{"id":664367,"date":"2026-05-11T18:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T18:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664367\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T18:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T18:21:11","slug":"ian-mckellen-says-star-wars-alec-guinness-said-stay-quiet-on-gay-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664367\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian McKellen Says Star Wars’ Alec Guinness Said Stay Quiet on Gay Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIan McKellen<\/a> revealed in a recent interview with The Guardian<\/a> that Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Alec Guinness<\/a> once advised him not to go public when it came to advocating for gay rights. Guinness allegedly told McKellen to \u201cwithdraw\u201d his support for the U.K. gay rights lobby group Stonewall, which at the time was fighting for government protections to ensure gay citizens were treated equally under the law.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe took me for an Italian lunch in Pimlico, where we chatted about this and that until he brought up the real reason for his invitation,\u201d McKellen told the publication. \u201cHe had heard about my work to establish Stonewall \u2013 a lobby group to present to the government and the world at large the case for treating U.K. lesbians and gays equally under the law with the rest of the population. He thought it somewhat unseemly for an actor to dabble in public or political affairs and advised me, sort of pleaded with me, to withdraw. Advice from an older generation, which I didn\u2019t follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcKellen said he was recently reminded about his encounter with Guinness after watching the touring play \u201cTwo Halves of Guinness,\u201d a solo show that stars Zeb Soanes as the \u201cStar Wars<\/a>\u201d actor and, according to McKellen, \u201chints at Sir Alec\u2019s latent bisexuality in a way that would have upset him, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLord of the Rings\u201d and \u201cX-Men\u201d icon McKellen publicly came out as gay in 1988 at 48 years old during a radio interview on BBC. He told\u00a0The Times of London\u00a0<\/a>last year that he feels sorry for fellow actors who feel like they can\u2019t come out as gay and encouraged closeted stars to reconsider. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have never met anybody who came out who regretted it,\u201d McKellen said. \u201cI feel sorry for any famous person who feels they can\u2019t come out. Being in the closet is silly \u2014 there\u2019s no need for it. Don\u2019t listen to your advisers, listen to your heart. Listen to your gay friends who know better. Come out. Get into the sunshine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcKellen observed at the time that there\u2019s never been an openly gay Oscar winner for best actor, nor has there been an openly gay U.K. Prime Minister or Premier League soccer player.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn women\u2019s sport it\u2019s not an issue,\u201d he said. \u201cI would imagine young footballers are probably, like actors, getting very bad advice from agents who are worried about their own incomes. But the first Premier League footballer to come out will become the most famous footballer in the world, with all the agencies begging for his name on their products.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcKellen most recently starred in \u201cThe Christophers,\u201d the latest feature from Steven Soderbergh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian McKellen revealed in a recent interview with The Guardian that Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Alec Guinness once advised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[252443,64,63,447,134,59308,31331],"class_list":["post-664367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alec-guinness","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ian-mckellen","tag-star-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}