Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE, is an English actor and voice actor, who is best known for his film roles, such as horror director James Whale in Bill Condon's 1998 period drama film Gods and Monsters (in which he earned a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor), Magneto in the X-Men film franchise, and Gandalf in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, in which he received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in The Fellowship of the Ring (the first film of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy).
McKellen has also appeared in many well-known Shakespearean plays, such as Richard II, King Lear, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Richard III, and Othello, as well as numerous Broadway stage productions, most notably The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Amadeus, Edward II, Doctor Faustus, Wild Honey, Bent, No Man's Land, Peter Pan, Uncle Vanya, and Waiting for Godot.
For Disney, he portrayed Cogsworth in the 2017 live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.
Outside of Disney, McKellen has also appeared in various television films and miniseries, such as Walter, Countdown to War, And the Band Played On, Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny, David Copperfield, King Lear, The Prisoner, and the ITV sitcom Vicious.
McKellen's other notable film roles include Ron Howard's 2006 mystery thriller film The Davinci Code, DreamWorks/Aardman's 2006 animated adventure comedy film Flushed Away (as the voice of the Toad), Chris Weitz's 2007 fantasy adventure film The Golden Compass (as the voice of Iorek Byrnison), and Condon's 2015 mystery drama film Mr. Holmes.
Role[]
Trivia[]
- He was initially offered to voice Cogsworth in the 1991 original animated film Beauty and the Beast, but he turned it down.[citation needed]
- He was also considered for the voice roles of Jafar, Frollo, and Clayton in Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Tarzan (respectively).
- Both him and Patrick Stewart who were in the X-Men movies, (Professor X and Magneto) they were both considered to play Jafar in Aladdin.[citation needed]
