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An Audience with Sir Ian McKellen was a one-off event designed to raise funds for The Space - an old church building being preserved through charitable contributions, and which serves as an excellent venue for small events (140 tickets only) like this. The venue has an excellent feel to it and a great little bar attached to it that serves good beer and food and features friendly bar staff - a real rarity in London! Sir Ian's evening was billed as a chance for attendees to ask questions about Sir Ian's roles in The Lord of the Rings and X-Men and in fact Middle-Earth dominated almost the entire two hours!
McKellen is a firm favourite with many fans because of his maverick tendencies and seeming refusal to toe the New Line party line that says 'Thou shalt not discuss the movies or anything in them without our prior approval'. He did not disappoint at this event and readers should be warned there is a major spoiler towards the end of this piece (not THAT much of a spoiler since the actor had already given the game away before the Two Towers release on the Johnny Vaughn show last year). Among the parts of the evening I'd love to transcribe were some hilariously waspish comments about Harry Potter actors, Kevin Spacey, and the oscar campaign process. However, I think that without the benefit of the twinkle in Sir Ian's eye and the occasional wink to a conspiratorial audience such comments in cold print would convey a very different meaning to the one intended at the Audience gathering so these have been omitted from this report :-P
		The event was scheduled to last one and a half hours but ran on for two hours, and then another hour and a half of 'mixing and mingling' with Sir Ian who was happy to sign autographs and pose for pictures with everyone present. Photography was not allowed during the main session, but my thanks go to Sir Ian's web master, Keith Stern, for arranging a photo for the official fan club magazine and ensuring I got the other pictures shown here. Sir Ian started by passing some props from the films around the audience which made sure the whole evening got off to a cosy, affable start. The audience was a mixture of theatre crowd and Lord of the Rings movie fan and the layout of the venue, with kids from the local area being invited to sit on cushions around Sir Ian's stage area was inspired - helping to show that Sir Ian's career held interest for all ages, from all backgrounds and with interests varying from the 'fanboy' to the high-brow theatre critic.
The venue was decked out with rare posters from some of Sir Ian's movies and theatre productions and a lot of personal care and attention had obviously gone into preparing this one-off event.
		As items were passed around Sir Ian explained why we were getting two sizes of everything (the keys to Bag End and a set of cutlery from Bilbo's home that one would have sworn were metal until one held them) and allowed us to see the detail and care that went into things that most movie viewers wouldn't even notice. One item passed around was a large lizard like creature that we were challenged to identify - a prize, the first of many dished out that evening, was awarded to the audience member who identified it as a door handle from the Tower of Orthanc (Sir Ian admitted he had two, but had damaged one on bringing it down to the venue) Sir Ian invited questions about The Lord of the Rings from the floor and was asked if he'd read the book before making the movie. He confessed he hadn't and then produced the copy he said he'd carried with him throughout the production, joking that if you watched the film closely you could see the outline of the book buried deep in Gandalf's pockets. He talked about his love for Tolkien's descriptive prose when he had read the book, and read the passage about Gandalf's arrival at Bag End, using the description of the fireworks to illustrate how the film makers really had everything they had to do described in great detail for them in the original text. It goes without saying that you could have heard a pin drop during this reading. I got to ask a question about the role of Gandalf: 'If Peter Jackson had said he had two possible parts, one of which he wanted you to play, Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White, which of the two would you have chosen and why?', I asked. Sir Ian didn't hesitate for a second before saying Gandalf the Grey, explaining that he felt the character had more humanity, through his friendship with the hobbits, his fireworks and his pipe smoking, where Gandalf the White was more of a leader but somewhat distant. On the extended DVD Sir Ian talks about the need sometimes to 'slap down a young cub' and, for me personally, he gave a great example of this with a question that began 'I've flown all the way from the USA to be here, and I have a two-part question'. Receiving a huge round of applause, the lady who asked the question was awarded a prize: a special Cannes Film Festival edition of the Lord of the Rings novel in paperback. The first question was about the possibility of making 'The Hobbit'.and Sir Ian talked about how he saw it as more of a TV series than a movie because it would be pointless doing it if it had to be cut down to a short movie length. He said he hadn't heard back from either New Line or Peter Jackson on his proposal and made a note to himself that he needed to follow this up. Then came the second part of the question, and shades of Comic-Con, where a supposed question turned out to be a job solicitation... 