Sir Ian McKellen | Full Address and Q&A | Oxford Union

[Music] [Music] this case is yours alright thank you very much oh very nice to be back first openly gay president of the Oxford Union [Applause] that's happened since I was here that but some of you who are more savvy with the internet than I will perhaps be surprised that I'm here because according to the internet I died last week dead from cardiac arrest I heard about this I it also says that I'm going to be the next James Bond oh and I've announced my retirement and my dog is recovering from surgery and that I've asked people to pray for him well I love dogs but I'm an atheist that's oh and my girlfriend is pregnant and for the second year running and the sexiest actor alive [Applause] then it says update this story seems to be false never mind what else does it say about me oh I'm going to be time man of the year you know on the cover of Time magazine and my favorite is that I am the richest actor in the world now let me find this because yes I'm I have assets of a hundred and eighty three million pounds I have my own football team what else do I have oh yes I have a sorry I told you I'm not very good at this but it amuses me I will stop it in a minute oh dear well is it that I wanted to read it to you no sexiest natural life yes oh yes we are McKellen is the highest-paid actor in the world with an estimated net worth of 185 million he owes his fortune to smart stock investments substantial substantial property holdings lucrative endorsement deals with covergirl cosmetics he also owns several restaurants the fat mckellen burger chain he's launched his own brand of vodka pure wonder mckenna in the UK and is tackling the juniors market with the top-selling perfume with love from ian and a fashion line called a fashion line called ian mckellen seduction I was wondering what to say to you so I looked at the last time I was here and it's all on it's all on YouTube thanks to the the unions modernity and a talk for 40 minutes about here without notes and I'm absolutely brilliant that there's hardly any point in me coming back so if you want to know what I would like to say just have a look at that it's all that so this time I think have you explained what we might do what that you're talking for yes I'm going to talk to you for a bit and then we're going to have a little conversation and then I hope we'll have a conversation and that's probably better because I can get to actually answer questions that you would like to have answered what have I been doing since I was last with you much of the same really I just played King Lear this is real the Gandalf beard of course was not didn't to everybody in Lord of the Rings wore a wig all those thousands of people and they ought they all wore a artificial hair and that was the big bore of doing playing Gandalf really as I had to go in very early and have everything stuck on NIT it's badly as this does actually I don't recommend a beard I hope they don't come back into fashion this is going quite soon it depends whether we transfer our production or not from church Esther yes so I've been acting a little bit I decided not to write my autobiography I put nine months aside to do it but I got so upset when I was writing about my parents before I was born imagining their life just before the Second World War and there in the in South Lancashire where I was born eventually I'm wondering whether they discussed did we want to bring another baby into the world just as it's about to change and there's about to be a second world war I'd never asked them you know someone was just saying what advice would you have to someone at the outset of their careers I think talk to your parents find out what they were like when they were your age it may seem odd thing to do now but you'll regret it if you don't eventually you'll want to look back and they won't be here to answer the questions talk to your grandparents I find out things that if you get to my age you will never be able to discover because everyone will have died so take advantage of them being alive now so I then eventually decided not to write the autobiography because I I got syrup on behalf of my dear mother who died when she was 42 and my dad when he was when I was 24 oh it's a big regret of my life I didn't have a proper relationship with them as an adult you know never came out to them never gave my dad the chance to say that's okay give me a hug and that's why I spent a lot of time with young people in schools I've just been to the Oxford High School for Girls this afternoon the whole school turned out there in three holes that they were having a relay system so talking to the 11-year olds up to the 18 year olds they were all there and their teachers around the site and the governors and some parents came along and all I did was talk about what had been like growing up and the sort of school I went to and how lucky they were to be living in a country with the best laws with regard to gay people I think anywhere in the world and so I enjoyed doing that frankly which is not acting it's performing but it's not acting as much as I do pretending to be somebody else on screen or on stage although I'll let you into a secret I discovered something in King Lear which is I'm going to have to develop in some way and in other plays I think it's expected in these post-freudian days that we live in that actors will following the method delve into the backstory of the character you know now it's an odd thing to do that research because Shakespeare wouldn't have known what you meant by character the play just happened the action just happened and to delve into the past isn't very helpful I mean King Lear why did he not have his first daughter until he was 40 years old you might ask why did he have his second daughter when he was 60 years old they couldn't have had the same mother oh he had two wives who are they what they called what would they like don't know I used to wear two wedding rings for the observant but it's no help