PLUME: If you were to sum up your early experiences on the stage as a professional, how would you do so?

McKELLEN: I was a very hard worker, and I was determined to become better at the job in the way that I’ve just been describing - in a variety of parts and a variety of sorts of plays. I don’t make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you’re a good comedian, you’re never going to be able to play Hamlet properly. I didn’t go after the glamorous side of acting. I deliberately kept away from London theater for three years, I didn’t accept offers to work on television, I made no attempt to get into films… I was just busy trying to be a half-good theater actor, and that’s still my attitude today - although I’m now fortunate to do more than just theater. It’s always trying to get better at the job, and I always judge my success in a play or a movie - not just by “Did I do it well”, but “What did I learn from that?” Rather than the part, I still judge whether to accept a job by who’s directing it, have we got enough time to prepare it, who else is in it, how good is the script, and all those sort of things, because you’re always part of the collective process - and if the other people aren’t any good, than you’re unlikely to be good yourself.

PLUME: I’ve heard from a lot of people who do theater early in their careers that there seems to be a disdain for movie and TV work…

McKELLEN: Yes, I think that’s true. John Gielgud felt the need later in his life to apologize for the fact that he’d been rather snooty about the cinema early on…. A rather new invention when he was a young man. The same is true with me and television. However, if - like me - the starting point for any job is the script, there are not many Shakespeare’s or Ibsen’s or Chekov’s writing for television or the film industry at the moment… Yet there are a lot of dramatists trying to match up to those masters. I think it is possible - if you’re caught up in the world of theater - to underestimate the seriousness of the film industry as a whole. These days, I’m increasingly aware of the many dedicated film-makers worldwide. I don’t any longer make any quality judgement between theater and cinema. They are different experiences for the audience, and they also are for the actors - although they have a lot in common. It’s sometimes a bit bewildering to me how excited film enthusiasts get about the latest action movie or bit of schlock, and judge it mainly by how much it takes over the first weekend. How much money is it going to make is a major part of the film industry, but in the theater, that is almost the last thing to be concerned with. It really is, because you can have full houses for a year at the National Theater in Great Britain and no one makes any money at all.

McKELLEN: It’s a different experience, isn’t it… Popcorn is a vital part of cinema going in your country, but woe betide anyone who sits next to me with popcorn whilst we’re watching the latest stage production of Macbeth. There’s very popular theater and there’s very popular cinema, and I like them both. It just so happens that, most of my life, I’ve been involved in what disparagers would call the “snootier” end of the market. On the whole, if I’m making a film, I would like it to be film that was not just going to excite and entertain, but intellectually stimulate its audience and change their perception of what the world is about in a meaningful way. The famous English comic, Ken Dodd, goes on for three or four hours if necessary - and what’s necessary for him is that he does not want anybody to leave the theater unless he feels that their minds have shifted… Even by a millimeter. He says, “If I’ve done that… If they’re going to remember this experience as having changed them… Then I’m happy.” And that’s what storytelling is about. I’m not interested in stories which confirm or stories that bolster people’s prejudices and existing attitudes -I’m interested in the radical and the possibility that, having seen a film or watched a television show or been to the theater, you could be enlightened in some way. It doesn’t mean to say that you haven’t had a really good time… In fact, I think that is having a the best possible time.

PLUME: But you prefer an audience leave the theater thinking…

McKELLEN: Well, it’s thinking and feeling, of course. You can change your perceptions by your emotions. I would be unhappy to come out of a theater as an audience if I hadn’t felt something.

PLUME: As opposed to walking out the same you walked in, or as a blank slate being completely unaffected…

McKELLEN: Yeah… Or walking out saying, “I saw that before - about 20 years ago. It was another group of actors, but I’ve seen it before.” It’s a cliché, but I think it’s basically true that good art is radical. It challenges. It’s potentially dangerous, and that’s why the first thing dictators do is close the airport - so people can’t get out or in , they close down the broadcasting stations - so people are ignorant of what’s going on, and then they close the theaters - because that’s where strangers communicate through the shared experience of emotions and ideas. The theater is a very, very potent institution - and the cinema, too.

PLUME: Do you think that the radical material is less likely to be funded today?

McKELLEN: Mainstream cinema is always after the big audience, isn’t it?

PLUME: Do you think traditional theater has tried to follow the big-money lead of film when it comes to what projects get staged?

McKELLEN: Well, it’s certainly true on Broadway and on the West End of London - that the block-busting, moneymaking show is squeezing out other sorts of theater. That’s not to say that those shows can’t, in themselves, be very good of their kind. It also doesn’t take into account that Off-Broadway has lots of theater and there are many small theaters beyond the West End that the sort of plays I’m talking about -whether they’re classics or new plays - thrive. I’m not pessimistic about the death of public entertainment. In the meantime, of course, we’ve got the video and the DVD - television seems to be over and done with… It never really started, frankly. I do think it’s a pity, that a film made for a large screen and a relatively large group of strangers, should be watched alone in a darkened room with a fast-forward button to hand and the telephone about to ring. The amount of concentration needed isn’t there. I was alarmed when a friend told me, “I’ve just seen your film of Richard III…” They were in America, and I said, “You can’t. It’s not out yet.” She said, “No, I saw it on the plane coming over.” She was judging Richard III on a screen 3 inches by 4!

PLUME: With cheap headphones…

McKELLEN: Yes! Most films - even Titanic - will be seen by most people on a small screen. It’s a bewilderment and a puzzle to me and something that I talked to serious filmmakers about, and they don’t seem to be as alarmed by it as I am.

PLUME: Are they more concerned with the material being seen by any means necessary?

McKELLEN: I expect so. However, DVD is a little bit different… The quality is improved and the screen’s likely to be larger. It is a fact that the film industry now is - in the end - making movies not for public theatrical release, but for the home screen.

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