2004: In Conversation with Ian McKellen

In Conversation with Ian McKellen.  Talking Culture (interviewer Bille Brown) at the Sydney Festival, Theatre Royal, January 19.

    There were about 8 Gandalfs - stand-ins and even digitalised images - but the real Ian McKellen stood up before us, ending his conversation with an absolutely up-to-date speech about treating others with the respect that we would hope they would give us if we were to arrive unannounced in their country.  These were Shakespeare's words in the mouth of Sir Thomas More in a play mostly written by others and never performed.  The original manuscript -- the only handwritten Shakespeare speech extant - is in the British Museum.

    I had wondered how McKellen coped with the ersatz Shakespeare in Lord of the Rings.  The answer came in his story of a 14-year-old girl admirer.  He asked her how she, at Juliet's age, could accept him playing Romeo.  He was 37 at the time.  "Well," she said, "it's only a play."

    That humility about the actor's place was the key to appreciating Sir Ian's conversation with another actor, Bille Brown.  His empathetic connection with a full house at the Theatre Royal was so strong that he could joke about the stage actor's hatred of microphones.  "Fucking mikes" he exclaimed as pops, buzzes and electronic bangs reverberated around us.  A 1 hour event became almost 2.  The standing ovation almost made me late for my next show, Alibi, but this warmth of feeling was not to be missed.  The contrast at the Town Hall was painful (see Alibi review, CT ....).

    "I do have the facility," said McKellen in reply to a question about whether he plans to direct more plays or films, "as all actors have for seeing what's wrong with someone else's performance" and he admitted to being guilty, as others had said even when he refused a part, of "backing into the limelight again."  But Brown described a rehearsal exercise devised by McKellen where each character tells each other character what they really think about them.  This device ensures that each actor plays her or his character as if they are central to their scene and the whole play.  No matter how "minor" the role, all the actors play with an equal sense of importance.

    This creates true ensemble acting, for which McKellen is justifiably renowned.  In this vein, he praised NSW Premier Bob Carr for supporting Robyn Nevin's plans to create a permanent ensemble at Sydney Theatre Company, and begged the Sydney Festival to have a Fringe Festival where new performers can break in.  As he said, playing in 27 plays in a year in the old repertory theatres was the best training he had, but now it's much harder to get that kind of experience early in one's career.

    Towards the end of his long career,  McKellen finds it "very curious" that Gandalf is the part he is likely to be most remembered for.  Fame is inescapable.  When a woman in the street the day before made a double-take, asking "Are you Gandalf?" he promptly replied, "No, I'm not!" 

But I can say he is a genuine wizard on stage.

© Frank McKone, Canberra