Original subtitles

You want a glass of champagne?

I don't drink.

I don't drink and I don't smoke anymore.

I've never smoked.

You have.

I've seen you having a go. You've never seen me go.

You've never seen me doing that, ever, because I've never been able to.

Was it something you aspired to do?

It infuriates me that I haven't been able to do it.

I have... There you are now.

Ninety-one.

And what I have longed to do is to do a part where you go... Well, what I said

was that what you should do... Well,

it's no good now, is it?

You're doing very well. It's terribly good. Yes, but it's because I rehearse

it all the time.

My guest today is perhaps best known for playing one of cinema's most powerful

and fearless wizards.

You shall not pass!

Treacherous road, these paving stones.

Have you ever fallen on them?

No, I'm very surprised you've got time to come down here to see me.

I brought you a plant.

Excuse me.

Are we going in here?

You can and watch your head.

Come here.

Step, step, step down.

This is idyllic, isn't it?

Well, I love it. I love it.

My name's Ian McKellen. I'm a 30-year-old actor earning £50 a week.

As one of our most beloved and versatile actors.

Ian McKellen started out on stage almost 70 years ago.

Devil take Henry of Lancaster and the patience is stale and I am weary of it.

As well as classical leads like Shakespeare's murderous Richard III,

he's played characters like the lovable but troubled Walter.

Walter, listen to me. Walter.

He's appeared in global blockbusters, not only as the wise wizard Gandalf in

Lord of the Rings.

Death is just another path, one that we all must take.

But as Marvel's mutant on a mission, Magneto in X-Men.

My dear boy, whoever said I wanted you?

As well as being a renowned actor, Ian has also been an inspirational gay

rights campaigner.

The majority of people are still very strongly opposed to spreading

homosexuality. No one wants to spread it. It exists in society, always has,

always will.

Today, I'm very pleased to welcome my great friend for tea and a chat about

our lives, both on stage and off.

Sweetheart, say hello to Ian. She won't.

Oh, oh, you're very lucky.

That's incredibly lucky, sweetie.

It is Leon.

You are a treasure. Does she know who you are?

Well, I should hope so.

But you're the source of food and company.

Yes, and she knows who I am. You do know who I am.

Now, Jude, I have here two samples of, um, Parkin. Do you like

Parkin? Parkin? Do you like parking? I have in here some Yorkshire parking and

some Lancashire parking. And the quiz question is, which is the better?

There's a fork.

I say, is this the Yorkshire parking?

Yes, so it won't be as good as the Lancashire one, but let's give it a go.

Well, you need me to make me mind up about that.

Ian and I both hail from the north.

I grew up in York and Ian across the border in Bolton and Wigan.

Aged 18, long before he became a wizard, he won a scholarship to Cambridge

University.

What year did you go?

1958.

Did you go knowing you wanted to be an actor?

I'm asking you questions that I should have asked you years ago.

I fell in love with the theatre at a very early age.

Peter Pan when I was three. Oh, yes. When I was three. Oh, yes.

Pantomimes, the local professional actors in Wigan and Bolton where I live.

Acting at school, acting at the Little Theatre.

And I thought I was going to be an actor like the other amateurs, like the

teachers who were actors.

But then when I got to Cambridge...

There were all these boys and girls as crazy about the theatre as I was.

Miriam Margulies, Derek Jacoby, Clive Swift.

And they were all going to go into the professional theatre. I thought, if

Derek Jacoby could do it.

So... I followed suit.

And then, when I'd finished at Cambridge, some of us went off to drama

school, but I was 22 and I thought, oh, that's the time I was earning a living,

isn't it?

So I just wrote off to a lot of regional theatre companies. Did you go to drama

school?

Can't you tell?

I never understood what you learn at drama school.

I think it's dancing and fencing.

Good point. What we learned at drama school, you don't much need now, which

upsets me very much. Voice production. That is how to project your voice to a

theatre without using a microphone.

Come on, Jude, let's hear it. Oh, I just think that a microphone on

an actor, for me, it puts a barrier up because it's a false sound.

It's sad.

Because it takes away a whole element of what we know about putting a part

together.

I know, I know.

After university, Ian, like many young actors of the time, went into regional

theatre. And it wasn't long before our paths crossed.

Do you remember The Promise?

Is it over 60 years ago?

I was thrilled when the theatre... At Oxford? Oxford Players.

said, would I come and be in a Russian play, a modern Russian play, with you?

