Biography
Ian McKellen is an English actor born on 25 May 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire. He made his stage debut in 1961 and first West End appearance in 1965. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre in the 1970s and has won five Olivier Awards for stage roles.
McKellen is known for playing Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014), Magneto in the X-Men films (2000–2014), and Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (2017). His film credits also include Gus the Theatre Cat in Cats (2019) and Julian Sklar in The Christophers (2026). He received a Tony Award for Amadeus (1980) and was knighted in 1991.
