come out. I had thought about it earlier, but I'd been living with a friend who... didn't want it constantly noted that he was my friend and thus defined his personality, and his career, defined as an adjunct of mine. And when having talked to Armistead and Terry, I came back to England and that relationship broke up. When I was a free agent, the tide had obviously turned. And the moment that I got involved in fighting Section 28, a piece of Thatcher legislation that discriminated against lesbians and gays, and I got involved in that, then it was appropriate to publicly come out and use that as a weapon to beat the government with. And so, you know, there was some preparation. I didn't realize that when the, the man I was debating with kept referring to "them", meaning gays and lesbians that I said, "Well, you're not talking about them, you're talking about me." And as easily as that, I won the argument because he just shut up. And there's no better way of winning the argument for an understanding of homosexuality to tell the world or the person who's talking against you that you are yourself, gay or lesbian. They have to readjust because they hold these extraordinary views because they don't think they've ever met any lesbians or gay men. They just met the stereotype. They've met the demon. And they meet the person. Difficult, isn't it? For them. [Interviewer:] You were knighted in 1991. [McKellen:] Was I? [Interviewer:] You were knighted in '91? [McKellen:] Right. I'm not certain. Yeah. [Interviewer:] At the time, you - there was some.. backlash in the gay community, that you would accept such a stance in the government, that's so... repressed. [McKellen:] Yeah. [Interviewer:] Your preference. [Interviewer:] What, what factors went into your decision to accept? To... [McKellen:] If, if you've spent as long as I have being in the mainstream of British theatre and you get a call from the Prime Minister's office to say that on behalf of the Queen, who is the head of the nation, it's... they feel it's appropriate to recognize your work. Well, then you just make up your mind. Do you approve of these honours or do you not? And, to put me in the same category as Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Charlie Chaplin, Sir Noel Coward, I'm gonna turn that down? Well, perhaps if I'd been more a man of my time and I might have said, "I can do my bit to stop these honours, these awards. Why should people be separated off in this way?" But the politically aware person which I now am said, "What a wonderful opportunity to use the knighthood, the stamp of the establishment's authority, against the establishment." And say, "I am a gay man. You've given me a knighthood. Why do you persist in having laws which discriminate against me? And my brothers and sisters. Had I refused the knighthood, no one would have known that I'd been offered it. So when people suggested that I should have refused it as a political statement, they're talking nonsense 'cause it couldn't have been done. You can't boast about having turned something down. And s - it's, I've been proved to be right because doors that had previously been closed to gay activists have opened when I've knocked on them. And others have flooded through the doors with me and we talk now on a daily basis to Ministers in John Major's government, and John Major, himself. And we've got many small bits of legislation changed and others are in place to actually change the statute books to a considerable extent. And now there're a number of people in public life who, who are openly gay and I have absolutely no qualms at all to have accepted the knighthood was the right thing to do. But otherwise, I don't take much pleasure in it because it separates one from, from other people and professionally, I never use it. And in the theatre itself, I'm called Serena and serves me right. [both laugh] [Interviewer:] Now, the knighthood is... [McKellen:] Actually, I'd rather be called Serenissima. [Interviewer:] The knighthood is definitely one of the highest honors that is bestowed in the Western world. I mean, historically. [McKellen:] Well. [Interviewer:] Don't you think? At least romantically, or historically. Politics aside, what's it like? Does it make a difference that you walk around with the title? "Sir", people address you. Do you notice? Do you welcome...? [McKellen:] Yeah, well, I notice when they don't use it. And I think, "Don't they realize?" And then I think, "What are you stupid? So stupid." No, everybody calls me... In the theatre, I'm called Ian or Serena and, and in the street, I, I might be called Sir, but it's much more likely I'll be called Mister. I'm - nobody in this country knows unless it's pointed out to them. No, it really isn't, it really isn't of any moment at all, except with the people who give these things away. And they are terribly aware of who's a Sir and when they got it, and what sort of knighthood it is. You know, there're different sorts of knighthood? So that's, that's where it's useful. And, and I have two sorts of writing paper: one has Sir on it and the other has Ian on it. And I, I got a whole stack of Sir. I very rarely use it. I just use it when I'm writing to government Ministers. Or when I'm writing to Governors of prisons or when I'm writing to heads of big corporations whose house rules, I'm trying to change. That, that's when you use it. [Interviewer:] Tell me about the show. It's called "A Gay Knight Out"? Is that correct? [McKellen:] Yes. Well, I don't mind drawing attention to my