Because I had admired you from afar, but we'd never met, I don't think.

So I got very excited.

It was exciting to do.

Then there was Ian.

Ian McShane. Ian McShane.

That's all there was, Ian. I know, he was a bright young thing, wasn't he? The

three of us.

And Russia was the enemy at the time. It was the Cold War.

So to do a play which said...

No, the Russians are as human as we are, have the same problems as we have.

War is devastating for them as it is for us.

Well, there's a good message.

You bet.

The play was a great success, but it would be another eight years before Ian

and I shared a stage again.

This time, in George Bernard Shaw's comedy Too True To Be Good.

Mr Lee!

I appeared as a nurse masquerading as a countess alongside my beloved husband,

Michael. How many boxes, countess? Oh, six, I'm afraid. Will it be a lot of

trouble? It will involve a camel.

Strings of camels, if necessary.

Expenses no object.

While Ian played a thief who turned out to be a vicar.

You don't remember this, but I do. I'd been out the previous night and...

heard two actors talking about our play and talking about

my performance.

And one of them said, these young actors, they go up and down the scale

with their voices, they wave their arms around, they don't stand still, they're

looking at themselves in the mirror.

If this is the future of the theatre, I want nothing to do with it. Well, I

thought, stupid fellow.

Next night, I'm standing there with you. I'm in a one-piece bathing suit, feeling

a bit vulnerable.

And I suddenly think, everyone in the audience agrees with that man who said

those horrible things last night.

And I am dreadful and I shouldn't be here. I have no right to be here.

Why am I here?

What's the play? I have no idea what I'm doing.

Oh, there's Judi Dench.

What's she doing here?

And I turned my back and gave you a signal. I don't know what I'm doing,

Judy. And I don't know what magic empathy you had. You just

took over my lines and your own lines and you finished the scene as a

monologue.

Because I couldn't speak.

I was in the depths of stage fright.

And you came off. And we didn't make much of it. And you said, are you all

right, Ian?

I said, I don't think I am.

It's just I don't think they think I'm any good.

And you said, oh, don't worry about that.

That'll wear off in time.

I think that's all we said.

And it did.

Three months later, I was fine.

Three months? The next night, I expect you weren't, because I don't even

remember it.

No.

It's nice that you don't remember, because...

It was just another actor helping another actor out, which is what we do,

isn't it, at best? At best.

It's entirely... So, to you, it wasn't a remarkable event?

Or noticeable, even. Well, have you ever had stage fright?

I had a night in Cabaret when I knew that Johnny Neville and Caroline came to

the show, and I wanted to be... The best.

The best.

Well, of course, I...

Dried in the middle of the song, I think. Did you really?

It is amazing how little, what you can get by with. We've always said this.

What you can get by with on the stage is that the audience don't notice.

Experts forecast that...

By 2055, we could be short by 5 billion litres of water a day. Wait, what?

We'll be grown-ups by then.

We're not having that, are we?

Oi, Colonel, let's sort it out, yeah?

Take shortage hours.

Use water in cans, not hoses.

Keep making the system better. Over.

Because when we all work together, it all lasts up. Let's save water!

This September, the sport just keeps on coming.

Bang! It's the stop of dreams!

This is absolutely epic!

Sensational! This has been outstanding.

It is pretty cool.

And if you thought that was all, I think again.

I've never seen golf like that.

Everyone on the edge of their seat.

My God!

I remember telling you, learn to love failing because it's what you're going

to learn most from.

So on the whole, would you rather not know when friends are coming to see you?

No, I love it.

Yes, you do.

I love it. It makes you nervous, doesn't it?

I'd rather not know.

Who was in? But I'd like to be told there's somebody in tonight. Oh, well,

you certainly do, because I remember when we did the Scottish play... I know

what you're going to say. Yes, you do. A famous actor. You do. No, a famous

director. Peter Brook.

On one night, Peter Brook was sitting there.

And the play was ever so slightly...

Edged in that direction.

Faced in that direction. But I think the next night, or the night after that,

somebody was sitting... Yes, I think.

And so the whole play somehow...

I wasn't the only one. We're so

vain, aren't we? Yes.

We survey.

But sometimes I look through the curtain before the show starts, particularly a

matinee when I'm thinking, oh dear, two shows today.

Do it for someone. I just look through there and I think, that little person.

Preferably a child.

