{"id":239670,"date":"2026-05-11T23:23:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/ian-mckellen-names-the-star-wars-actor-that-told-him-to-stay-quiet-on-gay-rights\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:23:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:23:54","slug":"ian-mckellen-names-the-star-wars-actor-that-told-him-to-stay-quiet-on-gay-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/ian-mckellen-names-the-star-wars-actor-that-told-him-to-stay-quiet-on-gay-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian McKellen Names the \u2018Star Wars\u2019 Actor That Told Him to Stay Quiet on Gay Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Getty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ian McKellen<\/strong><\/a> is naming names.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with The Guardian<\/a><\/em>, the 86-year-old Lord of the Rings <\/em>actor, who publicly came out as gay in 1988, revealed that Star Wars <\/em>actor Alec Guinness<\/strong> advised him to stay quiet and not advocate for gay rights.<\/p>\n

Alec<\/strong>, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first three Star Wars <\/em>movies, allegedly told Ian to \u201cwithdraw\u201d his support for the U.K. gay rights lobby group Stonewall, which was fighting for government protections to ensure gay citizens were treated equally under the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took me for an Italian lunch in Pimlico, where we chatted about this and that until he brought up the real reason for his invitation,\u201d Ian<\/strong> recalled. \u201cHe had heard about my work to establish Stonewall \u2013 a lobby group to present to the government and the world at large the case for treating U.K. lesbians and gays equally under the law with the rest of the population.” <\/p>\n

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Credit: Getty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“He thought it somewhat unseemly for an actor to dabble in public or political affairs and advised me, sort of pleaded with me, to withdraw,” the X-Men <\/em>actor continued. “Advice from an older generation, which I didn\u2019t follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian<\/strong> said that he was recently reminded of the conversation with Alec<\/strong>, who died in 2000, after watching the tour \u201cTwo Halves of Guinness,\u201d a solo show that stars Zeb Soanes<\/strong> as Alec<\/strong> and, according to Ian<\/strong>, \u201chints at Sir Alec\u2019s latent bisexuality in a way that would have upset him, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview from last year, Ian<\/strong> shared his thoughts on young gay actors staying in the closet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The post Ian McKellen Names the ‘Star Wars’ Actor That Told Him to Stay Quiet on Gay Rights<\/a> appeared first on Just Jared – Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getty Ian McKellen is naming names. In a new interview with The Guardian, the 86-year-old Lord of the Rings actor, who publicly came out as gay in 1988, revealed that Star Wars actor Alec Guinness advised him to stay quiet and not advocate for gay rights. Alec, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-239670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lifestyle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}