Sir Ian McKellen urges queer actors to come out: ‘Get into the sunshine’

Queer Icon and Lord of the Rings actor Sir Ian McKellen has urged LGBTQ+ actors in the closet to come out.

The British actor, best known for appearing in the Lord of the Rings films and as big bad Magneto in the original X-Men trilogy, came out as gay himself during a 1988 radio interview with the BBC.

In a new interview with The Times nearly forty years later, McKellen has shared his feelings of sadness that other queer actors don’t feel able to live their truths, even today.

“I have never met anybody who came out who regretted it,” McKellen, 85, told the publication.

He added, “I feel sorry for any famous person who feels they can’t come out. Being in the closet is silly — there’s no need for it.”

“Don’t listen to your advisers, listen to your heart,” the stage and screen veteran continued. “Listen to your gay friends who know better. Come out. Get into the sunshine.”

McKellen, who made his first professional acting appearance in 1961, shared last year that his life “changed for the better” after he came out.

“Almost overnight everything in my life changed for the better — my relationships with people and my whole attitude toward acting changed,” he told Variety.

The queer icon came out to protest then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s proposed laws that criminalised the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities.

Speaking on a national radio broadcast on 27 January 1988, McKellen said of the law: “I think it’s offensive to anyone who is, like myself, homosexual, apart from the whole business of what can or cannot be taught to children.”

Sir Ian McKellen shared a heartbreaking health update at the end of 2024, months after falling off stage during a performance of Player Kings in June 2024.

He admitted that getting older was “a nuisance” in an interview with BBC Breakfast – but that he had no plans to retire.

In October of the same year, McKellen was spotted living his best life at the popular gay club night Roast, known as “London’s beefiest”, where he was pictured between two topless partygoers. As he should.

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