if you're playing King Lear to know it had to what it's nothing to do with the story and I think what's a good way of approaching Shakespeare whether you're studying him reading him or acting in him or all going to see him in the theater is to say once upon the time there was an old king and he had three daughters and he loved one best of all and he decided to retire and he divided the kingdom into three and it all went wrong so always in shakes when you're looking to the next scene you're always moving forward you're moving to the end of the line and looking back is no help to anybody so this time for the first time in my life I didn't think what sort of person is King Lear does he have a limp what's his heart like what's his favorite food these are sort of questions often asking the audience never get to know the answers but I know them so it sort of comforts me that I'm being real but I decided on this occasion not to be real but to say the lines that's all and you know if you say the lines and live in the moment and don't say to yourself why am I saying this but rather how am I saying it and will people understand it there are my curious that's the interesting thing okay from the suggestion the director maybe said surprise yourself don't know which is the normal method the inevitability of doing what you do because you know the backstory surprised yourself and it really worked and it allowed the audience to write the play oddly and people said to me I loved the moment where you remembered your fool the dead fool King Mia's best friend at the beginning of the play who vanishes halfway through what do you mean and they referred to something that I'd done that didn't mean that to me but did to them in other words they'd written the play a little bit and there was a heightened attention from the ordinance that I hadn't noticed before minded we were doing it in a small theatre half the size of this debating chamber so I just passed that up that's how I play King Lear and I had some of the best reviews of my life for acting but I wasn't acting really I was just saying the lines so I'm going to try and do more of that and I don't know whether it would work with lesser writers it probably wouldn't often with plays if they're not bad Shakespeare or by Anton Chekhov yeah the actors are often having to fill in the few of the gaps you know lead the audience over the chasms of nonsense that lesser playwrights land you with but as I have said before and I often have that when I die it's good to say on my tombstone here lies Gandalf he came out I'm known as Gandalf but I think of myself as as a gay man perhaps because I didn't come out till I was 49 49 Jesus couldn't happen today could it well I hope to no one in this room don't wait come on get it out be honest be open tell everybody run up the flag I'm gay or I'm lesbian or I'm bi I don't care what you are but I think we only have labels because other people give labels you know when I was when I was a kid if anyone noticed me at all or my kind they were that point queer not a very nice word not for a young person to cope with queer what can you do about it [Music] I was talking to some school in Brighton naturally first question I always ask well to go to the school ask the head teacher they sometimes get a bit alarmed how many openig a members of staff do you have this very confident head teacher said forty-three oh I want to go to that school well I did and I said no how many openly gay students have you got 125 a hundred and twenty-five kids know what they are oh yeah oh my god what a way to start your life but talking to a little group afterward I was sitting opposite a tough little girl a boy called Finn sure hair jeans sneakers and apparently six months before he'd been a tough little girl called Fidan he was going through that journey health gender identification and dragging the whole school with him well how much better is their lives going to be when they know you know in their early teens that they have a friend like that this is the new United Kingdom that I could not have imagined when I was at school where to be gay was to be well it was a word we didn't know to be queer was to be ostracized and therefore not never to be talked about my best friend at school was gay and never found that 235 years later then there's the boy am i left at this little meeting George 15 or 16 he said what you do if your mummy is lesbian and yesterday yesterday your daddy's says that he's gay who I said it'll be all right George and they will because he could talk about it that's what the teacher said to him well done George we'll talk about that later and then there were three girls am i right tough little sassy sixteen year old just out of uniform yeah and the one in the middle said man look here I'm talking about on behalf of these two we're by good but she said look if I'm a fine with my boyfriend presumably I'm straight I might and then I found with a girlfriend presume I'm lesbian we don't want these labels and a light went on in my head of course either do we have labels the only label Olivos needs is our name we don't need labels really LGBTQ q hi when is it going to stop don't have labels we're just people don't make any assumptions even if you see gay on the label or queer or other don't make any assumptions of that'll be the same next week people may change they may want to identify themselves in another way I'll behave in another way yeah that's what life's about finding out that's now my message to school get rid of the labels well I get so excited to be British because it's our country that have some of the best laws in the land protecting the rights of everybody to be whatever they are and put whatever label they want and not to be discriminated yet it's against the law to discriminate against people on grounds of sexuality in a statement to in school bullying on those grounds is illegal has to be dealt with and teachers who spent a whole generation of their career following the obscene rules of section 28 