In Anand Tucker’s new film “The Critic,” Ian McKellen plays Jimmy Erskine, a closeted reviewer in 1930s Britain who covers theater with equal measures of wit and acid. “Despite her crimes against the theater, she was sensationally gorgeous when drunk,” Jimmy writes of a young actress portrayed by Gemma Arterton.
Naturally, McKellen luxuriates in such lines. When the screenwriter Patrick Marber (“Notes on a Scandal,” “Closer”) sent the actor the script, he said, “‘This is the best part I’ve ever written for anybody,’” McKellen recalled. “Well, I didn’t want to appear to be rude by not doing it.”
At 85, the actor is not slowing down, and continues to test himself by playing unlikely roles (just four years ago he was a rather mature Hamlet in London) and collaborating with directors like Robert Icke. Only a recent accident temporarily set the actor off course: In June he fell off the stage during a fight scene in “Player Kings,” Icke’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” diptych, in which McKellen played John Falstaff.
“The Critic,” which comes to theaters Friday, was shot over five weeks. “The budget was very small for what we were trying to achieve, Ian was 83, it was really hard,” Tucker, the film’s director, said. “But he was just on it — and he’s in almost everything.”
This could also describe McKellen’s decades-spanning career: He has been in almost every kind of production — fantasy blockbusters like the “Lord of the Rings” films, onstage in plays by Shakespeare and Beckett and in drag as the dame in the beloved British holiday tradition known as pantomime.
Among his many characters, McKellen may understand Jimmy particularly well. Both share an abiding passion for the stage, and both grew up gay in eras when being publicly revealed as such could ruin careers and lives. McKellen, from a younger generation, has been out since 1988, while Jimmy constantly worries about being roughed up by the police, or having his sexuality exposed.
In a video interview, McKellen discussed the impacts of having to be closeted, his relationship with critics and the possibility of retirement. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to this film and Jimmy’s story?
I found the man in the middle of this rather melodramatic story to be absolutely credible: He willfully went about destroying people’s lives, not because he was temperamentally designed to be a critic, but because he was a gay man living in a society which totally disregarded him.
He likes to cause a fuss and be in the thick of it, so he finds himself behaving in rather extreme ways. But he was living in an extreme time when it wasn’t, for example, safe for him to walk hand in hand with his live-in boyfriend through the streets of London.
I think if society does that to a person, you really mustn’t be surprised if the person, on occasion, snarls.
In the film, Jimmy tells Arterton’s character that she’s “too keen to please.” Has that ever been a professional concern for you?
In playing Falstaff, Icke was very clear that the view of the roly-poly, cuddlesome Santa Claus Falstaff is contrary to the text, although he’s often been played in that way. So he was very determined that I should fess up to the fact that Falstaff behaves monstrously. I said, “Are you telling me that I’m being a bit too panto?” Now, panto is pantomime. Are you familiar with the pantomime?
Oh yes, I love it.
Pantomime is all about pleasing the audience. The star of any pantomime is the audience: They’re encouraged to join in, you butter them up, you’re sweet to them, you bring them up onstage, you throw candy out. And I was doing a bit too much of that as Falstaff. But I always want the audience to have a good time, get their money’s worth, see something special, be excited, be part of the show.
When you were on Broadway with “The Promise” in 1967, you hung out with Clive Barnes, one of The New York Times’s theater critics. You’ve also said that you wrote to critics in the early 1970s. Did you talk shop with them?
I think it’s appropriate, if I got a bad review I didn’t agree with, that I’d have every right to complain. So I did. Every time I did write to a critic and correct them, as it were, it was something about the text. In every case, the critic backed down, said, “You’re absolutely right. Sorry, I got it wrong, shouldn’t have said that.”
But it’s stupid to talk to critics because they’re not writing for the practitioner: They’re writing for the audience, and their own audience. I read reviews because I want to know what people think. And of course, you hope that they’ve enjoyed it.
Some scenes in “The Critic” were shot at venues where you have performed. Do theaters have a special meaning to you?
I’m very sentimental about buildings because I’ve been so happy in theaters. If I’m going backstage to visit another actor or to give a performance myself, I feel at home. And the ghosts in theaters … Not that I’ve ever seen one, but I’m not Patrick Stewart — Patrick Stewart sees ghosts all the time.
I’ve now started leaving my mark and I sign the dressing rooms. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go and see all those names?
Any particular memories of theaters in the United States?
When I was doing “Amadeus” on Broadway, I used to sit on the stage with my back to the audience when they came into the theater. I used to do my correspondence, actually, while I was waiting. I noticed that at about the same time every evening, before the play started, the curtain at the back of the stage moved. It wasn’t anything to do with our company: Next door David Bowie was playing in “The Elephant Man” but couldn’t go through his own stage door because there were too many fans. He used to come to our stage door, walk at the back of our stage and then enter his own theater. So I was onstage next door to David Bowie, and I never met him.
In the film, the world is changing around Jimmy, there’s belt tightening at the newspaper, but he does not want to stop working. Do you relate to that?
[Long pause] The idea of retirement has never been in my consciousness. What would I be doing? Sitting at home, getting bored? No, no, no. Until my knees give way and the mind gives way, I’m not going to stop. And I do feel I’ve gotten better at acting. I think I’m just about reaching the time when I can be allowed onto a public stage, because I know what I’m doing.
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