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Sir Ian is currently completing his role in next year’s most talked about motion picture: The Da Vinci Code. The Ron Howard film, based on the controversial book that’s sold more than 25 million copies, opens May 19. Still in production, it has already generated protests. In addition to controversy, the movie is expected to fuel monster business at the box office.  For a third time, moviegoers will see Sir Ian as evil mutant Magneto, this time in X-3, the latest X-Men movie, opening one week after The Da Vinci Code. 

But it’s his five decades on the stage in both classical and modern drama, for which he has won more than forty major international acting awards, and not his movie career, in which McKellen takes his greatest pride.

In 2001, he told the Washington Post, “I feel absolutely at home on the stage. Nothing can go wrong. The theatre is alive. It can’t be preserved. You can’t look at it again. Cinema’s dead. It’s not actually happening.”

Ian’s first known live-in relationship began in the early 1960s with Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton. With two terriers, they lived together in London until 1972.

A decade later, his relationship with director Sean Mathias, began. For the next eight years, Ian and Sean shared the actor’s terraced, view home in Limehouse. In 1990, they went their separate ways romantically, but they still work together.

Eleven years after their romantic parting, Ian told The Washington Post, “Sean’s always been my best critic because he’s always honest.  He’s my best friend.” Of Ian, Mathias, in the same Post article said, “Ian and I have been lovers, we’ve been not-friends, we’ve been friends. I love working with him. It’s a real privilege.”

1990, the same year that saw McKellen’s split with Mathias, was the year he was awarded Britain’s highest honor, being knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his efforts in the arts.  Along with Sir Elton John, Sir Ian is one of Britain’s few openly gay knights.

It was in 1988 that Sir Ian came out as a gay man during a BBC Radio 4 discussion with Peregrine Worsthome, whom Mckellen describes as “a homophobe,” about the Thatcher government’s infamous Section 28 of the Local Government Act, making illegal the public “promotion of homosexuality” in public schools. Overnight, McKellen became an active member of the movement to change those UK laws, which discriminate against lesbians and gay men. 

Since coming out publicly, he’s been a tireless gay activist.

Asked in 2002 by The Observer, “Why didn’t you come out sooner?”  McKellen replied, “I’m the guy who gets cowed by authority. Which means that you resent authority but you don’t necessarily fight it. Deep down, I was ashamed of the fact that I wasn’t normal. I do feel I should have spoken sooner, yes.”

In August, McKellen admitted to Newsweek, “I was absolutely wrong in thinking coming out of the closet wouldn’t make a difference in my career. I became a better actor, and my film career took off in a way that I couldn’t have expected. You can’t lie about something so central to yourself without harming yourself. 

"Acting in my case is no longer about disguise--it’s about telling the truth, and my truth is that I’m gay. I’m very happy for people to know that, and then I can get on with telling the truth about the character that I’m playing. That’s why I can say to other actors: If you really want to be a good actor and a successful one, and you’re gay, let everybody know it.”

At the 1994 Gay Games, McKellen made headlines when he told a crowd of gay athletes, supporters, and fans, “I’m Sir Ian Mckellen, but you can call me Serena” (his longtime nickname).

At the 2003 Oscar-cast, McKellen lost the Oscar, but won rave reviews for his eye candy date, a man that Gayworld described as “a drop-dead gorgeous, 30-some years younger boyfriend. A boyfriend so stunning that he made every male movie star at the Oscars look like a deformed Hobbit in comparison.”

In his personal life, Ian McKellen is an atheist, a vegetarian, a supporter of the New Labour Party, and a philanthropist. Publicly, he remains silent on these subjects.  As he puts it, “I prefer to restrict my public views to what I know best--acting and activism.”

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