Ian McKellen has never been shy about slamming the film industry for its intense heteronormativity. The actor, who is gay, regularly advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. rights and deeper representation on screen; he’s even been known to rip passages out of hotel Bibles that call homosexuality a sin. In a recent interview with Time Out, the 78-year-old actor decided to tear into Hollywood again when the conversation drifted toward the Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore—who is gay in J.K. Rowling’s books, but will not be explicitly gay in the upcoming prequel movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
McKellen, who almost played the part of Dumbledore himself after original actor Richard Harris died in 2002, was unsurprised to hear this news.
“That’s a pity,” he said. “Well, nobody looks to Hollywood for social commentary, do they? They only recently discovered that there were black people in the world.”
But he wasn’t done: “Hollywood has mistreated women in every possible way throughout its history. Gay men don’t exist. Gods and Monsters, I think, was the beginning of Hollywood admitting that there were gay people knocking around, even though half of Hollywood is gay.”
Ian McKellen . . . he’s fed up! Gods and Monsters, of course, is the 1998 film that starred McKellen as James Whale, an English performer in the 1930s who was openly gay. McKellen and co-star Lynn Redgrave both landed Oscar nominations for their performances, while Bill Condon picked up the statuette for best adapted screenplay.
This is far from the first time McKellen has matter-of-factly taken the film industry to task for its homogenous behavior. In 2016, he expressed sympathy with the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, adding that the Oscars also lack broader intersectionality. “No openly gay man has ever won the Oscar,” he noted. “I wonder if that is prejudice or chance.” He noted, however, that straight actors like Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman have won Oscars for playing gay characters. “How clever, how clever,” said McKellen. “What about giving me one for playing a straight man?”