which said you may not discuss sexuality positively in a statement in school that past now we've not quite got there anyone from Northern Ireland here well you can't get married in Northern Ireland if you're gay haven't quite got there yeah and one of the political parties who resisted changing the laws they should have done because the DUP and without the DUP our present government wouldn't be in charge so don't look to Northern Ireland for immediate advance for gay people but with the exception of that our laws are superior to any others that I know and attitudes are changing with them of course gay people are still bullied in private and in public places they have acid thrown in their faces they get tripped up they do an extreme cases get killed but on the whole you can't say anything anti-gay in a public place without being reprimanded quite right yet you go around the world Russia under Putin with the encouragement of the Orthodox Church there who have been so repressed for so long and the communism that now they want nothing more than to repress other people's lives have passed it a law which could was well be called section 28 because it has exactly the same wording and makes it illegal throughout Russia to speak positively about homosexuality in the hearing of anyone under the age of 18 so the law of the land in Russia is that young people should be kept ignorant about the real world kept ignorant about themselves include about the sexuality of their brothers their sisters their aunts their uncles their friends people in high places people in low places people probably running the bloody Orthodox Church they've gone back into the Middle Ages don't let anyone tell you Putin is a good strong leader strong maybe good I just got back from India they're trying to change the law which disadvantages gay people and says that so really in Syria and we shouldn't be allowed to do certain jobs and so on some some and some politicians in mckellen don't come over to us and tell us how to run our country we have our own in Indian laws and don't come over with your Western attitude in you say no it's not your law it's a law that the British Empire imposed on you and left behind before they Empire there were no anti-gay laws in India we introduced them I said I've come here to apologize and take it back and that's that's true of African countries too they're defending the bad law that we left behind supported by the local churches Oh which make it so difficult for the poor ole Anglican Church sitting in Lambeth to do what of course it would longs to do which is to accept gay people into his fold can't because of the pressures from the Anglican Communion in Africa and elsewhere same sort of pressures I suspect on the Pope if he were inclined to change the teachings of his church but I was just asked earlier what was the what was the most the best moment in my life or something well I'll tell you about one of them it was in South Africa Nelson Mandela had not long been out of prison and he'd been appointed voted in as president of the New Republic of South Africa after years of apartheid and the old treatment of and discrimination against black people well now they had their own president and a new constitution was due and there was a committee formed to try and get pushed into the Constitution a law which would say it would be against the law to discriminate against our on the grounds of sexuality and they needed a bit of money to to do their campaign and I went over and I was doing a one-man show to raise a few funds and one day the organizer said would you go and Lobby the president what would I go to Johannesburg on my day off and talk to Nelson Mandela about non-discrimination [Laughter] well I said not on my own I won't know so I went with prams areum tetras a wonderful black law student at bits University and a friend now dead alas the late Simon and Coley who'd be the freedom fighter under the direction of the ANC but was an openly gay young man and the three of us went to Johannesburg and we were invited to leave our guns had the reception desk and in their live ammunition we had with us and that we went in the elevator and we were told the president would see us and then we went it was shocking how old he was and the hair was White's now half blind in one eye they digging the lime in ROM Robben Island his ankles went of their best but he was wearing lovely striped socks I remember bit of a dandy come in come in sit down we talked about the weather I've been warned that he might start giggling once we talked about homosexuality because he found the whole subject a bit funny of that generation but I read suit we got around to talking about it and explained about it I said so to think when we leave the meeting we can tell the media that you support this new law of no discrimination against gay people in the Constitution he said of course of course you don't spend all your life you don't pick up arms you don't stay in prison for 27 years in support of the idea that white people and black people should be treated the same and then say of gay people that they should be treated differently of course not and that was my little contribution to history because South Africa is the first country in the world having in its constitution that you may not discriminate on grounds of sexuality out of the misery of apartheid okay that hope and that beacon for change which the rest of us are gradually getting around South Africa was their first and you know in the darkest days when everything seems impossible when you think can it ever get better yeah it can it can but it takes time our Foreign Office it's terribly good I've just been staying with the Ambassador 47 year old single woman straight in Rome and she had a reception for me there she invited local gay activists and we we spoke about this and that the future conducted by our ambassador on our behalf because one of the things she's most proud of and can sell Britain on is not our politics but our acceptance of difference