Edition of hardtalk. I am Stephen Sackur and today i am joined by an audience here at the Bbc Radio Theatre to celebrate 20 years of hardtalk interviews. Who better to have on our birthday than sir ian mckellen . Whether you think of him as richard iii or gandalf, he has won hearts and accolades around the world. Not just for decades of work on screen but his passion of public campaigning, particularly on the issue of gay rights. Please give a warm welcome to ian mckellen. That was quite a welcome. Ian mckellen, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. Theres a lot to talk about both personal and in terms of yourcampaigning. But there are very few actors with the diversity you have offered your audiences, from the great shakespearean roles to Comic Book Characters in x men. Is there a Common Thread through everything you have done . The Common Thread is there is no Common Thread. There is a variety. What i always admired in my youth was people playing different sorts of parts in different environments. I was proud of having played widow twankey, which is a drag role in a british christmas entertainment, or pantomime. I was as proud of that as i was playing king lear. You did a show exploring your own recent ancestry. With your mother, and she died when you were very young, just 12, you said you thought she would not mind if you were an actor because she thought that actors gave so much entertainment to people. A very early memory is being bathed by my mother. Only once a week, actually it was the war. As she was bathing me, she would tell me the story of the Radio Programme she had heard the night before after i had gone to bed. As a family, we went out more to the theatre than the cinema. I went with them at an early age and was intrigued and excited to think that it was possible for me to discover how it was done. It being all that scenery, how you learned your lines, what happened behind the door on the stage. Backstage is still the most thrilling place. As we came out to meet the audience, that journey backstage, you said you were getting nervous. I was getting excited. What about your sexuality and choices . In your younger years, being gay could be a criminal offence. As it remains in many countries around the world, yes. Was it the space where you could find a way to feel much more yourself, to express your identity in the way you could not outside the theatre . That is exactly the point. It was illegal for me to declare my love or do anything about it. In the theatre, or at least standing on the stage, i could disguise it and, speaking someone elses words, have an emotional freedom i was not allowed in my own life. Many professional actors are gay for the same reasons that i took up the job. Because i want to explore this campaigning you have chosen to do on the gay rights issue, i think it is important to ask you why, even after homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967, it took you 22 years to come out publicly. I am not proud of it. Then you hear me going on and on and my friends say, will you stop talking about being gay . I do it because for so many years i felt i could not. I am doing it on behalf of other kids like me, growing up in a similar situation, perhaps because of the attitudes of their family or socially where they live. I do it on their behalf. So why did it take so long . I was not the only one who took so long. I was the second person ever to be knighted who was openly gay. The first was angus wilson, the novelist. There were great restrictions, even after the law was gradually changing. Gay people were meant to stay in their place and that place probably was what we call the closet. Which was not announcing yourself and drawing attention to yourself. It did mean you were still. As your Acting Career really took off through the 19705 and 19805 and you are getting more and more important roles and beginning to make that transition from stage to acting on screen, you were bottling a lot of things up. I was. Iwonder, looking back, whether you feel you would have been a better actor younger if you had been more public about your identity. I think. Probably. It is certainly true of me and practically every person i know in this industry who declared their sexuality that life becomes better in every possible way once youre honest. And that affects your work. And my work, which is dealing with honesty and truth about human nature, was likely to be more convincing. That is what friends and colleagues said. 0vernight, my acting took on a depth that had not happened before because i am no longer disguising. I am now revealing. It is interesting that you say that. Because when one looks at your transition from being one of the greats in the theatre to also becoming an extraordinarily successful on screen actor, in some ways, it came quite late in your career. It came after i came out. After i said i was gay, suddenly this film work came my way butjust in terms of technique as much as anything, and how you express yourself, you have talked about the way in which, earlier in your career, you have actually felt, looking back, that you were not an actor who was appropriate for the movies. Why . If youre playing in a large theatre, 2000 people, you have a responsibility, i think, to make sure that they can all hear and see you and understand what youre up to. That can involve, if youre going to reach an audience, way up there, probably a few hand gestures and open expression. Down there, where the critics normally sit, it does not seem very convincing. It is a problem. How do you act in a large theatre . I elected to make it big rather than cut those people out. That is where i used to sit and where the students, those who do not have much money, would sit. That is where my friends are. But it changed for me when i did a production of macbeth, Still Available on video. Laughter withjudi dench, the greatest there will ever be. In a tiny theatre. The comment on acting the part was it was inappropriate. You had to be, you had to exist. It meant conversation rather than declaration and rhetoric. Once i had done that, i never really wanted to work in a big theatre again. I then started to work in the smallest theatre of all, which is cinema, where the camera can be closer to you than anybody. There have been critics. Perhaps one of the most famous was fellow actor richard harris. He lumped you and derekjacobi together. And kenneth branagh. I was in good company. He said, these guys are technically brilliant but passionless. Yes. Nonsense. When