Just out ▼ fobrviary 2, 1996 ▼ 29
INTERVIEW
What distinguishes the villainy of Richard
from that of other Shakespearean antagonists
such as Iago and Macbeth?
You’re right to mention Macbeth, because if you
think about it, the plot of Macbeth is very similar to
the plot of Richard III. They’re both very successful
and highly admired soldiers who, having won the
war, come back to a civilian peace and feel they
don’t have anything to do, so they decide to go into
politics, with disastrous results. In M acbeth’s case,
he puzzles over it and has a conscience about it and
realizes that he’s doing wrong but can’t stop him
self, and that’s his tragedy.
Richard III on the other hand seems to be abso
lutely amoral, and yet at the end o f Richard’s story
he does have a nightmare in which he puzzles with
his conscience as to whether he has
been or has not been a villain. I think he
decides in the end that he hasn’t been.
And his motive for all his actions, I
think, is not that he is a psychopath. He
doesn’t actually do the murders him
self. H e’s not mentally disturbed in
that sense, but he gives the orders and
they are obeyed.
The motive, the will that keeps him
going almost gleefully, is wanting to |
take revenge on all those people who d
have pointed a finger at him, spat at
him as Lady Ann does, maybe when he
was in the playground as a kid and at
home with that dreadful mother— as
she always seems to me, certainly in
the way Maggie Smith plays her— but
also from Richard’s point of view to
have a mother who has declared her
hate from the minute he was popped
into the cradle. Her last words to him:
“Well I hope you die in the upcoming
battle.” With that disadvantage it’s al
most as big as the physical deformities,
which he’s admirably conquered, but
they really are the source of his prob
lem, because o f other people’s reac
tion to it. As a gay man, of course, one
can sympathize with that.
the full joy out of Richard III to understand who all
these people are whom you very quickly meet and
who often very quickly meet the sticky end.
The 1930s were perhaps the most recent period
in history in which it was credible at a time of social
upheaval that a king might have fallen for a dictator
coming out o f the aristocracy or the royal family.
But...our film is not a comment on the ’30s, we just
borrowed the imagery and reassure ourselves that
this is not history, but it might have been— history
that never happened. It’s just borrowing a period
and setting ourselves down in the middle.
You mentioned earlier a parallel of feelings
that may be shared by a gay man and Richard in
relation to the disdain that others in society may
I was preparing for Richard III during the past
two and a half years or so, I deliberately didn’t do
any theater work and went around picking up any
job I could get on screen, whether it was television
or film, just to comfort m yself that when it came
time to do Richard III, I would treat the camera as a
friend rather than an intruder. And that’s how it
worked. I was very comforted when we were doing
Richard, and I would now like to do more, but not
just for its own sake. It would have to be a good
script, and it would have to be a part I really wanted
to do. It would have to be a director I trusted and so
on. So the two likely options are that if work of that
caliber comes along, I probably want to do it.
At the same time, I have not been on stage in
London for five years, and I’ve never been on stage
I suppose I simply didn’t leave enough time for
films to happen, if they were going to happen.
How has your increased visibility as a gay
man affected your acting career? Were you ad
vised against coming out to the media to avoid
harmful effects upon your career?
Yes, l was advised by an agent that he felt it was
unhelpful for me to come out, so he’s no longer my
agent. And he was wrong, it was extremely helpful
to me personally, and by personally I mean my
career as well as my life outside acting. My life has
changed radically in that I do not have a huge interest
that I find as absorbing as being an actor, which is
trying to understand how I can contribute to chang
ing the laws in the United Kingdom and social
attitudes that militate against happy
lives for lesbians and gay men, and that
brings me enormous satisfaction apart
from the relief of coming out.
It w asn’t that I was hiding it from
everybody, it was only the press I
really didn’t talk to about it, and some
times my family. The relief was just
enormous, and with the relief came a
release o f emotions that l had been
keeping hidden. So I think I have found
what other people have said, that my
work has gotten better and a bit deeper
ir Ian McKellen has proved
than it used to be. I am being more self-
that coming out as an openly
confident. I am perhaps ready to in
dulge my emotions and delve into them
gay performer is not a career
a bit more than I would have done in
death wish. With an unparal
the past. But as for getting jobs, no, I
leled theatrical reputation behind
think everybody should come out: Their
him, McKellen came out to the
bank balance will improve, their repu
media in 1989, and has since
tation will be secure, and there will be
plenty o f jobs. That’s how it’s worked
enjoyed extended success in film
out for me.
and television. Currently, he can be
C oming O ut — A R oyal E xperience
Openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen talks about his role in the new film Richard III
by C. Jay Wilson Jr.
Do you think there is anything
heroic about Richard? Is he merely
a victim of circumstance who de
serves pity?