And I was doing this when I was doing Hamlet in London in the Cambridge

Theatre. And I was looking at it and... Another actor was doing exactly the same

thing. So I said, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm just looking for someone

I want to do the performance for. I said, same here.

He said, oh, I found her.

Her, yeah?

I see.

I said, so what do you mean you're going to do it for her? He said, well, for the

curtain call, I'll have my own clothes already dressed underneath my costume.

I'll get out of the costume very quickly.

Catch her on the way out. I know which way she'll come out of the theatre, and

I'll be waiting there. And then when she comes, I'll just go up to her, and I'll

offer my hand and say, tonight the performance was for you, and I'll hand

over a book, which is the Love Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and inside it is

my telephone number.

Who was this?

I said... Who was it?

I said, how often does it work? He said, about one in ten.

Well, that's not bad, is it?

What?

It is not a set-up.

This is the back.

Suddenly now she's going to give us a bit of a recycle.

No, you can't be in the play.

There's no part for a parrot?

Not yet, anyway.

Hello. Hello.

You live with a dreadful actor.

As actors, we play many different parts.

But for many years, Ian kept a very important part of himself away from the

limelight.

Last night, I was at home, and I found some letters from my dad.

written on my 21st birthday, one of them.

I was at university, not living at home anymore.

He was only saying he loved me and I'd done well and he'd always be looking out

for me and everything.

Of course, looking back now, I knew I was gay at 21.

It was the biggest thing in my life, really, the discovery, acceptance of

that. And one of the first person I should have...

talk to about it would have been Dad.

But I didn't.

He's sending me this letter full of love and I wonder, looking back, was he

saying, is there anything you want to talk to me about?

I wonder.

It took me until I was 49 to say to my family, Jean, my sister, who you knew,

that I was going... And her first reaction was, oh, Ian, I've known that

for ages and I've never wanted to talk to you about it because I thought you

didn't want to.

What a waste of time. My dad was long since dead, and my mother before that.

I have a few regrets in my life, but that's one of them. I'm sure.

Talk.

On the whole now, do you live in the present, or the past, or a bit in the

future?

I live in the present because I don't look at the future.

Because my eyesight now is so bad, it's so bad, I can't see any

details of your face.

If you want to feel my face.

Is it there?

I'm so pleased.

Now, you don't know Joe.

Hello.

Who entirely looks after the garden for me. And he's partied before him.

So I'm very lucky. Yes, it's true. 25-odd years coming to the garden. Oh,

Lord. Are you here every day?

Most days.

Well, congratulations.

He's wonderful.

You're so welcome.

As some may know, I've always had a passion for trees.

So Joe and I have arranged what I hope will be a wonderful surprise for Ian, to

mark something that we did together 50 years ago.

Now, I've got something to show you here. Oh, yes.

Something.

Now, here is something. An oak.

Yes, but a very special oak.

Can you see?

Burnham Wood. Yes.

Burnham Wood is a forest in Scotland.

that appears in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

And is it a particular sort of oak?

It's a Cecil oak, which would have been growing... It sort of grows on the

western coast of the UK.

In Burnham. Very hardy. Very hardy.

Isn't it lovely? Burnham Wood shall come to Dunsinane. Yes.

High Dunsinane Hill.

Are we going to plant it?

Certainly we're going to plant it. Ah!

The play became very special to us in 1976.

when we appeared as the Macbeths in Trevor Nunn's famously intimate In the

Round staging of the production.

In

this

psychologically intense scene, the Macbeths, greedy for power,

have just murdered the king.

When they did say, God bless us. Consider it not so.

But wherefore could not I pronounce our men?

I had missed need of blessing.

But our men stuck in my throat.

These deeds must not be thought after these ways.

So it will make us mad.

I thought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more.

Macbeth does murder sleep.

Well. I'll tell you what was good about just listening to that. It did sound...

As if the two people were in a corridor and something had just happened and they

were having to deal with it. It didn't seem too theatrical. It seemed nervy.

And everyone sitting so close to us.

I mean, the audience were as close as you are to me. Absolutely. So you

couldn't be rhetorical? No.

No. It was very quiet and... No microphones?

No.

No. It was in this tin hut called The Other Place.

Like a garage.

Yes. There were no facilities. We were sitting on orange boxes. We were.

For some critics, this intimate approach changed how Shakespeare could be

performed.

Stripping away the play's spectacle to reveal a terrifying descent into

madness.