he died, he played dumbledore, the wiza rd. I played the real wizard youre in a different franchise, shall we say but when they called me up and said, would i be interested in being in the harry potterfilms, they did not say what part. I worked out what they were thinking and i couldnt. I could not take over the part from an actor who i knew did not approve of me. Interesting. You could have been dumbledore . Sometimes, when i see the posters of michael gambon, who plays dumbledore, i think, sometime, its me we get asked for each others autograph. We have to get to the wizards. Gandalf became you, you became gandalf. It was an extraordinary bonding of character and actor. You chose, not so long ago, that when you finally leave this mortal coil, your gravestone will simply say, played gandalf, came out. Here lies gandalf. Yes, that would do, wouldnt it . It is the two sides of my life which have meant a great deal to me. Being as famous as the actor Playing Gandalf was bound to be, looking back on it, and i dont begrudge it at all, but i am now in contact with all sorts of people, particularly very young people all over the world who i could not possibly have known about. They have let me into their lives, to an extent. I visit schools quite a lot to talk about gay issues but i am welcome because it is gandalf. And they give me the time of day, which they probably would not if some old geezer strolled into the classroom. It is a very, very personal, wonderful thing. Which i dont feel about other parts. You do not feel that diminishes some of the other, some might say, more profound parts and plays and films . No. Because it is true. The text ofjrr tolkiens dialogue is not up to shakespeare. Nor is it trying to be. It is a different sort of storytelling. But to be part of the culture, which is what gandalf has always been. Gandalf for president was an early badge before the films were made. To be able to impersonate this character already in the zeitgeist, it meant a great deal as an example of how to behave in the world. And how young people respond to him, what a privilege. You have done a lot of tosh, as well. I wondered how long it would be before we got on to hard talk. Well, x men. X men is not tosh. Is there a role you have ever turned down for being too puerile or silly . About once a week. No, no, i have said it many times. X men is a discussion in a very popular form of what the Civil Rights Movement does. It is not true of superman and those guys, those who so suddenly become super men by changing their underwear, it seems to me. What other tosh . Im thinking, i probably have done some maybe i am picking away at the wrong thing, but it seems to me there is an insecurity in acting. It is a thing that it is a very insecure profession. Your great great uncle died in the workhouse. I wonder whether that insecurity, even today, is still a part of your make up. Well, i am extremely lucky as an actor from that point of view. I have never been out of work. I have taken work that other actors of my standing and generation might not have done because there was not much money involved or you were going away from home. But whether youre working on not working, to feel part of a group, a tribe of people who know that if a play is working well, the relationship between audience and and performers. A tribe of people who know that if a play is working well, the relationship between the audience and and the performers. And the writer, who might be long dead, provides something magical. Storytelling is what we as human beings are good at doing. We cannot manage without stories. When it happens in the theatre and works well, even if you are going to be out of work for the rest of the year, you are blessed. And youre doing it in the company of people who share that excitement. It is a fantasticjob. Theres an irony, we have touched on it already, after you came out, your career took off. Particularly in the movies. But there has never been an openly gay winner of best actor at the oscars. No. The university of Southern California did an analysis of the top 100 movies in 2015. The latest year. And they found that 82 of those top 100 movies do not depict a single lgbt speaking or named character. Yes. We had that hash tag 0scars so white. Do we need a hash tag 0scars So Straight . You should not look to hollywood for social advance. Laughter. I dont mean to be flippant, but you looked to Hollywood Forfinancial advice. Advance. Does that mean you have to hold your nose . No, you dont have to. You just dont go to hollywood. You do your work somewhere else. The movies that we all love and relish are fantasy. That is why we love them. It is not the real world. There are plenty of Wonderful Films being made about the real world but they do not come out of what we think of as traditionally the hollywood machine. Geena davis, for example, and a bunch of women actors and directors are really trying to change the way that women are depicted on the big screen. Particularly in hollywood. We now get onto the Campaigning Work you do. Is part of your Campaigning Work to try and change the way that film as a Business Works . No. My campaigning is all about allowing people to be themselves, whatever label they put on themselves. Can we really grumble when, finally, it was agreed that moonlight should be the oscar film of the year, with a strong Gay Storyline . That comes out of gay people, and in that case, black people, wanting to tell a story to which a person responded. They personally responded. That people should be given the freedom to do that. But the campaign to say, right, we must employ more openly gay actors. I dont think that will get you very far. Talking about going very far, you have become very active internationally with your gay rights campaigning. I know that you have been in russia recently. I also know that youre about to go to turkey. Both of these places strike me as places where you will not be welcome and where you could be in some danger. It did feel like that in russia. It was in the city of tchaikovsky, one of the greatest gay men to ever come out of russia, and their politicians are homophobic. It means they have a fear or distrust of gay people. As a visitor, trying to be myself, i have to be protected. With bodyguards . Oh, yes. What difference do you feel you can make as an outsider, albeit a celebrated famous one, coming into Different Countries with their own bodies and culture and lecturing them about the way they should organise their society and culture . How can that make a difference . I do feel myself to be english probably first, then british, then european and then internationalist. When you come out, you join a tribe that is all over the world. And i feel i know what it is like to be oppressed in russia because i remember what it used to be like here. I do have a story to tell which is relevant. And the people, really, that i contact when i go abroad, if im allowed, other local people who are trying, in their own way, to make their own lives easier. The lgbt people of russia, of whom there are millions. But very few are brave enough to express their individuality and be honest. And i just know that they are very grateful when you arrive and you say, itll probably be all right. Keep at it, keep fighting. That is all im really doing. 