'I asked the question because I'm a writer/film producer and I want to make an independent film production of The Hobbit', the lady said. Regular readers will know that I have no time for what the Americans would call "You've got to do everything to achieve your dreams - even if it is insulting to the rest of the audience who've paid good money for something else and to the artist you're approaching in an unfair environment". I do not understand the stupidity of people who will happily waste air fare money without doing basic groundwork, like realising there are rights issues, several adaptations already produced, or that it is just plain bad manners to disrupt an event like this in this way. This sort of 'Me! Me! Me!' mentality is what wrecked the opportunity to hear Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan speak to 4000 fans at Comic-Con last year because they were far too polite to turn down endless questions that were just requests for autographs or photo's or phone message recordings. Sir Ian dealt with this situation marvellously, moving quickly on to the next question but making clear in the best possible way his feelings by taking back the book prize he had awarded the lady and moving on to the next question. The younger actors from the movie could learn a lot from his technique! Sir Ian revealed that he was doing two weeks work in New Zealand in the middle of June, that Peter Jackson had written two new scenes for him to film (that would be filmed in 'the paint factory') and that he would spend most of the two weeks re-recording all the dialogue for the third movie. He talked about how because of the lack of sound-proofing and the airfield 'every single word has to be re-recorded' adding that he would often be 'directed' during this process, asked to change the delivery of what he had originally said, perhaps making it more sad, or more angry or whatever. 'This is an extremely technical process', he explained, and one which some actors don't like but which he admitted he thoroughly enjoyed. Someone asked how the fight with the Balrog during the plunge from Moria had been filmed. Sir Ian used this to give us a reading of the scene of Gandalf's confrontation with the Balrog from Tolkien's text. One would perhaps expect the actor who issued those immortal lines "You shall not pass" to do a good job here, but this 'reading' was phenomenal. The actor seamlessly slipped between his Gandalf voice and his narrator voice, and his eyes were so moist with tears as he read the passage about Sam weeping at Gandalf's fall he almost had me blubbing in my seat. It was, in short, the most powerful 'reading' of a book passage I have ever heard - one of the real highlights of the evening that I wouldn't have missed for the world. In returning to the original question Sir Ian revealed that the whole scene was done with computers and he wasn't involved in any of it. He talked about the 'magic' that he didn't undersand where animators do their thing and the CGI wizards pull it all together. In passing he also talked about acting with blue screen and a tennis ball on a pole ("You... shall... not .... bounce") and touched on differences between cinema and theatre where the audience is real and gives you a feeling that nothing else can give you as a performer. SPOILER ALERT: SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH FOR MAJOR RETURN OF THE KING SPOILERS Someone then said they enjoyed the fight scene with Saruman in the first film, and asked if we would see something similar in the third film, Return of the King. Sir Ian replied in the negative, saying that originally Saruman was to have died at the end of the second film but that this would now be the introduction to the third film. 'He falls from a great height and comes to a sticky end', he revealed, before going on to say 'Peter Jackson is a huge horror film fan. That's why he cast Christopher Lee - who better to play Saruman than the biggest horror villain? Knowing that and Peter's great love for horror movies, it's inconceivable that Dracula wouldn't play some part in Saruman's death'. END OF SPOILER ALERT I wasn't taking notes (this is all from memory, which is not one of my best assets!) so this report is not complete, but one response I do recall was that to the question 'Which do you prefer, X-Men fans or Lord of the Rings fans?'. Sir Ian talked about having gone to Comic-Con before the first movie release and finding that the traditional picture of comic book geeks with thick pebbled glasses was all wrong, and that he met some wonderful people. He said he had to admit a slightly warmer feeling for Lord of the Rings fans, but only because of the source material since comic books could be rather terse, where Tolkien was great literature. He answered questions about the X-Men movies but the emphasis was very much on Lord of the Rings. The oscar question came up and Sir Ian, after saying "Oscar, Schmoscar" reported how the first time he was nominated (for 'Gods and Monsters') he was told he had to campaign and that this involved four month's work that he was not prepared to do. When he was nominated for Fellowship he agreed to undertake campaign work, but, as he pointed out, didn't appear to make any difference since his friend Jim Broadbent had won the oscar having done no campaigning at all. He talked a little about his perceptions of the oscar process and what one had to do to be successful there. There were other readings throughout the evening. Sir Ian talked about his life, his regrets (too much work and not enough effort spent on personal relationships), what he'd learnt most (he used to think every performance should be the same, whereas now he believed that each peformance of a play should be fresh and different, rather than monotonously repetitive and timed). He also talked about his sense of fulfillment from his chosen career - the travel he'd had and the wonderful