I don’t know how I missed this (??), but it seems like Damian Lewis gave an interview a few months ago where he shaded Sir Ian McKellen. HARD. Now, I like both Damian and Ian a lot – they are different kinds of actors from different generations and they think differently about the work, but I enjoy them both immensely. But Damian’s quotes about Sir Ian (although Damian left him unnamed) were completely off-side. Damian told The Guardian in October:

“[In my 20s,] I started to feel that the theatre world was rather a small one. I’ve always equated life with travel, with places to see and go. Theatre takes away your evenings and weekends. And after six or seven years, it really started to bother me that I was going to work when everyone else was coming home. I was dying to just get up in the morning and live the day.” What does that say about him? “I don’t know. It might mean that at heart I’m quite conventional. Maybe yearning for something that was a bit more structured. But, of course, preferable to getting on the tube at 7am to go to an office and turn in a full solid day.” He worried that he was backing his career into a corner. “The idea that I 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.”

[Via The Guardian]

If you go and read the full Guardian piece, Damian is speaking off the cuff about a number of things, including feminism, his children, Homeland’s crappy second season and much more, any of which could be “controversial.” I guess this particular “fruity actor” quote didn’t get much traction because he left Ian unnamed – but how many over-50 actors are playing wizards, really?

Anyway, Ian McKellen is currently giving interviews to support his two plays with Patrick Stewart, plus his part in Desolation of Smaug. Radio Times asked Ian about Damian’s comments, and Ian had a lot to say:

Speaking to the Radio Times as he prepares to reprise his most enduring role as bearded wizard Gandalf in new Hobbit sequel The Desolation Of Smaug, the 74-year-old hit back at ‘jobbing actor’ Lewis.

‘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. I’ve always wanted to get better as an actor. And I have got better. You’ve only got to see my early work to see that. As for a fruity voice? Well, it may be a voice that is trained like an opera singer’s voice: to fill a large space. It’s unnatural.’

He added: ‘Actors have to be heard and their voice may therefore develop a sonorous quality that they can’t quite get rid of, so you think actors are as pompous as their voice is large. I suppose Damian was thinking of that a little bit too.’

McKellen, currently appearing in two separate Broadway productions, cut his teeth in the theatre before branching into film and television in his thirties – with high profile roles in The X-Men and Lord Of The Rings franchises his most enduring to date. Describing Lewis’s remarks as ‘fair comment,’ the openly gay actor admitted a recent role in sitcom Vicious – in which he plays one half of a gay couple alongside Derek Jacobi – was ‘over the top’ because, like theatre, he was performing in front of a live audience.

‘No one needs to feel sorry for me or (Harry Potter actor) Michael Gambon or anyone else who has fallen victim to success,’ he said.

McKellan also expressed sadness at the decision many mainstream stars take to keep their homosexuality a secret for fear that coming out might harm their careers.

He said: ‘It’s true of A-lists all over the world – A-list priests, A-list politicians. What will other people think? Will people still vote for me? Will people come and see me act? They’re warned by the people who surround them – agents and managers, who have a living to make and are worried that the actor will get pigeonholed. You don’t have to be straight to play Gandalf. Anyway, who said that Gandalf isn’t gay? I loved it when JK Rowling said that Dumbledore was gay.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I don’t think Ian even went as hard after Damian as some other actors would have, although I can feel Ian’s pain from here. Ian IS a fine actor and bless him, he’s gotten better with age. It’s also a bonus that he just seems to be having the time of his life these days too – he doesn’t feel the need to impress people or go for broke with some heart-wrenching, soul-crushing awards-bait film – Ian’s too busy playing Magneto and Gandalf and posting wonderful photos on his Twitter. Some may consider it fruity, I consider it A Life Well Spent.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Twitter.