acceptance celebration of diversity and it's part of her job to sell our country on those on those grounds so I know I'm Pollyanna I think it's always good it's always going to be better but I think on the evidence it is firstly thank you so much in for joining us at the Oscar Union again I must say your shoelaces are fantastic I'm gonna get some but you know what they are they're they're they're freedom laces you get them on the Stonewall website that they're very long that's why they're double knotted because they're actually a football boot laces and members of the FA once you encourage their football players to support the idea of diversity by wearing them when they're playing the irony of course is that there isn't yet a player in the Premier League who's found able to come out amazing not a single football player in this country out and why well they're frightened of the front of the reaction from the from the fans better to keep their head down now they're frightened that they won't be allowed to and heed us won't sponsor them anymore when I've news good news for them the first gay player who comes out will become the most famous player in the world and every single sports company will be begging him to respond sir they're to to to wear their clothes but in the meantime they're scared for the same reason that members of parliament used to be scared oh I'll never get reelected yes you will actors oh I'll never be allowed to have a film career yes you mentioned that fear about coming out as gay and actually I think where we've seen a shift is that people coming out certainly I think in our generation is not they're not necessarily fearful of being discriminated against right what the fear is is you have a perception that you've grown up with you're automatically assumed straight until you say otherwise and if you get to 16 and you've always been assumed say straight then you've you've adopted that perception the fear is saying to your friends I'm not what you and I probably convinced you to be I'm not actually as straight you might even do things that would suggest that you're straight when actually you know deep down you're gay so alright that's certainly my experience so I don't know then probably as our people out there who have a similar fear what would you say and how would you overcome that you might have some news for your friends that would surprise them about the sorts you know I'm going to live in America I'm going to get a job or I don't get paid much money because it's something I really want to do oh really I'm gay yep so am i and if they don't like it get some new friends plenty of plenty of friends out there what I think the difference is that where is saying oh I'm going to America people actually say I'm straight if anyone asks until they have they themselves come to decide I'm going to come out now and so having said to find this that you're still having to come out yeah yeah they make that yeah they make the assumption well that's that will go on for the rest of your life so you can't run up the flag on the flagpole I am gay no not enough people see it yeah yeah you have to keep saying it I was coming here but three of the morning in a cab the other day Oh what's the worst sitting in the back and the cabbie recognized we said that Larry any hello yes he said I've always been many to ask you have you got any grandchildren oh do I have to start explaining to a black cab driver that no I don't have any grandchildren because I don't have any children because I'm gay and when I was a might have had children it was illegal to be for me to have children and others am I going to come out to this cab driver at 3 o'clock in the morning because I don't know what the reacts was going to be but I plucked up my courage and said no mate sorry no I don't have grandchildren I don't have children because I'm gay and he said yes so am I so I don't know life is more unexpected than you'd think you can well maybe if you just wear these shoelaces all the time I wear a scarf that's rainbow coloured just yeah you you obviously it's quite clear from just what are you spoken about this evening and just anyone who's looked you up that your focus in terms your activism is on LGBTQ activism but you you do support a lot of causes that aren't to do with sexuality right yeah yeah I can name a couple but you what was it that was it just because you're gay that that was the reason you focused on LGBT activism in particular because there are so many other causes that are just as important in my opinion but you know in my time I have gone on marches against v80 on theater ticket prices one of the nonsenses in our country is that if you want to read Shakespeare you don't have to pay v80 if you want to see him in the theater you have to pay every eighty that's a bit of a course I've walked on anti-nuclear marches I've written to my MP on various matters I'm a vegetarian I yeah on the whole vote Labour I'm a pacifist on the whole I would refuse to serve in the Armed Forces if it was a requirement but I don't go on about those things very much except private then to my friends the only two issues that I really talk about are on about the business of acting and and related matters and being gay I think that's enough for me because I can speak with authority you can't tell me I'm wrong on gay stuff I'm right and and they're very very very few things in my life where I can say yes this is it I can't decide whether to have a boiled egg or scrambled it you know but on gay stuff I know I'm right so I think that's my contribution my where my experiences is valid and elsewhere I think well my opinions as good as anybody else is really one thing I I have to ask your opinion on recently Kevin Spacey revealed that he was gay but did so in and what a lot of people have criticizes is bad circumstances what do you think of the way that Kevin Spacey came out as gay and and how can other celebrities avoid doing what he did it's not something I want to talk about in public it's a it's a complicated issue I I've worked for Kevin Spacey when he was running the the Old Vic and I was in pantomime there I think it's a matter of celebration when anybody comes out because their life is going to be better but the circumstances in which you chose to do it are I suppose you could say reprehensible because it linked alleged underage sex with our declaration of sexuality and that's murky and not desirable but otherwise I really don't to comment because I don't think anything I could say could improve the matter for him or for anyone who says that he was a victim it's my understanding that last time you were here a student stood up friends either side and came out as gay everyone which which when I heard I didn't get in when I heard that happened I thought was fantastic and I actually thought there must be quite a few moments through whenever you're giving presentations at schools or similar presentations such as this where you are brimming a pride and you see that I wonder if you have any particular moments in my that you remember sort of those create just acts happening if anyone wants this of knowledge you know that there was an evangelical preacher called Billy Graham and and he used to pitch his tent around the world and and invite people to give themselves to Christ by coming forward and they would they would raise the temperature with choir singing and everyone's swaying and and he said come and give yourself to Jesus and they would come forward and once there they would be given the local church to go to and they would be saved to see where and I've often thought it'd be a great idea to go around the country with the coming out gay tent and Elton and I in Clare Balding wood over there the front say come on come out come out and people would come forward and of course once they've done that they couldn't go back in we'd have got them for life and that was at a time when it was important for people to come out because we wanted to show the rest of the country that there were a lot of us and there was a time that there only seemed to be about ten gay people in this country and I didn't get to meet all of them and but I was at a school and I was saying you know there's not a single member of staff who's out and and why because like the footballer who's frightened of the reaction of the of the fans like the MP who thinks he or she will never get another never get elected back into Parliament they're frightened of what the students will think they think their authority will go they think you'll laugh at them and at that point a young man a young man put his hand up at the back I thought he was a student but no he was a young teacher he said he said I teach here and I'm gay there was that silence and they all turned around and they started to clap and cheer and his life will never be the same again and nor will that school and I don't think you have any problem at all that was that was thrilling he was obviously ready he was ready and and the event just pushed him over into joining the human race really that's wonderful I don't want to take up too much time asking questions I know how many people in here and I guess they already asked about acting and probably Lord the Rings as well so I'll leave the questions then so now gonna open up to the audience for questions if you have a question raise your hand nice and high more importantly wait until the microphone comes to you yeah let's start with you in the purple scarf yeah hi it's an honor I do want to say I guess it happened last time but I am bisexual and I think it's the first time ever set it in public so um my question to you is a little bit more serious I know you didn't want to speak about Kevin Spacey which makes absolute sense cuz you worked with him and it's such a complicated situation but I do you know you're an actor you've been in the business for a very very long time and I've you know Oh you're you're an absolute legend but um the wave you know of allegations that have come out you know women and men coming forward and you know talking about how Hollywood is a very insidious place with full of sexual violence I wonder if you had any comments about that you know about the Weinstein scandal and about all these other out you know directors and actors as well but there's anything you really would like to say of course people taking advantage of their power is absolutely reprehensible wherever it happens within the family father in this children awful lot of that not thank goodness in my family in the workplace doesn't have to be the theater doesn't have to be Hollywood they could but the local shop that can be Parliament so it will do wherever it happens and people must be called out and it's pretty really sometimes very difficult for victims to do that and I know what's particularly painful to some people who were abused I didn't talk about it and never got it out of their system and feel it maybe decades later when they read about abuse in the newspaper it all comes flooding back and scientists will tell you that that their books are full of people who are hurt by revelations of other people's experience I hope we're going through a period which will sort of help to eradicate it altogether but just about anything from my own experience when I was starting acting in nineteen in nineteen sixties the the director of the theater I was working at showed with some left some photographs he got from women who were wanting jobs they were actors and some of them had I think these were the initials at the bottom of their photograph d ah ah d are our directors rights respected in otherwise if you give me a job you can have sex with me that was commonplace from people who proposed that they should be a victim of a madness D are our directors rights respected so people have taken advantage of that and encouraged it and it absolutely will not do I I just assume nothing but good can come out of these revelations even though some people of course get wrongly accused that there's that side of it as well