0ccasionally, you can point out the facts that have got lost. In india, and kenya, they have laws which the British Empire put in place. Anti gay laws. When we withdrew, we lefties bad laws behind. Now these local laws are being defended by the indians and kenyans and they say, dont come to us with your foreign idea. I want to say, no, i want to take this away which we should have taken away when we left your country. Were almost out of time. I want to bring it back from the public ian mckellen to the private and deeply personal ian mckellen. It seems to me that you have always guarded your own private life. I know that at one point, you decided to write an autobiography. You took the money, the advance. I didnt. It was offered. You handed it back and never actually got it. The point is, you had second thoughts. Why . I dont think there is anything remarkable about my private life, from what i can observe. There is a clear distinction between saying, im what im, and saying, this is what i do. I do not want to Start Talking about my relationships. That is not fair, unless the other person is with me talking about it as well. But the idea of an autobiography is very misleading. You get one side of the story. But on the principle, on the issue, i can be bold. And knowing that im in the right, standing on the moral high ground, that is easier. To be nosy, i will dig a bit more into the personal. You live in a country where things have changed an awful lot in your lifetime. Frankly, if you were in your 20s or 30s now, you could, in a way that you could not have back then, you could have considered, you know, first of all, gay marriage. You could easily have had children, lots of children, whatever. You have talked about being the last of the mckellens. And theres a sense of melancholy in being the last of your line. Do you think, if you had your life over, you would have liked all of that . The kids . I used to think the best thing about being gay was that you do not have to have kids. I mean, how many decent parents are there . The misery of the world comes because people had a dreadful upbringing. It seems to me. So i feel like i escaped that. Also, im extremely selfish. I can devote all my time to my career and do things around it without rushing back to change the nappies or going on holiday with all the kids are all that. Oh, how ghastly it sounds but the thrill of my life and the possibility of change in the future is to see kids in school, and im talking about teenagers, who say, do not come here and talk about being gay. You are only talking about being gay because, for years, people have pointed at you and said youre queer. You give yourself a more sympathetic label. We do not want labels. We do not know if we are gay or not. We might be straight one day, gay the next, and i think, that is the future. We are out of time. Thank you for talking to us, sir ian mckellen. Well, no sign of summer for tuesday, or indeed the rest of this week. It is going to be very mixed. It was certainly quite mixed on monday. This was yesterday. Some sunshine there in cambridgeshire. We also had some rain at Henley On Thames in 0xfordshire. Tuesday will be no different. A real mixed bag on the way. Brollies at the ready. You can see how extensive the cloud is across the southern half of the uk. Through the night, rain from the south west across the midlands into lincolnshire. They could be downpours and cracks of thunder. In the north it will be clearer. Quite a stark temperature contrast tonight. These are the towns and cities. Six degrees in southern scotland, even in the sheltered glens, barely above freezing. Tuesdays forecast. We are close to an area of low pressure in france, to the south of us. Those of us in the south are quite close to that so this is where most of the downpours will occur. In the morning, some rain across the midlands into the north. Scotland and Northern Ireland will be fine, with sunshine and only the odd shower. The cloud will really get going across the south during the latter part of the morning into the afternoon, and were in for some downpours. Downpours means we will have sunshine, downpours, then sunshine again. A real mixed bag across the south on tuesday. Most of the heavy downpours are in the south east, east anglia, eventually into lincolnshire as well. Lighter rain across Northern England. Betterfor cumbria. The Lowlands Of Scotland might end up with a fine, sunny day. And feeling pleasantly warm as well. How are we doing compared to the rest of europe . Not too good. 20 degrees in london and paris, we match oslo. Most other major centres are quite a bit warmer than that. Moscow is on 23. Lets have a look at wednesday. That low pressure that was across france, remember, has actually moved to the north. Quite an unusual direction for a low Pressure System to take, tracking from south to north. Usually they go like that, this ones going south to north. We are still close to the low Pressure System across east anglia and the south east, so again, downpours in store on wednesday. Look at wales. Wales, Northern England and scotland are in the clear, in for a fine day, but the weather will turn unsettled in other areas and i think some of us will get some rain towards the end of the week. Goodbye. Im rico hizon in singapore. The headlines defiance from north korea. It says new sanctions wont stop it developing nuclear weapons. Embracing the strongmen. The american Secretary Of State meets philippine president duterte before heading off to greet thailands military rulers. Im Babita Sharma in london. Also in the programme a new No Confidence Vote for south africas president , and this time it will be a secret ballot. The british model allegedly kidnapped for sale on the dark web has returned to the uk