Ian McKellen: It's All About Tom Daley

Within his circle McKellen never hid his sexuality. But he kept quiet about it in public until he was 49, in 1988 – he came out on Radio 3, the prompt was Section 28, legislation that stated a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality”. 

He should have come out sooner, he says. “I’ve never met a gay person who has regretted coming out, though I’m very sympathetic to people who find it difficult. It’s much easier than it used to be because you’re not a criminal. Britain’s a very good place for gay people to live now. And that’s reflected in Tom Daley coming out a few days ago. When I was Tom Daley’s age it was against the law for me to have sex, full stop. I could have gone to prison. To be gay in the Fifties, when I started out . . . if I had become a politician. Or a teacher. It’s not long since they were sacked for being gay. They were thought to be dangerous.”

Coming out can be difficult, “and I think you should come out a little bit at a time. You tell your best friend and hope you get a good reaction. You tell your siblings, you hope you get a good reaction. You then go on to tell all your family and hope that goes well. And then you get to the point where you don’t mind anybody knowing. It’s a journey. It’s gradual. You don’t just put a notice in the front window saying, ‘I’m gay’. ”

It’s interesting, he says, how Tom Daley described his relationship with another man: “He said that he feels ‘safe’. He hadn’t felt that before.” 

Note how Tom Daley's coming out is such a hot topic right now that The Times can tease readers with the above header - even though you only really get a few lines about our Tom in this interview with Sir Ian.
Serena also talks about himself, being an actor, and the theatre and all the films he's done, and stuff.
Yawn!

Thought For The Day: Ian McKellen

"Gandalf is trying to do good. And basically I'm on the side of people trying to make this world a better place. Rather than keep it as it was, or even imagining a golden future. But simply getting through life without hurting too many people." [Are we in a better world than the one into which he was born?] "Entirely better, personally. At least in the country we live in, there's an acceptance and a generosity and inclusiveness which has allowed us to accept alien cultures and learn from them. And attitudes to gay culture, and then disability, I hope more than momentarily. In so many ways better, and I am so glad."

The Observer. 

One day I guess there may be one week where one of the Sunday papers doesn't run an interview with Sireena...

PS Ian talks very briefly about Vicious Old Queens, his forthcoming ITV sitcom with Derek Jacobi playing his other half.

"Well, you know, I just hadn't done a sitcom before. Hadn't worked with Derek before, oddly, even though we've known each other since Cambridge, and it seemed a bit of a lark, and the writing is funny, better than funny. And we are capable of absorbing each other's cantankerousness – the characters have been together for 50 years, so there's a basis of love which supersedes the viciousness, as with heterosexual marriages."

Fagburn predicts live sit-com disaster!