EntertainmentIan McKellen says life ‘changed for the better’ after coming out as gayOn January 27, 1988, Ian McKellen participated in a radio program to criticize England’s homophobic lawtoday at 4:10 p.m.

One of the main icons LGBTQIA+ in Hollywood, Ian McKellen he reflected on his life and career and explained how everything for him “changed for the better” after coming out as gay.

During an interview with Varietythe actor also spoke about his next film, titled The Critic, and talked about sexuality. “Almost overnight, everything in my life changed for the better – my relationships with people and my whole attitude towards acting changed,” she said.

He came out as gay on January 27, 1988, when he participated in a UK radio broadcast, and spoke out against proposed laws in England that would have made it illegal for local authorities to “promote homosexuality.”

“I think it’s offensive to anyone who is, like me, homosexual, in addition to the whole issue of what can and can’t be taught to children,” he said at the time. McKellen spoke about this moment in an article published in the magazine Gay Capital in December 1988.

“On air, we debated the new law and, irritated by the mild pomposity of homophobia [de Worsthorne]and honestly, without thinking, I mentioned to the few thousand who tune in to Radio 3who opposed Section 28 because I was gay,” he wrote

The fact that I actually came out probably surprised me more than the fact that I was gay might have shocked any listener who was familiar with my work. In fact, some of them wrote to say they knew I was gay for years and didn’t care. When I told my stepmother soon after, she said the same.

Back to the interview with Varietythe director Anand Tucker talked about heterosexual actors playing characters LGBTQIA+: “I don’t agree with the idea that you have to be gay to play a gay role.”

But in Ian’s case, there’s something about his own lived experience that allowed him to bring a kind of urgent truth to the role. He had a deep understanding of what it means to be an outsider who is shunned by the truth about who he is.