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
Erik Lehnsherr
for Erik Lehnsherr in X-Men: Re-imagined
Suggested by bencasting
My attempt to reorganise X-Men films into a more cohesive timeline. X-Men (2000): Growing fear of mutants. Focus on the X-men’s found-family dynamic across generations. Rogue given more character development. Clash with Magneto & the Brotherhood stopping his increasingly extreme plan. X-Men: Mankind (2003): Wolverine’s past emerges through flashbacks. The cruelty of William Stryker’s Weapon X program forces the X-Men and Magneto into a reluctant alliance, while Jean Grey’s powers are pushed to the limit saving the team. X-Men: Phoenix Rising (2007): Jean, believed dead, returns with the Phoenix Force, amplifying her anger at humans, Charles & Magneto. She causes destruction, struggles morally, and ultimately chooses to take control of the power, manifesting as the Phoenix in the sky and removing herself from the world. Sentinel program quietly advances. X-Men: First Class (2010): Nathaniel Essex as architect pulling strings from the shadows. More time with Erik hunting Nazis. More comic-accurate Emma Frost; Darwin survives; Havok swapped to fix continuity. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2013): Mostly the same but with enough focus and better lines for characters to give them time to shine. X-Men: Bloodlines (2023): Set against the fall of the iron curtain – Mr. Sinister is abducting unregistered mutants across Europe. Setting traps for the x-men, to divide and capture Scott & Jean to harness their DNA. Jean’s powers surge during a showdown beneath Berlin, destroying Sinister’s archives, forcing his retreat. X-Men: Apocalypse (2025): Jeans power surge & Sinister’s failure awakens Apocalypse. Seeing his “pawn” could not control the X-Men or Jean’s cosmic power, Apocalypse corrupts 4 Horsemen to reshape the modern world. Guided by future Charles via the astral plane, Jean learns to control her Phoenix energy. The team overcome Apocalypse, entombing him & preventing his conquest.