No, I don’t think that Shakespeare ’ s
providing any excuses but he’s provid
ing a few explanations, and that’s what
initially intrigued me when I was re
hearsing the part for the stage in the
past. People do dismiss Iago, Macbeth
and Richard as just being evil. But I
don’t think Shakespeare made those
simple assessments o f human nature.
He understood that people did evil
things, but he was intrigued to know
why someone behaved as they do, and
that explanation is there. I don’t sup
pose it leaves anyone to feel sorry for Ian McKellen in Richard III
express toward them. Did this influence your
Richard, but it does lift the story away from melo
approach to the role o f Richard?
drama toward a tragic waste. Tragic, o f course, for
I don’t think it did in a great way. If you’re trying
the people who are killed; tragic for society as a
to [in playing a character like Richard] understand
whole that such a man should be able to become so
what it feels like to be reviled and to have to live very
powerful, but also tragic in that he does have an
much inside yourself and to become detached from
enormous strength, which he abuses.
the rest of society and be dysfunctional, then as a gay
man, of course, there are areas there that one can
T his version o f R ichard III is set in a fiction
delve
into from what at times it feels like to be gay—
alized Britain that draw s upon parallels to
where you do feel cut off from society because
fascist E urope in the ’30s. W hy did you choose
society doesn’t want you. It’s not your fault, it’s
this setting?
their fault. And if you’re of a certain cast of mind,
When I do Shakespeare I always want the story
you
might decide to take revenge on this attitude. I
tobe as clear as possible, particularly for people who
wouldn’t press the parallel too far. I was just refer
know nothing about it in advance. One way of doing
ring to how it was useful to me to sympathize or
that very quickly in Shakespeare is by setting the
understand what it felt like.
plays, as I always do on stage, in some recognizable
period where the actors are wearing clothes and not
As you begin to take on more film roles, does
wearing costumes. You can tell, once you put people
this demand for you an eventual move away
in 20th-century costumes, whether they are rich or
from the realm o f the theater?
poor; what their social status is. What they do for a
I wouldn’t mind if that’s what happened. When
living can possibly be revealed, and you need to get
seen in the title role of United
Artists’ sensational new interpreta
tion of Shakespeare’s slaughterous
Richard III.
A veteran of the stage with such
renown companies as the Royal
National Theater and the Royal
Shakespeare Company, McKellen’s
performances have garnered him
seemingly countless awards,
including five Olivier Awards in
Britain and a Tony Award for his
rendering of Salieri in Peter
Schaffer’s Amadeus.
I recently had the opportunity
to speak with McKellen about his
performance as the virtuoso of evil,
Richard III, and his life as England’s
most visible knighted homosexual
in the performing arts.
in Portland, so there’s more work to be done in the
heater. I’m glad that at last I’ve played the leading
part in a very good international movie, because it
was something I’ve never done before.
W hy has it taken so long for you to begin a
career in motion pictures?
Well, it’s a mixture o f chance and temperament
I expect, and basically, I was enjoying myself too
much in the theater and was very happy to take on
long-term contracts at the Royal National Theater
and the Royal Shakespeare Company and in other
places. Once you do that, the word gets around that
you’re not available or that you’re not interested in
film, and one’s contemporaries go ahead and take
advantage o f it. I don’t have any regrets because I’ve
loved doing the theater and still do. I do quite a wide
variety o f theater work...I have a couple of solo
shows that I sometimes do, and indulging my ambi
tion to be a stand-up comedian [laughter]. So there’s
still lots of new work to be done in the theater, and
Was your performance as Max
in the premiere of Martin Sherman’s
Bent instrumental in your decision
to come out?
Well, it would be very nice if I told
you that it was; it w asn’t. It was
Armistead Maupin and Terry Ander
son, his lover, who talked to me about
coming out in a way that no one had
ever talked to me about in England. It’s
ironic that no one ever suggested that I
come out until I was in San Francisco,
which is why I don’t hesitate to talk to
closeted people about it, because I
think it takes time and you need to talk
to someone who’s talked it through.
But no, Bent only really made sense to
me when I revived it, when we did it at
the National Theater, 10 years after
we’d first done it, by which time I was
out and took a special relish in associ
ating myself with the play.
Are there any future projects on
the table for you at this time?
Well I have quite a bit coming up, and it’s .all
finished. I’m in an HBO movie called Rasputin-, I'm
playing the Czar Nicholas. There’s a movie coming
over from England called Jack and Sarah, which
has been a big hit in England since last summer.
Restoration with Robert Downey Jr., I’m in that too,
which is how I got to meet Robert.
Are there projects that you are interested in
pursuing?
I’m just sitting back at the moment and doing
what w e’re doing now, probably across the world:
publicizing , encouraging people to see the film,
and that will take quite a longtime. After that I don't
really mind whether it’s a wonderful part in a film or
a wonderful part in a play. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it
whatever it is.
Richard III opens Friday, Feb. 2, at the Movie
House, 1220 SW Taylor St. in Portland. Call
225-5555 and press 4609fo r ticket prices.