Skip to content
  1. Home
  2. Ian McKellen

Ian McKellen

Known for: Acting

Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He has played roles on the screen and stage in genres ranging from Shakespearean dramas and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. He is regarded as a British cultural icon and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. He has received numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, six Olivier Awards, and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards and five Emmy Awards. McKellen made his stage debut in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre as a member of its repertory company, and in 1965 made his first West End appearance. In 1969, he was invited to join the Prospect Theatre Company to play the lead parts in Shakespeare's Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II. In the 1970s, McKellen became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain. He has earned five Olivier Awards for his roles in Pillars of the Community (1977), The Alchemist (1978), Bent (1979), Wild Honey (1984), and Richard III (1995). McKellen made his Broadway debut in The Promise (1965). He received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1980). He was further nominated for Ian McKellen: Acting Shakespeare (1984). He returned to Broadway in Wild Honey(1986), Dance of Death (1990), No Man's Land (2013), and Waiting for Godot (2013), the latter two being a joint production with Patrick Stewart. McKellen achieved worldwide fame for his film roles, including the titular King in Richard III (1995), James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), Magneto in the X-Men films, Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) trilogies. Other notable film roles include A Touch of Love (1969), Plenty (1985), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Restoration (1995), Flushed Away (2006), Mr. Holmes (2015), and The Good Liar (2019). McKellen came out as gay in 1988, and has since championed LGBT social movements worldwide. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in October 2014. McKellen is a cofounder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots. He is also patron of LGBT History Month, Pride London, Oxford Pride, GayGlos, LGBT Foundation and FFLAG. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ian McKellen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Filmography 71

The Golden Compass 2007Movie NetflixHBO Max as Iorek Byrnison (voice)
The Da Vinci Code 2006Movie as Sir Leigh Teabing
Flushed Away 2006Movie as The Toad (voice)
Ebenezer 2026Movie as Jacob Marley
The Shadow 1994Movie as Dr. Reinhardt Lane
Mr. Holmes 2015Movie as Sherlock Holmes
Cats 2019Movie as Gus, the Theatre Cat
Neverwas 2005Movie as Gabriel Finch
Vicious 2013TV show as Freddie Thornhill
Bent 1997Movie as Uncle Freddie
Animal Crackers 2018Movie Netflix as Horatio P. Huntington (voice)
The Keep 1983Movie as Dr. Theodore Cuza
Apt Pupil 1998Movie as Kurt Dussander
The Critic 2024Movie as Jimmy Erskine
Churchill 2003TV show as Self - Narrator (voice)
All Is True 2018Movie as Earl of Southampton
Asylum 2005Movie as Dr. Peter Cleave
Scandal 1989Movie as John Profumo
Swept from the Sea 1998Movie as Dr. James Kennedy
Doctor Who: The Snowmen 2012Movie as The Great Intelligence (voice)
Infinitum: Subject Unknown 2021Movie as Dr. Charles Marland-White
I'll Do Anything 1994Movie as John Earl McAlpine
Doogal 2006Movie as Zebedee (voice)
Eighteen 2005Movie as Jason Anders (voice)
The One Note Man 2023Movie as Narrator (voice)
David Macaulay: Roman City 1994Movie as Augustus Caesar (voice)
X-Men: The Last Stand 2006Movie as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto
X2 2003Movie FlixOlé as Eric Lehnsherr / Magneto