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A Slice of Life
by Francine Brokaw
In Touch With ... Ian McKellen
Famed British actor Ian McKellen brings his legendary performance as King Lear to the small screen this spring; something that delights the actor more than he can say. Younger audiences will recognize him as Gandolf in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and it is rumored he will play that character again in the upcoming film The Hobbit, however his love of Shakespeare is evident as he talks about the various plays and especially King Lear.
McKellen had been performing the role of King Lear for awhile before PBS approached him about putting it on film for future generations to enjoy. Sir Ian says about performing the part on stage, “King Lear was different every night. Part of the difference was me trying to encompass the part and not let Shakespeare down or my fellow actors and everybody else. And it was a constant learning process. And even after a year of doing it, I felt there was more work to be done. I would happily have gone on doing it. It was the rest of the actors who had had enough of working with me perhaps,” the famed actor comments with humility.
“Each night, each week, each month, we were playing different places. And of course, you had to adapt the delivery of your performance, depending on whether the theater was an appropriate size or, in some cases, too large, the audience sitting around you or in front of you. All these things affect the way you deliver. But on top of that, of course, there was my concern to make it different and special. There are things I do in this (TV) performance which I didn't ever do on stage.”
As McKellen points out, the TV audience is “getting something that no one ever got in the theater because it was specifically, from my point of view, for them through the camera.”
Although there are nude scenes in the play, television audiences will not be seeing any of them. And McKellen is quick to observe that “Inevitably if a man or woman takes his clothes off on stage, the eyes are going to go to those parts that are normally hidden and at that moment there may be something of import which the scene is about is lost. If it's a distraction of that sort, it's not worth the candle, but it's quite clear that Shakespeare intends Lear to, at least, start removing his clothes.” He adds, “I think it's discreetly avoided, the moment in which Lear, not McKellen, but Lear removes his clothes, because there might be some PBS rule I don't know about or it may have been thought, as I thought it was in theater, often distracting.” Although the nudity is avoided on screen, Sir Ian is one hundred percent pleased with the production, which is now preserved for future generations to experience one of this generation’s greatest actors.
King Lear holds a special place in his heart. “It's the sort of play that you wouldn't be satisfied seeing once in your lifetime,” he says. “You'd perhaps like to grow up with King Lear, as you can grow up with other great classics. As a young man, I was very intrigued by the part of Edgar, which I played. And there are a lot of young people in King Lear that a young audience could identify with, good and bad. Then there are a lot of good middle-aged characters. But what's perhaps special about King Lear as opposed to a Hamlet is that the central part is for an old person.” McKellen will turn 70 this year.
Ian McKellen was knighted in 1990. “It's a great honor when you're plucked out and given a medal. I know in the States, you're not as fond of medals as most democracies are. The UK is not unique in having a civil list of people who have been selected for a pat on the back, which is how I look at it. And there are many medals. It just happens that this one involves a title. And at times, it warms the cockles of my heart because it puts me nominally in the company of people I grew up idolizing: Sir Lawrence and Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Alec Guinness, all these people, Sir Michael Redgrave, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Dame Edith Evans. And suddenly, oh, it's Sir Ian McKellen. But my name remains Ian McKellen. And that's my professional name.
“I'm forever going around, as I did this morning, saying, ‘Please don't call me Sir because that's not really my name.’” There’s no doubt that this man is humble and sincere. However, he is truly a gentle man and a gentleman, and for that he deserves to be called Sir.
King Lear starring “Sir” Ian McKellen airs Wednesday, March 25 on PBS.
© 2009 Francine Brokaw
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