Yet, here's a spot. She's... Out.

Down, spot out, I say.

Do you remember the cleric who used to sit... Neville Boundy. He used to... I

don't know how many times he came.

He used to sit on the front row and he used to wear that wonderful crucifix on

his neck and he used to hold it against us, I remember.

And protecting you from the evil spirit?

Or him from us.

Oh!

It was thrilling to do.

And do you know how much that production costs, the costumes and the set?

No.

£250. Oh, yeah.

I was... John Woodvine and Banco and I were wearing jackets from a second-hand

shop and the button said, Birmingham Fire Brigade.

Oh,

I wish I'd known that.

The level... Do you remember we all... Well, you wore a dishcloth on your head.

I did. I had a black dishcloth on my head.

Now, I can just now ask you what I've never asked you before.

Oh, yeah.

I had a birthday.

And as you say, the dressing rooms were very intimate. You couldn't help but see

everything in it.

Everyone had given me a present.

And I opened up the first parcel.

It was rather a welcome pair of underpants.

They said, well, it's because I noticed when you've been changing that your

underpants have got a few too many holes in them.

I said, that's very, very kind of you. Thank you very much.

I'd opened up the next one.

There was another pair of underpants.

And John Woodfine had given me a pair of undergear that I think he got from Ann

Summers.

They were dreadfully sexual and I never worked out what I was to do with them.

Oh, I'd like to go back and do all that again.

Taking his birthday presents with him after Macbeth, Ian went on to star in

Coriolanus, together with numerous leading roles, including the

West End hit Bent.

Hold me.

All right, I'm holding you.

Are you?

Yes, you're in my arms.

I'll keep you safe.

And on Broadway, the award-winning Amadeus.

The winner is Ian McCullough.

For which, in 1981, he won a prestigious Tony Award.

Is that the Oscar? Oh, yes, well, I can tell you. Who gave it to you?

Interesting.

Amazingly, I won this award for eight minutes of screen time, playing a

withering Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love.

The Queen of... England does not attend exhibitions of public lewdness, so

something is out of joint.

Come here, Master Kent.

Look, no name or anything on it.

Did you steal it? No.

Two nights, I think, before the Oscars, when I got it, they were all stolen.

The names that should have gone on them... And they never put it on for

you?

No, I was never given one.

Would you like to present it to me? I certainly will. You can have everything.

Thank you very much indeed.

It's heavy, isn't it?

Yes, well... I don't know what to say. I'm so moved.

Oh, but I like that, that there's no name on it.

Not to boast, I got a minor verse. This is The Golden Globe.

Yes. And mine didn't have a name on it either.

And I was intrigued as to how this golden globe was put together. And I

discovered that on the bottom there was a screw.

And I undid the screw and it all fell apart.

I couldn't put it together again.

And then they said, will you please send us back your statue?

So I had to say, I can't find it.

We can't find it.

Ian. There we go. There he is.

I remember telling you, learn to love failing because it's what you're going

to learn most from.

In one way, Ian and I have had very similar careers, both of us finding a

wider kind of fame later in life.

This is showing off.

Oh, that's very good. That was given to me on the last day.

That's you being... It's me being him. ..being serious.

Me being quite serious. It's a very good...

Didn't happen a lot.

How many of those did you make?

Eight. Eight.

I remember Mikey saying, you've got to do it, Jude.

I'd like very much to live with a Bond girl.

Yes.

Yes.

Of course, rather than Six Foot Blonde, I played 007's slightly smaller, no

-nonsense boss, Emma. How the hell did you find out where I lived?

Same way I found out your name.

I thought M was a randomly assigned letter. I had no idea it stood for...

I'll do one more syllable and I'll have you killed.

I remember when I was playing Gandalf for the first time, an American friend

said, your life's about to change forevermore.

I said, what do you mean?

He said, you wait.

And, of course, in a sense it has, because those films, like the Bond

films, are seen by so many millions of people... I know.

..who care about them.

In a way that... Well, for us, they were jobs, weren't they? Very nice jobs.

Totally nice jobs.

Birmingham Fire Brigade may no longer have been supplying the wardrobe, but no

matter the size and complexity of the production, it is still just acting.

So I'm just looking vaguely apprehensive.

Vaguely apprehensive and wary at the trees. They're kind of creepy. This is

potentially your first shot on The Return of the King.

And action.

And when you've had careers as long as we've had, it doesn't do to get too

carried away with yourself.