honesty honesty honesty hmm anyway congratulations hello thank you thank you yeah let's go to you in the doc doc hair yeah hi sir Ian hello um throughout your acting career you've brought many wonderful characters to life from Gandalf - my personal favorite being Macbeth and I was wondering which one of these characters you've played has been your favorite or the one that's you know always that the part it's the play it's the production it's the filming it's the other people who were in it it's the stuff that you learnt about yourself and about the character you know and if I say that that that production of Macbeth with Judi Dench that came out of the Royal Shakespeare Company and you can still get on the DVD I don't get any money out of it 1976 we did that I would think that's one of the things I'm most proud of but not because I like the character of Macbeth that's all but you know I'm extremely lucky I suppose I've played about 250 or so parts and only two of those jobs do I regret I learnt something from all of them and that's been always been the basis of what I wanted to do it in picking apart that will I learn anything from it can I get better as an actor I just had that revelation I was telling you about with the with King Lear yeah Macbeth will do and gods and monsters for a film that if you don't know that I do recommend it but very good film about Hollywood in the 1930s yeah yeah let's go to you in the very back of the purple jacket yeah just wait for the microphone hello Sir Ian and I was wondering if you had any advice for somebody wanting to go into a career in theatre or the Performing Arts but perhaps has a degree or doctorate and something completely irrelevant I got advice I wanted to act no oh dear no not really because I don't I don't know you I don't know the person you might be talking about but I didn't go to drama school others did I learnt on the job others learnt the their techniques in an academic way I don't know I think you have to two things I could recommend is to look at other people's acting particularly the company of a like-minded friend if you're gonna go and see something at the Playhouse here and then work out afterwards why it was rubbish or why it wasn't and if you can't afford the theatre go to the movies if you can't afford the movies watch TV together why is she so good how's that achieved well you can freeze frame and talk about it and learn hugely and equally from a performance you don't think it's any good and if you don't fancy doing that we're just sitting on a bus and look at people because I let you into a secret all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players they say they're all acting that's what human beings do and Shakespeare knew that life's but a walking shadow Macbeth says life is but a walking shadow as a phrase administered at walking gentlemen it is it's a person who plays odd little parts life's not even a walking gentleman life's a walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage that's what life is he's constantly used using that metaphor Shakespeare it says it's one big gift to us is to define us as actors because animals don't act a leopard could change its spots but it's still a leopard that's the point and we we when you got up this morning you decided what costume you would wear or should I dress up oh no I'm going to a lecture well no I'll dress down but then I'd like to wear something tonight I'll take a little back with what a costume innit how should I have my hair it's all didn't you find I did when I was at school I spoke with a different accent at school because the boys had a stronger northern accent than we used at home there is language that you will use with your friends you wouldn't dream of using in front of your grandmother you're able we are so adept at being different because we keep showing different sides a little bit of ourselves and the only person who ever gets to know you really well is the one you love with whom you do not act or rather you act together and I that bitter philosophy comes directly from Shakespeare so studying acting in order to become a professional actor you're doing in him intensely human activity that's uh that's why we like actors they're so human and frail Oh please don't fall over and out yeah let's go to you hi thank you for coming this evening I have a question about Lord of the Rings it was gonna come off eventually my question is Lord of the Rings is so huge and it's one of the most famous roles you've ever played what do you think it is about Lord of the Rings that makes it so popular and why it speaks to so many people what is it about Lord the Rings that makes it so popular well a local author well-done Oxford one of the reasons I didn't write my autobiography was because I couldn't work out who I was going to write it for if I put RSC he would my reader know that was the Royal Shakespeare Company and if they didn't how was I going to start explaining what the Royal Shakespeare Company was who founded it why where it was who is Shakespeare oh my god where do you stop it began with the Hobbit didn't he Tolkien and he knew who he was writing for he's writing for his children his son and I think you can tell that not just in the Hobbit but in the in the sequel the greater book Lord of the Rings the adventure is one that he knows is going to appeal to his young reader and it has such an impact on a young reader or on a young viewer of the firm's that it stays stays with them and the end and enriches itself aiiiii Tolkien is a wonderful writer and and he's as adept as Charles Dickens I think in sketching out a scene he can with the minimum of words tell you where you are and you may be similar absolutely fantastic whether that's achieved in the films is up to you to judge but I suppose it is that it's all about life and a view of life and the a concern for good and evil how could that not be engaging it seems to be about something that matters and yet it's in a strange world that is familiar in other words I don't