X-Men star Sir Ian McKellen has weighed in on the ongoing debate regarding straight actors playing gay roles.
Over the last few years, the topic of authentic casting has been a constant conversation within Hollywood.
Recently, Dame Helen Mirren faced backlash after being cast as Israel’s former Prime Minister, Golda Meir. Since the announcement, many have called out the film due to Mirren not being Jewish.
In an extensive BBC interview with Amol Rajan, the Lord of the Rings actor weighed in on the situation and compared the casting controversy to straight actors playing gay roles.
“There are two things: is the argument that a gentile cannot play a Jew and is the argument therefore that a Jew cannot play a gentile?” he said.
“Is the argument that a straight man cannot play a gay part, and if so does that mean I can’t play straight parts and I’m not allowed to explore the fascinating subject of heterosexuality in Macbeth?
“Surely not. We’re acting. We’re pretending. Now, are we capable of understanding what it is to be Jewish? Are we going to convince a Jewish audience that we’re Jewish? Perhaps we don’t need to because we are just acting.”
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Later in the interview, he was asked about the lack of Academy Award-winning gay actors, to which the 82-year-old responded: “There aren’t very many of them, I mean openly gay.”
McKellen joins an array of actors and industry professionals who have recently opened up about the ongoing debate.
Back in January, No Time To Die star Ben Whishaw said that he’s all for roles going to “someone who knows, inside, what the character is.”
“I just feel that we can end up arguing over these black-and-white things and get extremely polarised over these questions when I don’t think it needs to be that way,” he explained.
Last year, director Aaron Sorkin told the Sunday Times Culture magazine that casting gay actors in queer roles was an “empty gesture.”
“Nouns aren’t actable. Gay and straight aren’t actable. You can act being attracted to someone, but can’t act gay or straight,” he said.
“So this notion that only gay actors should play gay characters? That only a Cuban actor should play Desi? Honestly, I think it’s the mother of all empty gestures and a bad idea.”
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