Donald Trump is clearly many things, but one thing he’s not is a great orator, according to one of Britain’s great acting knights of the realm, Ian McKellen.
The stage and screen veteran, best known overseas for his role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, told The Times of London that he found the presidential hopeful “an absolute bewilderment.” McKellen told the paper:
“I haven’t seen him live. But he’s one of the worst public speakers there has ever been. Whether he’s reading a script or not, it’s so patent what he is.”
85-year-old McKellen, currently playing Falstaff on stage in the UK, said great powers of oratory may be thing of the past:
“I remember leaving my school [in Bolton] in the sixth form and cycling down to the town square to see [1950s Welsh Labour Party politician] Aneurin Bevan on the hustings without a microphone. There aren’t any great orators like that around, are there?” and he added that politicians “don’t spend enough time looking at themselves and saying, ‘Well, I didn’t believe that person.’”
McKellen has enjoyed a career spanning more than 60 years. While continuing to work on stage and screen, he told The Times he picks his scripts with care, as any of them could be his last. But he’s ready and willing if the call comes for him to play Gandalf once more, in the new film The Hunt for Gollum, to be produced by Jackson, directed by Andy Serkis, and due for release in 2026. McKellen added, though: “But there is no script, there is no offer, there is no plan.”
