Ian McKellen doesn’t have fond memories of the late Queen Elizabeth II, the “Lord of the Rings” actor told The Sunday Times. McKellen insisted in an interview published Friday that he’s “most definitely on Harry’s side” and added, “The Queen, I’m sure she was quite mad at the end. And on the few occasions I met her she was quite rude.”
“When I received a medal for acting [the Companion of Honour in 2008], she said, ‘You’ve been doing this for an awfully long time.’ I said, ‘Well, not as long as you,’” he continued. “I got a royal smile for that, but then she said, ‘Does anyone still actually go to the theater?’ That’s bloody rude when you’re giving someone a medal for acting. It meant, ‘Does anyone care a f–k about you because I don’t. Now off you go!’”
As for her grandson Harry, McKellen elaborated on his statement. “Imagine being born into the royal family. I’ve been in public life a bit, but these people are in prison. They can’t do anything normal. Can you imagine having to be nice to everyone you talk to?” Apparently, he didn’t think the queen had managed to do that.
The actor also expounded on his concerns about the mental health of the royals in general. “Hats off to anyone who manages to stay sane in that world,” he said. “Like the [late] Duke of Edinburgh managed to do, although even he was deeply, deeply eccentric and I suspect deeply unhappy. Same with the present king. He sort of survives, but he is clearly damaged. As for Harry, he’s probably not bright enough or doesn’t have the right friends to really help himself. Mind you, he had the pick of all the pretty women in the world. I hope he’s got the right one.”
Both Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have been open about their struggles with mental health in the face of the realities of royal life. Markle discussed contemplating suicide in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, and Harry notably admitted to having attended therapy for several years in his book “Spare.” Mental health was also a key topic in their 2022 docuseries “Harry & Meghan.”
There aren’t many accounts that corroborate McKellen’s assertions, though the Queen herself was known for noting when she found others to be rude. In 2016 she was caught on camera telling police officer Lucy D’Orsi that officials traveling with China’s President Xi Jinping were “very rude,” and Donald Trump was said to have been angered by claims in a new biography that Queen Elizabeth found him to be “very rude” as well.
Author Craig Brown wrote in “Voyage Around The Queen” that “Over the course of her reign, Her Majesty entertained many controversial foreign leaders, including Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito and Vladimir Putin.”
“She may not have found their company convivial; upon their departure, she may even have voiced a discreet word of disapproval. A few weeks after President Trump’s visit, for instance, she confided in one lunch guest that she found him ‘very rude’: she particularly disliked the way he couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting.”
The pair first met in 2018 when Trump traveled to the United Kingdom as president of the United States.
Elsewhere in the interview, McKellen described himself as a “tourist in Hollywood” and insisted, “It’s nice to see how it all works, but I feel I’m not doing my job unless I’m on a stage.”
He also revealed that taking on the role of Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films left him in tears. “Because it was highly technical film-making, I had to pretend to talk to these faces on sticks representing the hobbits,” McKellen explained. “And so I said into my mike, not realizing it was on, ‘This isn’t why I became an actor,’ and that evening I wrote to Peter [Jackson, the director] and offered to resign. Next day I found my tent was carpeted and full of baskets of fruit and chocolates with a note, ‘Don’t worry — we’ll find another way.’”
You can read the entire interview with Ian McKellen in The Sunday Times.
