Ready for His Closeup

By RICHARD CORLISS

Ian McKellen, we'll have you know--and he will too--is not an old man, though you wouldn't guess that from his two new movies. He plays the frail, 67-year-old movie director James Whale in Gods and Monsters, and a Nazi near 80 in Apt Pupil. "People must think I'm in my 70s," he says with a sigh. "My danger is being typecast older than I am." But that, ladies and gentlemen, is Acting. Sir Ian is a lithe 59, two years junior to Redford, Nicholson, Hoffman. He doesn't care to be cast forever as grandpa or the grand codger--a premature Gielgud.

We can hear one or two of you wondering, "Sir Ian who?" That's because you don't get around much--not, anyway, to London or Leeds or Los Angeles or other theater venues where McKellen has illuminated the stage for nearly four decades, torched it with his wily intelligence, seduced it with the precision of his plummy voice. He has dwelt inside Hamlet, Romeo, Coriolanus, Richard II and Richard III (in his version, a purring, reptilian gangster), caressed the mood of wistful doom in Chekhov, played Captain Hook and Inspector Hound and, in Bent, a gay man in a Nazi camp. But except for Richard III, which he brilliantly reimagined for film, all these great performances disappeared into the playgoer's memory on closing night. You had to be there; most of you weren't.

McKellen has had tiny roles in flop movies (Last Action Hero, I'll Do Anything), and though he originated the role of Salieri onstage in Amadeus, he didn't get the part in Milos Forman's film; maybe Forman thought F. Murray Abraham was more photogenic. Or perhaps he detected an unease in McKellen's film presence. "I belong on a stage," the actor says. "I feel totally at home. But at a studio, surrounded by other experts who all have their contributions to make, I used to feel a terrible pressure as the person in front of the camera." And it didn't absolutely help that Sir Ian is gay--Britain's first openly homosexual knight.

To Hollywood, then, McKellen is a new face in an energetic, middle-age frame. He is frequently referred to (on his own website, www.mckellen.com for instance) as "the leading British actor of his generation." The implied qualifier is stage actor; he wants to change that. "I've done a big wadge of theater," he says, "which has been very satisfying. Now I'd like to do a wadge of movies. I do think my acting in these films is good enough so people will no longer say, 'Well, we can risk giving a role to McKellen.'"

No risk, no regrets, for in his new films, Sir Ian demonstrates how a lifetime of stage wizardry can be poured into a screen character. In Apt Pupil he is, in director Bryan Singer's phrase, "an old, alcoholic, sitcom-watching Nazi" hiding in California anonymity 40 years after the war and amused to perform a facsimile of his old mischief on a curious teenager (Brad Renfro). As Whale in Bill Condon's film, McKellen is sunset charm incarnate, a gay man melting inside his decaying body for the gross, cheerful fellow (Brendan Fraser) who works in the garden. It's Chekhov in lavender.

The films--which can be seen as metaphors of an aging man seeking a last acolyte, either as lover or victim--are extended conversations between experience and ingenuity. McKellen does most of the talking, in a gentle English accent or a brusque German one, but what makes him a great shot for film eminence is how suavely he listens. Listens with his eyes, attentive to nuances of lust or fear that may not even be there. Reacts with a prim wryness that hints at the Nazi's superiority, at Whale's indulgence. These lovely scenes give the audience a chance to study McKellen in wary repose. It's a face worth studying. A movie face, as Hollywood should soon understand.

On the set, he worked hard to ensure that his titled status would not cow his colleagues. "I mean, hell, going to work with a damn knight!" says Renfro, 16. "I didn't know what to expect. But he's a genuine guy, easygoing, totally cool." Fraser, 29, who calls McKellen "the best-kept secret in the film world," was surprised at Sir Ian's bounding vim. "He eats everything he wants and has the energy of a 20-year-old." McKellen was robust enough to endure eight hours as a corpse in a pool, wearing a rubber wetsuit under a heavy tweed outfit. "He was the most remarkable dead body I've ever seen," says Lynn Redgrave, his housekeeper in the film. "And I've worked with one or two in my time."

McKellen is alive and available in Hollywood--and, did we mention, as vigorous as a colt? "When you quote me in this story," he says with a conspiratorial smile, "perhaps you could use the phrase 'says a youthful-looking McKellen...'"

Done, done and done.

--Reported by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles