Age: 87
male
Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an British and American actor. He has played roles on the screen and stage in genres ranging from Shakespearean dramas and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. He is regarded as a British cultural icon and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. He has received numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, six Olivier Awards, and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards and five Emmy Awards. McKellen made his stage debut in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre as a member of its repertory company, and in 1965 made his first West End appearance. In 1969, he was invited to join the Prospect Theatre Company to play the lead parts in Shakespeare's Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II. In the 1970s, McKellen became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain. He has earned five Olivier Awards for his roles in Pillars of the Community (1977), The Alchemist (1978), Bent (1979), Wild Honey (1984), and Richard III (1995). McKellen made his Broadway debut in The Promise (1965). He received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1980). He was further nominated for Ian McKellen: Acting Shakespeare (1984). He returned to Broadway in Wild Honey(1986), Dance of Death (1990), No Man's Land (2013), and Waiting for Godot (2013), the latter two being a joint production with Patrick Stewart. McKellen achieved worldwide fame for his film roles, including the titular King in Richard III(1995), James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), Magneto in the X-Men films, Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) trilogies. Other notable film roles include A Touch of Love (1969), Plenty (1985), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Restoration (1995), Flushed Away (2006), Mr. Holmes (2015), and The Good Liar (2019). McKellen came out as gay in 1988, and has since championed LGBT social movements worldwide. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in October 2014. McKellen is a cofounder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots. He is also patron of LGBT History Month, Pride London, Oxford Pride, GayGlos, LGBT Foundation and FFLAG. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ian McKellen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ian McKellen
Obi-Wan Kenobi
for Obi-Wan Kenobi in Disney's Star Wars Reboot
Suggested by ricardor2000
A young farm boy named Luke Skywalker discovers a message from a rebel princess, Leia Organa, hidden in a droid. He meets an old Jedi knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who tells him about the Force and gives him his father’s lightsaber. Together, they hire a smuggler, Han Solo, and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca, to take them to the planet Alderaan, where Leia’s adoptive father is the leader of the rebellion against the evil Galactic Empire. However, they find out that Alderaan has been destroyed by the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star, a moon-sized space station with a powerful laser. They are captured by the Death Star’s tractor beam and taken aboard. There, they rescue Leia from her cell and try to escape, while Obi-Wan confronts his former apprentice, Darth Vader, who is now a Sith Lord and the second-in-command of the Empire. Obi-Wan sacrifices himself to allow the others to flee, and they manage to reach the rebel base on Yavin 4. There, they join a desperate attack on the Death Star, which has followed them and is preparing to destroy the rebel planet. Luke uses the Force to guide his torpedoes into a small exhaust port, triggering a chain reaction that blows up the Death Star. He is hailed as a hero by the rebels and receives a medal from Leia, along with Han and Chewbacca.
