AfterElton.com - Interview With Sir Ian McKellen (page 7)

Interview With Sir Ian McKellen (page 7)
by Michael Jensen, September 27, 2006

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AE: I understand you're going to be an extra on Ricky Gervais' Extras ?
IM: Yes, I've done that.

AE: How was it?
IM: I've always been fascinated by comedians, and Ricky Gervais is a very good one. But he has the unnerving habit, when you're in the middle of recording, if you've done something he finds amusing, to laugh out loud — which means you're obliged to repeat the line and he might laugh again. Eventually, I said to him, “Ricky, you're putting me off. I don't think I'm going to be as good as I could be unless you control yourself.” He said, “But it's my job to make you look as stupid as possible so I win the BAFTA.” That rather sums up the experience. [Laughs.] I don't know how it will be cut together, but I rather enjoyed doing it. It's fun to send yourself up.

AE: Anything you'd like to say about your next movie, Colossus?
IM: I'll be playing Cecil Rhodes, who was a gay man who, when he was alive, I suppose was one of the most powerful men alive. He had a country named after him: Rhodesia. He was the king of the British empire down in that corner of the world. It's a fictional piece. When Rhodes is dying, and he rather imperiously sends off to Oxford for a hundred English singing birds he wants to have released onto his estate so he can die to the sound of larks singing, Colin Firth is sent over with the birds from Oxford. So you meet Rhodes in his decline, and that is the part I am playing.

AE: Are you pleased about the revival of Bent?
IM: They started rehearsing yesterday. I saw Martin Sherman last night. He's very pleased with his cast. I was also in the company of Sean [Mathias] who directed the film. We both said, “Well, we hope the cast aren't too good!” [Laughs.] Alan Cumming, I think is a tremendous bit of casting. No one can tell Cumming about the seedy side of gay life. He knows as much as any man, I expect. That's very, very helpful for the character. I could never quite convince myself as a hard-drinking, drug-taking man who slept with anything in leather and chains. I think Alan will be able to cope with that very well.

A revival of that play is always welcome. It's an astonishing play. It's one of my proudest achievements, really, that I was in the production by chance. Since it opened in London in 1979, that's nearly 30 years ago now, it has been seen all over the world. When people say theater is dead or what's the point of theater, well, in its quiet and loud way, it has changed people's attitudes. We knew very little about the pink triangles. And for a time the pink triangle became a badge of pride before the rainbow flag, and we were all wearing pink triangles. Identifying ourselves with those unfortunates in the Third Reich. Now the world knows the truth that gay people were as badly, if not worse treated, than anybody else by the Nazis. It's had a huge, huge impact. But I guess the story is still worth telling, particularly since it's such a wonderful play and so theatrical.

AE: It makes a nice bookend to mark how the world was 30 years ago and how it is today.
IM: I can remember saying to Martin last night, when we were being interviewed [in 1979] by a gay journalist who didn't tell us he was gay, I, who was in the closet at the time, said “No, no, Bent isn't a gay play. It's about injustice [laughs] wherever it occurs.” Well, yes, but also, no. [Laughs.]

It's very much about the gay experience. What I like most about the play is the cunning way in which Martin presents the whole range of gay people. The innocent camp dancer. There is the worldly, wise, closeted hedonist. The closeted uncle who is frightened for his life and reputation. There is the gay sadist, as it were, in the Nazi uniform. Then there is the young boy at the beginning who gets his kicks by dressing up as a Nazi. Maybe it will look a bit dated now. I don't know.

But there in the center of it is the hero of the piece, really, who is Horst, the openly gay man who stands up for what is right and eventually, through love, has an impact on Max who goes the journey. And the last moment of the play is his coming-out. But Horst, I suppose, represents the more modern view of the way the world changes: by every person being honest and speaking up for themselves and thereby speaking up for everybody else.

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