know or come to you hello firstly as a gay South African I'd like to thank you for speaking to our former president because I've been quite different otherwise my question is simple but somewhat personal do you still have your tattoo from the Lord of the Rings films oh yeah God shit I still have my tattoo well you can't have it but you can have a tattoo removed can you well I'm not going to show you now it's this it's just that all the members of the fellowship nine of us went went down to a tattoo artists in Cuba Street in Wellington there are a number of them a lot of tattoos go on in New Zealand Maori particular love look gorgeous we just had the word for nine in elvish I don't know what that word is actually and and and when I look at it infrequently it's upside down and it seems to spell Gucci and of course I do know what Gucci means because I have this chain of fashion houses without whereabouts in South Africa jonesburg I'm gonna have Christmas in Cape Town either okay thank you for that question yeah that's good to you yeah yeah yeah if you just wait for the mic you just wait for the microphone what is it I was I was looking at this person just behind the blonde girl in that corner yeah stand up it's just on oh yeah thank you for coming this evening and I was wondering you've talked about this wide variety of roles that you've had you've done but is there any role that you really want to play in the future or that you'd like to actually revisit with a new perspective mm-hmm no I've now I've never had a list I mean some people say I want to play Napoleon do you well yeah I have played Napoleon actually and their little play by Bennett sure but Napoleon was a young man well it depends who's written it doesn't it I want to be in a great movie about an opponent yeah but that's though it would be different no there are a few parts I wish I had to play it which is too late now sorry I've always thought I'd make a rather good Mercutio and it's not too late because minutiae hangs about with the lads and is pretty disparaging about women I think he could be played as a rather bitter old queen and unfortunately my own mate derek jacobi got there first he's just played him as exactly that in Ken brana's production in the West End sir I've missed my chance for that well King Lear I wanted to do again and I have just done it no the thing I most want to do next is what I've always wanted to do it is a new piece of work and every film you do is a new piece of work because on the whole films are always new scripts but if someone could write me a wonderful play not not a one-man show yeah I don't have I don't have much time left you know and I don't know if you can you imagine what that's like people don't warn you about getting old they don't warn you that when you get to my age you talk about death as I've started to do as I would do if I were in the company of people of my age how are you can't see any more worried about where you're going to live anyone got anyone to look after you and then I came to do King Lear for the second time in real life King Lear never stopped saying I'm old man he is he's 80 odd I'm old and when you're old you think who who has not much future after the what am I going to do so it would be good for me to think about what I would like to do because it would keep that part of me young sorry to be a depressing but this it's a fact death is a fact of life it's gonna happen you don't believe it do you and as someone said to me is it true that the first person to live to the age of 200 is already alive ah why the hell would you want to be 200 but yeah of course what you want to do when you when you're old is being the company of young people because inside you feel the same really it's so odd when you look in the mirror who how's that but I'm full one you'd think I was juggling yeah I'm not we had some water denied one or two more let's go hello thank you for speaking to us tonight so um my question slightly different so now that you're roughly 11 months out from the last airing of vicious which was a rather different role and somewhat relates to your own life how do you feel about it do you think it was important also just that the times internationally that we're having like did you know who knows what vicious is not many it was a sitcom that Jacobi an actor of my age and experience did for a commercial television here but we did three seasons or two two and a half and we were lambasted because it was it was thought as we were playing two gay men and rather caricature characters that we were somehow falling into the old habit of mocking gay people as if Derek and I do that ridiculous and they missed the point that we were wanting it to look like an old sitcom but those two old men who'd lived together for fifty years and come through a rather heroic in my view they were quite open about their sexuality in the stories they may have spoken absolutely horribly to each other and been disgusting to women and and and young women at that and and and have very limited views of life in general but they were survivors and how could you not like them that's what I felt but we both found it difficult to do it being performing for television in front of a live audience is what you do with the sitcom because when Derek and I stage actors smell an audience we can't wait to start acting for them and that not required on television which is the cameras are very close so I think we both felt that we'd be done enough and that enjoyed it and I remember we used to talk to the audience in between the filming and of about 500 people I don't know where they came from but they did and and I used to ask them each week I said up those stairs there's a bedroom the counters keep going to it a bedroom and in the bedroom there is one two single beds or one double bed now this is a story about 270 year old man universally every week everybody said it's a double bed in other words they imagined that these two sub-zero's were having sex and I thought well that's pretty