Ian McKellen Says 'Nothing Is Like the Fame' He Got from “X-Men” and “Lord of the Rings”, Even After Decades of Acting

Jack SmartWed, April 8, 2026 at 6:58 PM UTC

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Sir Ian McKellen in London on Feb. 13, 2026Credit: Simon Ackerman/Getty -

Sir Ian McKellen opened up about about his screen projects, including intimate new drama The Christophers, in a new interview

Although the actor had “been well-known” in the theater world before being cast as Magneto in the X-Men movies, “nothing is like the fame that film brings,” he said

McKellen recalled contemplating transitioning to screen work early in his stage career and being told to wait

For Sir Ian McKellen, becoming famous later in life was almost by design.

Before playing Magneto in the X-Men franchise and Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, “I’d been well-known,” the British actor told The Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Wednesday, April 8. “I’d been on Broadway, the West End, toured the world. But nothing is like the fame that film brings.”

McKellen, 86, grew up in Lancashire, England with aspirations for theater rather than film, he told the outlet. “When I thought of being an actor, I thought of being on a stage,” he said.

Ian McKellen in 'X-Men: Days of Future Past'Credit: Alan Markfield/FOX

The Christophers star’s upbringing may have had something to do with it. “My parents gave me the impression that cinemas were dangerous places,” he quipped. “They called them flea pits because you caught diseases there.”

Working as an actor onstage throughout England in the 1960s, McKellen asked an agent about making the jump to film. “He said, ‘Wait until your late 20s, that’s when women find men most attractive,’ ” the actor (who came out publicly as gay in 1988) recalled with a laugh.

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“I took that advice and I kept going in the theater and I’m very glad I did,” he said, noting that he wasn’t cast as Magneto in 20th Century Fox’s superhero flick X-Men until he was 60.

Although he's reprising that role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday — and has hinted he’s open to returning to J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth as Gandalf — McKellen said he particularly relishes intimate dramas like the Steven Soderbergh-directed The Christophers.

Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen in 'The Christophers'Credit: Courtesy of TIFF

“When you go to Pinewood to make the Avengers movie with all those Marvel characters, you do see the directors, they come and talk to you, but whilst you’re filming they’re watching it from somewhere else,” he pointed out. But Soderbergh, as a cinematographer-director, is “there with you behind the camera. I think that was what was so enjoyable about it.”

The Christophers, also starring Michaela Coel, Jessica Gunning and James Corden, is in theaters Friday, April 10. McKellen’s upcoming projects include Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol (in theaters Nov. 13) and Avengers: Doomsday (in theaters Dec. 18).

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”