Ian Mckellen

I love the Broadway audiences, who relish live drama and don't hesitate to display their enthusiasm.

Actors don't, in fact, retire, do they? It took me a while to remember that.

It's my impression that I've done every job that I've been asked to do.

I'm brilliant at cooking my stepmother's scrambled egg recipe. The secret is to put eggs, butter, milk, and seasoning together in the saucepan, and to keep stirring with a wooden spoon under a low heat until the preferred consistency is reached.

I got better as an actor, and still I'm getting better. That's only been possible because there's always been work.

I live for the text. It's my job.

Doing some of the 'Lord Of The Rings' press junkets got a bit claustrophobic.

It's nice for me to be in touch with a younger generation.

That was the big effect Lord of the Rings had on me. It was discovering New Zealand. And even more precious were the people- not at all like the Australians.

I love working in New York.

I think New York audiences are some of the brightest in the world, and certainly the most enthusiastic.

I'm not someone who wears shades all the time and ducks into a darkened car in case I'm recognized - that would be absolute misery.

The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.

When I came out, I told my stepmother Gladys, and she just said she had known for years and was glad I wasn't lying anymore.

You see people in Hollywood trying to make blockbuster after blockbuster, but it's not possible. There's some god up there saying, 'You will fail now.' But I suppose that's true of us all.

Before I ever acted as an amateur - which I did a great deal at school and at university - I used to go to the theater with my parents in the north of England, where I was born and brought up... Theater of all sorts.

In the '50s and '60s, the life of a gay man was a secret. Homosexuality was illegal, so you didn't draw attention to yourself.

If you get criticized, good - I don't think people get criticized enough. People talk behind your back and they criticize you, but they don't often come up and say it to you.

I'm an eccentric English actor, and there's a lot of us around.

If you've got Mystique as your girlfriend the fun you could have in bed - I've just imagined X-Men 3 might open with me in bed with Patrick Stewart.