modern it's always been a fact of life but it's not something that people would admit or certainly not on prime-time television in their sitcom and one night after it was over it we came out took our boughs and I said I just want to tell you that across the Thames in the House of Commons whilst you were watching vicious tonight it became legal for gay men and women to marry each other well that audience bless the hearts they stood up and cheered and you throw these things into the mix and are we ending now one more one more all right gonna pick this one make it a good one who's got the best question you choose yeah you're very keen yeah yeah anything hello hello and I'm another northerner so yes very nice and it's just a sort of all the wigs and costumes you've worn which was the best and which was the most uncomfortable horrible just random thoughts very thought out there that's a good question Sammy I'm good I'm gonna have to think about this one which is the most uncomfortable costume Oh Magneto so areas all little bits and they all stuck together and okay you could hardly walk on moving them dreadful helmet silly looking helmet Eric Gandalf fancy-free you know just just flowing around but I wonder if you noticed in occasionally when the skirt blew in the wind that you could see there mistakable shape of a book which was the three-volume edition of Lord of the Rings which I always kept in the costume to refer to and say to Peter Jackson I've just been reading through the scene we're going to do today they're few lines of Gandalf that have been cut here well I've done it once do this right now I I say to the the children it would be true of you you know if you have when you have examinations you have to work very hard for them you have to prepare for them you have to do your revision for them you have to take them seriously it's going to change your life if it all works out but if you don't do your revision if you don't work [Applause] the thing is if you look in the book he never says that life he says you cannot pass I got it wrong and it doesn't matter but here's a speech that does matter and it's by Shakespeare and it's a precious speech personally and for you too because it's from a play that he helped to write it's an oddity people forget that in Elizabethan times plays were written often by a group of authors and together with other Shakespeare wrote a play called Sir Thomas More about the Catholic martyr and it was never performed in his lifetime nor for centuries afters until 1964 the quite a centenary of shakespeare's birth when I got to play Thomas More so you're looking at the last actor who will ever be able to say I created a part by William Shakespeare that's the personal side the the general interesting thing is that a copy of this speech I'm going to do for you in Shakespeare's own handwriting is in the British Museum or is it a British Library one of the other it's on permanent display it should be it's the only example of a Shakespeare text in his handwriting and it's this speech and it's all about what we've been mainly talking about today that there's a riot in London 16th century end of the eighth and it's the young apprentices mainly who are out on the streets and they're complaining about the immigrants in London taking our jobs they call them strangers and they're causing a fuss and Thomas More a lawyer is sent out to put it right Bank down the riot made a riots and he does it in two ways by telling them that you can't you can't have a you can't shout like that de public you can't cause a disturbance you can't be violent it's against the law and then being biased Shakespeare he says and you can't do it because be humane so if someone in the crowd shouts that the strangers should be removed and Thomas More says grab them removed and grab that this your noise have cheered down all the majesty of England imagine that you see the wretched strangers their babies at their backs with their poor luggage plodding to the ports and coast for transportation and that you sit as kings in your desires Authority quite silenced by your brawl and you in rough of your opinions clothed what did you got you had taught how insolence and strong hand should prevail how order should be quelled and by this pattern not one of you should live an aged man for other ruffians as their fancies wrought with so same hands of reason and self right would shark on you and men like ravenous fishes feed on one another you put down strangers kill them cut their throats and lead the majesty of law in lyon to slip him like a Hondo desperate as you are wash your foul minds with tears and those same hands that you'd like rebels lift against the peace lift up for peace and your own reverent knees make them your feets to kneel to be forgiven say uh the King as he is Clement if the offender moon should so much come too short of your great trespass as but to ban issue with the would you go what country by the nature of your error should give you harbour go you to France or Flanders to any German province Spain or Portugal nay anywhere that not adheres to England y-you must needs be strangers would you be pleased to find a nation of such barbarous temper that breaking out in hideous violence would not afford you an abode on earth wets their detested knives against your throats spurn you like dogs and like as if God owns not nor maid not you know that the elements were not all appropriate to your comfort but charted unto them what would you think to be thus used this is the strangest case and this your montanus inhumanity thank you [Applause] you

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 424,744

Rating: 4.8732848 out of 5

Keywords: Oxford, Union, Oxford Union, Oxford Union Society, debate, debating, The Oxford Union, Oxford University, ian mckellen, sir ian mckellen, lord of the rings, actor, british actor, gandalf, magneto, x men, patron of oxford pride, stonewall

Id: oVH0nM4_IaU

Length: 74min 40sec (4480 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2017