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'I don't think I've ever got over the fact that I'm allowed to be an actor at all'
What do you do when you have an idle moment at work? Maybe a little internet shopping? Perhaps you pop out for a coffee?
Sir Ian McKellen performs a bit of Shakespeare.
On the main stage of the Crucible Theatre, waiting patiently while technical alterations are made for his one-man show, he appears as comfortable as most are in their slippers, at home in front of the fire.
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," his deep, velvet voice echoes around the largely empty auditorium. The famous speech from Henry V is performed almost absent-mindedly, but, like everything else he does, it's also riveting.
Sir Ian is back in Yorkshire, performing on stage for the first time since he took up a six-month residency at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds in 1998.
He has been lured back to the region by Daniel Evans, who was appointed artistic director of Sheffield Theatres earlier this year.
When Sir Ian arrives at the Crucible, Evans is quickly running through the opening lighting sequence which, later that night, will announce the great actor's arrival on stage.
Greetings are quickly got out of the way and within moments Sir Ian is into his stride and in rehearsal.
He begins with a speech from King Lear, when the old king rages at a storm. It's impressive, but when he performs it for real in front of a sell-out audience it's clear that in run-throughs he operates at only about 50 per cent.
Evans and Sir Ian work through the morning, making little technical adjustments to the performance. Sir Ian reads a prepared speech about Roget's Thesaurus, the book he took with him to his desert island
when he was a guest on Desert Island Discs. He talks about the
Sheffield Crucible and his own personal connection to the theatre and performs nursery rhymes and little jokes which induce groans from the audience later that night: "Why did the tomato blush? Because it saw the salad dressing."
A Knight at the Crucible, a performance on Monday evening, was a way for Sir Ian to help with the fund-raising campaign for Sheffield
Theatre and to take part in a series of housewarming events.
The Crucible re-opens in February, following a two-year, 15.3m refurbishment scheme and the management planned a series of one-off events throughout December to welcome people back into the space.
Over lunch, Sir Ian explains the importance of the Sheffield theatre to his own career.
"The King Lear speech I perform is actually from a Chekhov play The Swan Song, where the writer quotes Shakespeare and the last time I performed it was also the first-ever performance at the Crucible Theatre."
When the venue first opened, in 1971, Sir Ian, then just plain Ian, performed alongside Edward Petherbridge in The Swan Song."I have very sentimental feelings about the place because of that."
It is not just the theatre which has brought Sir Ian to Yorkshire.
Evans tells the story of how he first met the actor.
"I wrote to Ian when I was 15 to tell him I was coming to see him in Bent at the National Theatre and asked if I could meet him afterwards," says Evans. "He wrote back to me, incredibly generously, and told me to meet him at the stage door following the performance. I did and he gave me a tour around the theatre, backstage. As a 15-year-old boy who wanted to become an actor, it was thrilling."
Sir Ian admits: "I can't remember all this. I suppose I must have
picked up from the letter that he was exceptionally enthusiastic. I think you should be careful with this story, I don't want people thinking they can write me letters and get a backstage tour. Let's just say that I will give them a tour if they can guarantee that in 20 years' time they will be running a theatre."
These days Sir Ian is a little more precious of his privacy. When he came to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1998, it was two years before he played the role of Magneto in the film X-Men and three years before the world came to know him as Gandalf, the wizard at the heart of Peter Jackson's films of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
"I made my first film in 1965 and I've made a film on average every year since," says Sir Ian.
"I was always a film actor, but no-one ever saw the films. Then I
started to make films that people saw.
"It could have been that X-Men hadn't worked, then I wouldn't have gone on to make three more. It could have been possible that, like a lot of other fantasy films, Lord of the Rings didn't work.
"It wasn't that I suddenly got better, I don't think, or that the film industry discovered me. It was that I was knocking around and happened to be cast in a few movies that were hits. I've made a few films since then that you've never heard of because it's back to the usual old pattern of films that no-one wants to see."
The night before his performance at the Sheffield Crucible he was at Doncaster Little Theatre, working with a group of young actors, and the following day at a Sheffield school to talk about bullying and homophobia.
"I find it moving that I belong to a large family of people for whom theatre is almost an act of faith. It's not a job. We learn more about ourselves working in the theatre than any other job and we try to communicate what we've learnt to people who are eager to come and listen, whether they are 15 or old people like me with white hair who come to matinees," he says.
On his arrival earlier in the morning, his handshake borders on being too firm. At 70, this is a lean and strong actor.
For him, retirement holds no appeal.
He says: "I think I've never got over the fact that I'm allowed to act at all.
"If the phone rings and there's a job offer, it's a wonderful act of faith that someone's had in you. People only retire because they're bored with their job and can't wait to give it up. The only thing I dread about the job and the future is not having the energy to do it."
In an age where people with little or no training can climb on a stage with the goal of "becoming famous" courtesy of shows like The X-Factor, Sir Ian remains a vocal advocate of stage craft.
"If I'd made the equivalent of Lord of the Rings when I was 24 then I don't know what I would have done. Robert Pattinson, the young man who's in Twilight, he's a huge star, but now it must be a worry for him about what he's going to do next," says Sir Ian.
"You can't keep at that level. For me, at 24, the question of what was next was very easy – I was going to do my next theatre role and I was going to get better.
"I didn't have to look for the next big success and nor do I still, because I have still got the theatre. It puzzles people in the film industry, they say, 'What's he doing Coronation Street for?' It's obvious isn't it?
"I would go and work in the regions when other people were hanging around waiting for a film part. I went off and played parts probably for less money than I should have had, but I suppose it's paid off."
Before he finishes lunch, Sir Ian has one last thing to say about the idea of stage craft.
"Not too long ago I did a season at West Yorkshire Playhouse and people in London were saying, 'Oh dear, he must be on his uppers if he has to go and work in ... where?' And it was one of the most enjoyable jobs I've had.
"It's a pity that regional theatres can't be financed in such a way that they could afford to have a company. When the Crucible started, it had a permanent company and the actors become part of the town and people would watch them coming up through the ranks. That's why I enjoyed Leeds, we were together for six months."
Sir Ian doesn't just pay lip service to his love of theatre. Twelve hours after arriving at the Crucible, he finally leaves the stage to a standing ovation, only to be found a few moments later standing in the foyer, rattling a bucket and collecting coins to ensure the theatre's future health.
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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