AfterElton.com - Interview With Sir Ian McKellen (page 4)

Interview With Sir Ian McKellen (page 4)
by Michael Jensen, September 27, 2006

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AE: What impact do you think all of the talk about X-Men: The Last Stand and its “cure” being a metaphor for gay people had? Do you think straight people were aware of that? Did it turn them off they were going to see a movie that was a metaphor for gay people?
IM: I think we can only judge that the next time someone says they've got a cure for being gay. There hasn't been much chat about that recently, has there? I think that notion is gradually fading. Marvel is always saying they like The X-Men more than any of their other titles because it appeals to the young demographic I just referred to. Young gay men, young black men, young Jews are the great readership of the X-Men comics and they probably are of the films, who knows? But it can only have done good. But to make it any more obvious than it was would've distorted it a little bit, because the X-Men aren't just addressing gay people. It's certainly addressing young people who feel themselves for one reason or another at odds with society. I guess most teenagers feel that.

AE: Do you look at what's going on in the United States, with same-sex amendments to ban gay marriage passing so easily here, and feel frustrated that no notable American star has come out the way you did in battling Section 28?
IM: Do you know that hadn't really occurred to me? I'm sure if you were to ask Susan Sarandon what she thought she would come up with the absolutely politically correct answer that I totally agree with. There are plenty of outspoken people in the film industry in America who haven't been vocal on our issue. But it's easier in the U.K.

AE: But it wasn't 20 years ago when you spoke out, back in 1988. It was a whole lost riskier.
IM: It is geographically easier because it is such a small country. No one could say of me, who has lived all his adult life in London, who's spoken out on other public issues to do with my job — funding for the arts and so on — they couldn't dismiss me as some foolish chattering-class liberal, which of course I am. But the point I made had to be addressed and listened to, argued for or against. It's all too so easy in such a huge country as yours for, let's say an actor in New York making a point, to be dismissed by mid-America as being out of touch with what they know about life. It's hard.

But … on one point that I was disappointed … was when Tom Cruise took someone to court on the grounds that to even suggest or lie that he, Tom Cruise, had had gay sex experiences was detrimental to his career because he would no longer be convincing playing the sort of parts that he plays on film. That is such palpable nonsense. It shows a very innocent, ignorant view of what acting is and what an audience knows about actors.

There is no confusion in the audience's mind when they see an actor playing a part. You might as well say that the point at which Tom Cruise got divorced and became a single man he could never in the future be convincing as a married man on film. It doesn't make sense. Or that an actor who wears a wig is not convincing because we all know he is bald. It really doesn't work like that. He should've been called on that. I'm not interested in [is] Tom Cruise gay or not gay. Whether he's lying or not is a matter none of us can judge. But that he should say that if he were thought to be gay, he could no longer ever be taken seriously playing heterosexual parts, it doesn't work like that. Otherwise, I wouldn't keep playing all these heterosexual parts I keep getting offered.

AE: Not to mention characters who have super powers.
IM: Exactly. Do you know I really don't have super powers. I couldn't really lift the Golden Gate Bridge, not all by myself. I couldn't do it.

AE: I think I've got the lead for my story then. A real scoop. Ian McKellen isn't really a superhero. Did you ever have another conversation with Michael Howard after your visit with him to discuss Section 28? Did he ever come around or apologize?
IM: Right to the bitter end, when Section 28 was removed from the statutes by an overwhelming majority of Parliament, both he and Mrs. Thatcher voted to retain on it. Shame on them both. However, Margaret Thatcher is no longer prime minister, and Michael Howard is no longer the leader of the Conservative Party. The current leader of the Conservative Party is as gay-friendly as they come, I'm told. We're in changing times.

AE: Any comment on George Michael's spate of problems? Or his statement that he doesn't see himself as a gay role model?
IM: It's a very hard thing to be [a gay role model], and I would greatly sympathize with that. He's trying to get on with his life, but his profile is such — and some of his actions are such — that he is inevitably in the papers and gets asked questions he feels obliged to give an answer to. But it's hard. He didn't start being a pop singer because he wanted to get into gay rights. It's very hard. No one should expect someone who is in the public eye for one reason, when they come out, to automatically be a spokesperson. It's not fair really.

There was a point that the late Nigel Hawthorne felt when he was nominated for an Oscar, and it was picked up that he was gay, and that became the only story. It gave him great distress. He used to say to me — a lot of people have said when I have urged them to come out for their own sake — don't ask me to do what you do. I can't do that. And I said, well, you don't have to. Paul Scofield, the great actor of a previous generation here, I don't think has ever given an interview about his private life. He's a very happily married, straight man, and that should be the rule for us all if that is how we want it to be.

I always draw the line when I'm talking to the press. I will not tell you about my private life. My private life is private, so nobody knows who I'm attracted to or go to bed with or what sort of food I eat or the decoration of my house. I don't make comments on that sort of thing. If you get into the world where you invite the press to think of you as a person beyond your particular expertise as a singer or an actor, then you're likely to get into problems, and you're likely to be asked awkward questions and you're not prepared for them, and you give replies that only apply to you. It's very hard and I don't think we should expect people to do anything other than what they can do. We've all got a part to play and it would be quite enough, as far as I'm concerned, for George Michael to say 'Yes, I'm gay,' and leave it at that. But he gets caught up [laughs] in activities in public places that draw attention to himself.

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