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Ian McKellen on his new role as Sherlock Holmes

HE’S performed some of the most challenging roles in the history of British literature. And now Ian McKellen has taken on Sherlock Holmes.

Vicky RoachNational movie writer
4 min read
July 22, 2015 - 3:34PM
News Corp Australia Network

WHETHER he’s playing the Widow Twankey in a pantomime production of Aladdin or the inscrutable Estragon in Waiting for Godot, it’s all the same to Ian McKellen.

“I have been on Coronation Street as well,’’ says the veteran British actor, perhaps best known as Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.

“It’s always seemed to me rather cheeky but it reflects my tastes in theatre and entertainment. I like all sorts of things.

“I don’t really make a distinction between doing King Lear or Vicious, the sitcom I do with Derek Jacobi on TV.”

Having performed some of the most challenging roles in the history of British literature - Macbeth, Iago and Richard III amongst them - McKellen wasn’t exactly daunted by the prospect of taking on the role of Sherlock Holmes in the great detective’s most recent screen incarnation, which reimagines him as a real man.

“You can take comfort from the fact that so many people (from Christopher Lee to Robert Downey Junior and Benedict Cumberbatch) have had a success with Holmes, but I knew I was lucky because I had my own special story.”

Directed by Bill Condon, with whom McKellen also collaborated on Gods and Monsters (1998), Mr Holmes is set decades after the period made famous in Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved novels.

Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes in Mr Holmes.
Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes in Mr Holmes.

Now in his 90s, the one-time super sleuth is a virtual recluse living quietly in Sussex with his housekeeper (a wonderfully dour Laura Linney) and her precocious young son (Milo Parker).

Worrying over an old case that he has somehow failed to see through to its proper conclusion, Holmes is hampered by his deteriorating mental faculties as he tries to piece together the missing clues.

According to McKellen, 76, ageing up is a relatively straightforward process and one he’s rather well practised at.

The actor got his first rave review for an ancient Shallow in John Barton’s 1959 production of Henry IV.

“When I was at Cambridge, I began by playing character parts, roles not like myself at all.

“But once I had decided that I was going to try and become a professional actor, I realised there was no use being in disguise. That in the real world, I was going to have to play my own age.

“So that’s when I turned down all the old men’s parts. But they have crept back over the years.”

Does playing a nonagenarian Holmes at this point in his career feel almost like a dress rehearsal for the real thing?

“Oooh, stop it,’’ McKellen says before reconsidering.

“Well, yes I suppose it is in a way. I do my best not to get aches and pains but everybody winds down. It’s unavoidable.

“Even so, it’s still nice for me to play an old man and for it to be a lot older than myself.

“Mind you, I think Gandalf was 7000 years old.”

Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes, in a scene from the film Mr Holmes.
Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes, in a scene from the film Mr Holmes.

The actor, a regular contributor to social media (he currently has 2.22 million followers on Twitter), also periodically contributes to his own blog.

“I have always been interested in publicity and how it works or indeed if it works,’’ he says, bravely risking the ire of his attendant publicity team.

“I sometimes wonder whether we really need to do all these interviews, for example,” he goes on, bravely risking the ire of his interviewer, too.

“Would the audience find the film anyway? I don’t know. No one has given it a try.”

Social media allows him to talk directly to his audience.

“It’s a very efficient way of communicating with people who are interested. And it’s fun to do.”

At an age when many of his contemporaries are opting for a slower, more sedentary lifestyle, McKellen still regularly travels the globe for work - when he’s not braving the winter winds of Middle Earth or grappling with the rarefied atmosphere of X-Men’s parallel universe, the actor has toured stage productions of Shakespeare, Beckett and Pinter from Broadway to Brisbane.

In a twitter Q & A around the release of The Hobbit, one fan asked him what he would most like to know about Gandalf.

“Where he keeps his toothbrush,” was the lighthearted response.

Actors Laura Linney and Sir Ian McKellen attend the premiere of
Actors Laura Linney and Sir Ian McKellen attend the premiere of "Mr. Holmes" at the Museum of Modern Art on Monday, July 13, 2015, in New York. (Photo by Donald Traill/Invision/AP)

Given McKellen’s peripatetic lifestyle, it seems like a good question to ask the man who plays him, too.

“This is getting to be a very personal interview, isn’t it? Asking me where I keep my toothbrush,’’ the actor jokes.

“I always think Gandalf keeps his toothbrush in his hat.”

IAN McKELLEN as Gandalf in a scene from the fantasy adventure film THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES a production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM), released by Warner Bros. Pictures and MGM.
IAN McKELLEN as Gandalf in a scene from the fantasy adventure film THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES a production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM), released by Warner Bros. Pictures and MGM.

“I suggested to Peter Jackson one day that the reason he wears this large pointy hat is because it’s a magic hat and he only has to put his hand in it and he has got his lunch in there and his toiletries and his pipe and everything else he needs.”

McKellen admits to keeping his own toothbrush, more traditionally, in a small toilet bag.

“You can’t grumble about travelling if you are an actor. You should travel, really. You shouldn’t just play in the big cities.”

Mr Holmes opens on July 23.

Originally published as Ian McKellen on his new role as Sherlock Holmes

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Original URL: https://www.thechronicle.com.au/entertainment/movies/new-movies/ian-mckellen-on-his-new-role-as-sherlock-holmes/news-story/90f0d498d8e082d57e330b3c34bcd4e1