Ian McKellen is an openly g– actor. He came out as g– in 1988 during a BBC Radio interview while opposing Section 28, a controversial UK law that prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities. In a recent interview, he spoke about how renowned English actor Sir. Alec Guinness pleaded with him to stay away from political affairs.
McKellen was told to distance himself from LGBTQ+ rights group by late Star Wars actor
In an interview with The Guardian, Ian McKellen stated that Guinness once advised him not to publicly advocate for g– rights. As he recounted, the incident happened when the actor took him for lunch in Pimlico and pleaded with him to distance himself from Stonewall, an LGBTQ+ rights organization that was battling for equal legal protections for g– citizens at the time, claiming it was “unseemly” for an actor to “dabble” in politics.
“He took me for an Italian lunch in Pimlico,” McKellen said, adding, “He had heard about my work to establish Stonewall—a lobby group to present to the government and the world at large the case for treating U.K. lesbians and g— equally under the law with the rest of the population. He thought it somewhat unseemly for an actor to dabble in public or political affairs and advised me, sort of pleaded with me, to withdraw. Advice from an older generation, which I didn’t follow.”
Ultimately, he did not follow Guinness’ advice and went on to become a vocal advocate for g– rights. He further said that he was reminded of that encounter with the late Star Wars actor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original trilogy, after watching the touring play Two Halves of Guinness, a show based on the late actor’s life that “hints at Sir Alec’s latent bisexuality in a way that would have upset him, I suppose.”
In earlier interviews, McKellen had publicly spoken about the anxiety and fear many actors face about coming out publicly. He stated that he felt “sorry” for any celebrity who could not come out as g– publicly and wished they could listen to their “heart” and come out “into the sunshine.”
Perhaps the older generation faced the potential of backlash if they ever came out as g– openly, and that could have informed Guinness’ opinion during the encounter that the Lord of the Rings actor reminisced about. However, times have changed, and the world seems more open toward LGBTQ+ actors today. It also required courage from actors like McKellen to help bring both the entertainment industry and society overall to the more liberal outlook they find themselves in now.