people he'd met. At one point he segued seamlessly from an answer question into a performance of this speech from Shakespeare's 'As you Like It': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking* in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard*, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the canon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon* lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws* and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon* With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his* sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans* teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Sir Ian is criticised in some quarters for being 'too political on gay rights' or 'grand-standing' on certain gay issues, and I have to admit, as an 'out gay man' myself, I have sometimes felt uncomfortable when he has forced the subject in the media when it hasn't seemed particularly appropriate and therefore seems likely to do little other than alienate those he's trying to win round. So it was a pleasant surprise that there was no soap-boxing of this particular issue during the few hours we spent in Sir Ian's company. He talked genuinely and eloquently about making the movie 'Gods and Monsters', how important it had been to him, and how strongly he identified with the strong central character who was 'out' at a time when it was extremely unfashionable to be so. It goes without saying that if you haven't already seen this gem of a movie you should do so (it's available on video and DVD). The 'formal' (if there was such a thing) part of the evening ended with Sir Ian auctioning various goodies to raise more money for The Space. Items from American BurgerKing goblets to rarities like unused poster work for the Richard III movie were auctioned off, as Sir Ian bullied those present into contributing to a worthwhile cause. In closing, Sir Ian did his 'party piece', leading into it by talking about the recent scary political wins of the BNP (British Nationalist Party who preach a policy of hatred and intolerance). I will close this piece by contributing the text Sir Ian performed directly to argue why there is no place for such a party in civilised society. It remains only for me to say that the evening was something very special, ran for over two hours, and then ran for another half an hour while Sir Ian made sure everyone who wanted one got an autographed photo and a chance to meet him. He is a class act (as if you didn't know that already!) and if you haven't yet seen his stunning performance in 'Dance of Death' at The Lyric in the West End you should do so before it finishes its run in just a few week's time! In this play Sir Ian delivers the sort of performance you'll be telling your grandchildren about, if the night I saw the play is anything to go by. Here is the text of Sir Ian's final performance of the night (which he performed in 1964 - see here (link within Sir Ian McKellen's Official Web Site) for more information. The background to the scene, originally written, is that a riot is happening just up the road at St. Martins in the Fields and a young apprentice shouts that the strangers should be removed. Thomas More replies: "Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise Hath chid down all the majesty of England; Imagine that you see the wretched strangers, Their babies at their backs with their poor luggage, Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation, And that you sit as kings in your desires, Authority quite silenced by your brawl, And you in rough of your opinions clothed; What had you got? I'll tell you: you had taught How insolence and strong hand should prevail, How order should be quelled; and by this pattern Not one of you should live an aged man, For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought, With self same hand, self reasons, and self right, Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes Would feed on one another. O, desperate as you are, Wash your foul minds with tears, and those same hands, That you like rebels lift against the peace, Lift up for peace, and your unreverent knees, Make them your feet to kneel to be forgiven! You'll put down strangers, Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses, And lead the majesty of law in liom, To slip him like a hound. Say now the king (As he is clement, if th' offender mourn) Should so much come to short of your great trespass As but to banish you, whether would you go? What country, by the nature of your error, Should give you harbor? go you to France or Flanders, To any German province, to Spain or Portugal, Nay, any where that not adheres to England,-- Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this is the strangers case; And this your mountainish inhumanity.
Drac Attack: This report has caused those rather strange people running the Official Christopher Lee web site (the actor's son-in-law, Juan Aneiros, and his brother) to publicly label me 'a liar', 'a fantasist' and 'an over-obsessive Sir Ian McKellen fan'. For the record, despite their very public, repeated claims that they are suing me, nothing has happened other than their attempting to get my ISP to close this site down, claiming 'breach of copyright' because of my repeating their public claim that I am a 'liar' and a 'fantastist'! Anybody attempting to corroborate my report in that site's forums has been immediately banned, so be careful what you post over there if you want to continue to have access to the Official Christopher Lee web site in the future! Don't forget you can check out reports of lots of other Lord of the Rings -themed events in the Web Logs section

Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk