Word: actorly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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McKellen has been thought of as one of the world's great actors for more than half his life. But in the last decade, he has also transformed himself from a strict stage thespian - highly rated, seen by very few - into a big screen star. This year, he can be seen on the stage around Britain as Estragon in Waiting for Godot, and on television in the U.S. and Britain opposite Jim Caviezel as the villainous No. 2 in a remake (partly shot in South Africa) of the 1960s British cult series, The Prisoner. He combines high art and mass...
...Plain black costumes, all very simple in a very small, dark place. We all stood round an orange box." The play was, as Dench says, "a breakthrough." The minimalist production, directed by Trevor Nunn, spawned a thousand imitations. Of McKellen, Shakespearean scholar Bernice W. Kliman gushed: "No other actor has so well depicted the existential nausea of a man who has chosen evil...
Fame, fortune and Hollywood should have followed. But little changed for McKellen. "I am an RSC sort of actor," he says of his decision to stay in Stratford. "There is nothing more sinister or enlightening than that." Besides, the RSC was in its golden age. The concentration of talent intensified with the arrival at Stratford of a new generation of actors including Kenneth Branagh, Jeremy Irons, Charles Dance and Sean Bean. By then, the veterans had developed an informal set of rules for themselves: Take the craft seriously (Dench: "deadly"). Don't take yourself seriously (Stewart: "That's death...
...always wanted to be standing next to Ron between takes. He was either going to make you feel good about the work you were doing, or he was going to make you laugh--but usually both. He was always what we called a "generous actor"--someone who's there for the piece and not for himself...
...said. I replied, "I'd love that too." And, of course, I meant it. It won't happen now, after Ron lost his long battle with cancer--one of the few battles he ever lost. And television, the movies and the theater all have one less great and generous actor...