knighthood but the, the - if that title's got any width to it at all, it is that it nicely encapsules the two sides of my life. One is, one is the mainstream actor who's pursued that career pretty heavily for the majority of his career and the out side is, is the other side of me which frankly is, is the main part of my life at the moment, the activist rather than the actor. And the show will encompass both sides and try, in the way the material is presented, see what the relationship between the two is. The material will be mostly from gay writers of one sort and another from plays and, and poems and, and other material as well. Linked by, by me talking about why the pieces are of importance to me and the structure is basically autobiographical. So, it'll encompass stand-up and a bit of classical acting and a bit of political chats as well. And I hope the whole thing will be entertaining but as I won't have had a chance to do it anywhere else, because it's specifically being devised for New York in June 1994, its sell-by date will expire the last time I do it, which will be the night before the Stonewall celebrations and I won't have had a chance to do it to other audiences before, so I open on Broadway on Tuesday and like, I'm afraid, far too many other shows recently, I'm going to close on Saturday. [laughs] But this is the plan. This is the device. And it'll appeal to anyone who likes the theatre and anyone who likes gays. That's the idea. You don't have to be gay to enjoy it. I hope. I, I think that's - within the gay rights movement in the United Kingdom, my job is to be one of those who communicates with what we think of as the outside world, with the straight world, with the established world and, and give to them a flavor of what it's like to be gay and what our aspirations are. I don't talk back into the communities too much. I hardly feel I'm qualified to that - to do that. I'm such a newcomer and I'm not a very, very radical thinker. But given the brief, I can then go on the box or on on radio will write the piece in the paper or go into a meeting and wave, wave the flag that other people have designed. And that's my job. And I think, I think in this show too. Gays, I hope, hopefully will enjoy it and but it's not solely for them. It's, it's for people who might think, "Why should anyone want to talk about being gay? What's the problem?" So one can present a few of the problems to them perhaps and maybe a couple of the answers. [Interviewer:] Is there anything that you want to tell our readers? Our readers are... young gay men in Manhattan, probably 40,000 of them. [McKellen:] Hmmm. [Interviewer:] Most of them very active in the club scene, very active in theatre, very active in the gay culture. [McKellen:] Hmmm. [Interviewer:] Is there anything you want them to know about you? [McKellen:] About me? [Interviewer:] About you. As a man. [McKellen:] I'm available. [both laugh] [McKellen:] Well, I suppose to anyone of my generation, it's never too late, you know. You can change and you will if you come out. If you, if you can just complete that journey that you've been on from the moment you first had sex or from the moment you first thought about having sex and began to say to yourself, "I am not what other people expected me to be. I am to a certain extent different and that difference is part of what it is to be me." If you can complete that process so that there's nobody in the world you mind knowing that you're gay, you will, if you're like me, change and radically and change totally for the better. All your relationships are improved. People who are upset by it, or offended by it, or can't come to terms with it will drop out of your life, and a good thing too. But much, much more likely there'll be utterly converted to understanding not just, not just that they're meeting a new person in you, but that there are many other people who they can now relate to because they've understood you. And so you suddenly join the world and the community of the world, and realize that you can make connections with people you didn't really know about. That's been my experience and I think they're probably too many people even in this gay city of my generation, who are missing out on all that. As for people younger than me, they probably have much less of a problem in being out, because the ground has been prepared for them, by, by other people who they should respect and remember. And if they don't know anything about them should learn about, you know, going back to Stonewall and the people before that in, in the gay rights movement, which existed before Stonewall, but not in such an upfront way. And if they are boogieing down in the clubs and the bars and they think, "What does it matter? What does the gay rights movement matter? Why should I contribute... the odd dollar? Why should I go on the March? Why should I... read a political paper from the gay point of view?" Then they too are missing out because there are millions of gays and lesbians in this country, who are not lucky enough to go to clubs and bars. Who daren't pick up your, your magazine. Who feel they would be sacked from their job if it were known they were gay. And... you only realize you've got a responsibility to those, to those people who you'll never meet when you realize that you've got a responsibility to yourself. And that responsibility is to get out of the closet and we all know it's not easy. But when you do, you'll find there are so many friends there to support you and help you. So that's my message.