Ian McKellen & Patrick Stewart | Interview pt 1 | TimesTalks

[Music] Patrick again thank you very much for being here you've done many interviews together over your your x-men years you've become close friends I'd love to know something a detail that you've learned about the other that maybe surprised you over time personally or professionally well the first thing that springs to mind could not be spoken of here but suffice it to say that we shared a dressing room for 22 weeks when we were first doing Waiting for Godot and indeed four weeks ago in Berkeley where we premiered our production of no man's land we shared a dressing room again and it is an intimate setting because not only are we undressing and dressing together but we're also bringing our stage life back into the room and that can at times be a little tense and a little strained but we do well don't I [Applause] Patrick - to the world consumer rather forgive me stern persona you know the man in charge man who knows how it's all going to work but of course the truth is he hasn't and is the little pussycat in the side patch which endears me and the times when we giggle together and sometimes have to hold on to each other say are we going to get through it you know and it's that's is that that gentle side of our friendship which people might surprise my hair I saw both of you is Macbeth and I won't how much how much of Macbeth is in either of you ER that's not a bad well I can assure you there's no Lady Macbeth in my life and my wife is in the audience okay we've never really discussed very I've seen your Macbeth and the demand it's hugely and I yours I well but we'll never actually talked about it have we we have not I wonder why okay so here's the offer you will invite us back and we will talk about nothing but our experiences on innocence however ian was in our production of Macbeth because one day we were rehearsing in the Royal Shakespeare Company's wrestle rooms in Clapham and I had heard that Trevor Nunn's production of King Lear starring Ian was rehearsing downstairs so I went in just to say hello and there was a strange atmosphere in the room and Ian Trevor Nunn's seemed distracted and then the stage manager said to me well we're in the middle of our first run-through and ian has disappeared we just taken a 10-minute break but he's gone somewhere and I went back out on to the street and saw several blocks away here and wandering up the street towards me you've got a got a Danish pastry or something and that's a kind of activity I entirely support that you should take a break in the middle of doing King Lear to buy a Danish pastry um anyway he said I write I've heard you're doing the Scottish play and I said yes right he said my dear just one thought tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow the important word is and and I understood what he was telling me instantly it was like a lamp went off in my head and I gave that line that emphasis for the next year or so and people continually commented the unusual reading and I continually of course gave you the credit for it thank you I was we brought that production of Lear to the Brooklyn Academy of Music when we had favorite theaters in this area and and King Lea as you know has a wonderful break and Shakespeare's very kind to his leading actors on the whole and and you get you get a 40-minute break but Italy with a modern intermission and I used to take the advantage of lying down more than that getting under the blankets on the sofa in the dressing and going fast asleep and ready to be woken up by the dresser but the dresser in Brooklyn wasn't familiar with the play or leave that with my habit of doing so poor Oh Gloucester and nebula were on stage waiting for King Lear to come back with the being old mad and nothing happening in the wings at all because King Lear was fast asleep in this dressing room that they were about to stop the show and say something dreadful had happened when they suddenly heard clomp clomp come to me did you have any sorry Ian does have one ability which I wish I could replicate you can fall asleep in and I mean you're looking at it that's exactly what happens you can be on the resolume floor a few pages go by and he hasn't had any dialogue it's so enviable you and Winston church I have I have I have fallen asleep on stage I mean once in the middle of speaking back in those Lear days or at other points in your career did you ever before you became such close friends did you ever have a little Envy for each other oh that's easy for me to answer yes I'm sure there was a little envy and admiration because ian was I quote no man's land was successful awfully early and I mean you were as I understand it you were a sort of a star at Cape in your university days this was a name to watch out for before he came into the theater I was still in the regions I was in the regions for years once you had become a recognized star British theater and I saw Ian work as a young actor he of course he still is but you can um you can take it from me that he was perhaps the most gorgeous young man on the British stage and that I envied yes because I was not well no but you were a starlet and I don't admire anybody more than a person who is the stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare coming devoted to the idea I'm doing great plays in an accessible way and devoting your life to it for very little money and an enormous amount of effort and sometimes pain and you were the model of that and when when I saw him do on a transfer from strapless theatre in London well I never want to see the play again because that was that was the performs act and I didn't come see you doing it recently for that reason I thought well I've seen you do it probably better was at this time runs I don't know different III had hair this time what stood out to you about that II and what do you recall well that he was absolutely believed Amanda who was playing it from his point of view the difficulty with the these great parts that so many people play before is that you tend to think that you've got to play it like everybody else has played there was a time and that Charlotte was thought to be the comic part and who wore a red wig and trying to get laughs no this R is a perfectly from his point of view reasonable man pained suffering and partly because of his own personality of course but so it was just a fully rounded character and not just someone who came on and pressed all the buttons that other actors are Perry P we both had seen Gielgud and Richardson do no-man's land in London how much how much of those performances in your memory now or have they been to give me the first line my first line and as it is as it is absolutely how did you you I couldn't get Gielgud out of my ear I could have the whole part exactly suited it and that that seems to be very much what spoolers like and I was for him and not for me but a dreadful wrench and I keep saying - Sean no Matthias our director was I being Gielgud today and no so that's all right but it's some it's some they're indelible performances really and but not for us to do how could we it would be ridiculous but it was for me a bit of a strain to forget that and concentrate on Pinter I think we're all right now but it's hard going I saw that original production three times in one week well I would have seen you 2/4 had I been able to afford it and I was overwhelmed by the play it the play is a masterpiece it has always been my favorite player Pintas which says a lot because he wrote one or two pretty good plays and I remember on one of those three occasions saying to myself and I left the theater one day one day I am going to do this play of course I think like all that as I imagined I would play Spooner because Spooner is the showi role he it's a very it's a very funny role and and he talks a very great deal but then it was only when we were sharing a dressing I'm doing ways he forgot oh four years ago and as I was getting to know Ian better and better and working with him it became clear to me that the role spoon had not been written for John Gielgud at all but had been written for Ian McKellen and although Ian genuinely was troubled by the idea that he would could only give an impersonation of Sir John in fact it's it's nothing like that at all I have one line when I deliberately copy sir Ralph because he had also I see them both on stage was wonderful because they were so distinctive in their style and manner I have one line I say um God Lord video really I say which is echo of how the wonderful Ralph Richardson they had the distinction those two actors of turning down the first English production of Waiting for Godot really why well they couldn't understand a word of it I suppose but it wasn't a sort of play they were used to and that that's why the play was in many areas reviled by it was too different too difficult therefore but the the the young director who had asked them was Peter Hall so when I think it would be about 20 years later the same director asked the same two actors to be in another new and difficult play Pinter's no-man's land they both him English said yes yes not knowing that they were in from having one of the greatest triumphs of their of their careers together but I think it was because they turned down God oh that they they said yes to no Muslim [Music]

Channel: New York Times Events

Views: 149,040

Rating: 4.9446468 out of 5

Keywords: Ian McKellen, Ian McKellen interview, Patrick Stewart, Patrick Stewart interview, X-Men, X-Men interview, Magneto, Professor X, Professor Xavier, No Man's Land, Waiting for Godot, TimesTalks, Times Talks, The New York Times, NYTimes, NYT

Id: rZ5xdq2qd-Y

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/RousingRabble]

The first part is ~13 minutes long, but there are five parts.

[u/randonymous]

Can't believe I missed them in Berkeley. Such wonderful characters they are. A fun little interview.