Well, then

[selenak]

Quickly, before getting on the train, two articles mainly about actors I like. The first one makes me sigh. Well, roll my eyes. Et tu, Damian Lewis? Then again, Ian McKellen's retort is amusing.


Sir Ian McKellen has hit back at Damian Lewis after the Homeland star said he did not want to end up a "fruity actor" known for playing wizards.

McKellen, who reprises his role as Gandalf in the Hobbit sequel The Desolation of Smaug, said "no one needs to feel sorry for me" after Lewis alluded to his career as one of the reasons why he wanted to break out of the theatre.

Lewis, in a Guardian interview in October, said he worried in his 20s that he would be "one of these slightly over-the-top, fruity actors who would have an illustrious career on stage, but wouldn't start getting any kind of film work until I was 50 and then start playing wizards".

McKellen was forthright in his response but, like Lewis, declined to name names. "I wouldn't like to have been one of those actors who hit stardom quite early on and expected it to continue and was stuck doing scripts that I didn't particularly like just to keep the income up," he told the Radio Times.


In other news, I was aware that there was a new film about the Beat Generation poets, featuring Daniel Radcliffe as a young Allen Ginsberg (the late A.G. probably would get a kick out of all the handsome actors playing him, because the most recent fore that was James Franco in Howl, and if you've seen photographs of Ginsberg, even when young...), but what I hadn't known was that Michael C. Hall was also in it. This is good news and makes me hope the film will be released on my side of the Atlantic as well. Because Dexter disappointed me so much post season 4, I haven't seen Michael C. Hall in something in ages, and he is a very good actor. The article makes the film sound intriguing, and has comments from Hall on David Fisher, too, who is still my favourite part of his.

Comments

[jesuswasbatman]

That Guardian article is grossly unfair to Lewis as Americans will interpret the use of "fruity" as a homophobic slur. What Lewis actually said was "fruity-voiced", which is a British term for the kind of posh resonant voice associated with Great Actors.

[legionseagle]

Well, yes and no. I mean, if an Old Etonian's telling a lad from Chorley* his accent's too posh, perhaps there is a bit more behind it?





*Yes, OK, a lad from Chorley who went to Bolton School, which is fee-paying and moderately posh itself, though I think it may have been direct grant when McKellen attended it. But I've heard his Widow Twankey at the Old Vic - honestly, the Widow Twankey that defined the role, darling - and he can do a bloody authentic Lancashire if required to do so.

[melusinehr]

I just saw him in Waiting for Godot a week and a half ago, and he's doing a Lancashire accent in that as well. (He's brilliant, but that's kind of a given.)

[legionseagle]

That's on Broadway, isn't it? With Patrick Stewart playing the other one?

Glad to hear he's keeping the Red Rose flying there.

(Also, you lucky, lucky bastard, but I expect that's also kind of a given)

[melusinehr]

Yes and yes! The two of them are absolutely wonderful.

(I got those tickets the minute I knew I was going to New York for Thanksgiving, and we were in the very back row of the theatre, and it was worth every penny.)

[selenak]

Well, at a guess what Lewis actually meant was that he wanted a film career before he was fifty with a richer variety of roles than offered to most old English actors, but the phrasing was, to put it nicely, unfortunate. And so very specific - with the "wizard" thing - that it's nigh impossible not to read it it as referring to Ian McKellen, rather than to general job opportunities, and implying his film career is something not actorly valuable.

[lizbee]

Not just Americans -- even "fruity-voiced" has homophobic connotations in Australia.

[andraste]

I'm trying to work out what bemuses me more:

1) That there's any actor on the planet that can look at Ian McKellen's resume and not turn green with envy. (Well, other than people like Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench and Helen Mirren who have achieved a similar combination of respected thespian, cultural icon and beloved national treasure. All while receiving stacks of awards, truckloads of Hollywood money and a knighthood to go with it.)

2) That Damien Lewis apparently hasn't seen Richard III and/or Gods and Monsters. Or, for that matter, X-Men! (Unless he thinks Magneto is a wizard.)

3) That he doesn't want to play a wizard! I mean, really, who wouldn't want to be Gandalf?

[legionseagle]

I saw McKellen's Richard III on both stage and screen, and they were both wonderful.

[andraste]

I didn't see Richard III on stage (there's a pesky ocean in the way, and also I was about ten at the time) but I was lucky enough to see him in King Lear, where he was magnificent.

[raincitygirl]

I didn't see his Richard III on stage, but did see the movie, to the point where I wore out the VHS tape, and had to buy it on DVD. It was *magnificent*.

[selenak]

I share your bemusement at all three. And can't help but imagining Magneto in wizard's robes. Though even Magneto would draw a line at the hat, surely.

[andraste]

I suspect that if there were some kind of cross-universe body swap (because that sort of thing happens to mutants and wizards) then 'what the hell am I wearing on my head?' would be near the top of the list of questions for both Magneto and Gandalf *g*.

[kalypso]

Kill Your Darlings has already opened in the UK so I hope it will reach you too. I haven't seen it, but there were interviews with Radcliffe all over the place last week, in which I noticed that he mentioned both McAvoy and Fassbender as actors he admired for their choices. Don't think he dissed the older generation of mutants.

[legionseagle]

Got too much respect, the lad Radcliffe.

[kalypso]

Also, he started playing wizards a lot younger than McKellen, so unless he's going to do a Josette he'd look silly being rude about it.

[sabra_n]

Oh my god, I'm so thankful that I learned years ago not to listen to a word coming out of Damian Lewis's mouth. Great actor, don't want to hear his personal opinions on anything ever.

[selenak]

To be fair, today I read in the papers he apologized. (His apology being of the "I totally didn't mean Sir Ian!" sort that probably makes Michael Gambon side-eye him now. )