Now let's see what we've got here.

Then if someone will give me a toothful of gin, I will tell how I once played a

part in East Lynn. The stage production of Cats was a huge success, but despite

best efforts, the film didn't quite land with cinema audiences.

And I say now, these kittens, they do not get trained as we did in the days

when Victoria reigned.

They do not get drilled in the rag of the troop and they think the smartest

will jump you up.

I once made the mistake of watching that on my television at home. I didn't know

it was just an extract.

And I thought, well, well done Ian, that's really not bad at all.

And then it said comments.

And I read the comments. I didn't get past three.

They're all so disapproving.

Anyway, there we go. It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't. Not your favourite moment?

It wasn't, well, because you knew I was going to be in the original production

playing Isabella. Of course you were. And then snapped my Achilles tendon.

Of course you were.

Ten days before we were to open.

So it wasn't for me.

No. I was frightful in the film.

So fast.

Just so that you know, I had no control over my CGI ears.

A cat is not a dog.

We enjoyed watching the youngsters at it, didn't we? The dancers.

We loved it.

They were wonderful, the dancers.

Maybe the best way to survive success or failure.

is to take neither of them too seriously.

Hello. Hello. Andy Mowen.

Andy. It's a pleasure to meet you, sir.

Please, no titles in the workplace.

Sending yourself up.

The very best way to keep your feet on the ground.

How do I act so well?

What I do is I pretend to be.

The person I'm portraying in the film or play?

Yeah.

You're confused.

No, it's perfectly simple. Case in point, Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson

comes from New Zealand and says to me, Sir Ian, I want you to be Gandalf the

wizard. And I say to him, you are aware that I am not really a wizard.

I was being mocked because I'm such a pompous actor.

How do I act so well?

If we were to draw a graph of my process, of my method, something like

this, Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian, action.

You shall not pass!

Cut!

Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian.

It was great fun, but I do think people think I'm rather like that, which is a

pity, because I'm only a little bit like that.

But he was very difficult to work with because he kept laughing all the time.

Oh, that's very nice. How flattering. Well, it was. You were on the right

track. I know, but then we had to keep going back and starting again.

And I said, I wish you'd stop laughing because eventually I won't be funny and

you won't laugh and that'll be the take you have to use. He said, exactly.

He said, it's my job to make you look crap so that I win the BAFTA.

And he did win the BAFTA. And he did? Yes.

Well, I think what I was doing with my life, and I think in a sense what you

were doing, we were having careers.

We weren't hoping to be famous. We weren't hoping to be rich. And it was a

job that we intended to do as long as we were capable.

And we're going to get better at the job.

And we did.

You know, somebody who's a carpenter, by the end of their career is making better

chairs than they were when they started out.

The feeling that you've done a good performance can be very gratifying.

But every now and again, a role comes along which reaches audiences on a much

deeper level.

Do you remember Prospect Theatre?

Yes. Did you ever work with them? I don't think you did.

I don't think so. No, I don't see.

It was a touring company.

And I'd played Richard II for them one year. And they revived it the following

season. on the tour, but we added Edward II.

Oh, but are you moved that Gaveston sits here? It is our pleasure.

Now, Edward II is the first play, I think, ever written with a gay hero, the

king.

Welcome. Kiss not my hand.

Embrace me, Gaveston, as I do thee.

Precious O'Neill.

It involved me kissing James Lawrenson.

And when we took it to Edinburgh, it was still against the law in Scotland

for two men to make love.

Against the law.

Against the law for people making love.

When was this?

I'm talking about 1969.

It had become...

Sort of legal in England in 67, in Scotland still.

In this scene, the forces behind the throne conspire to banish Edward's

lover. Proud over daring peers, ere my sweet Gaveston shall part from me, this

isle shall fleet upon the ocean and wander to the unfrequented inn. You know

that I am legate to the Pope. On your allegiance to the sea of Rome, subscribe

as we have done to his exile.

We were doing the play in the headquarters of the Church of Scotland.

So when two men kissed on those premises, some people thought it was

offensive in every possible way.

And one of them, a counsellor, John Kidd, said that our performance should

be abandoned.

And he called up the watch committee and two policemen came and watched the

performance.

Sat on the front row. Did you know that you knew that they were there?

They seemed to be enjoying it.

Started the standing ovation at the end.

That was televised, and people still tell me in America that when they saw

that production on their home screens, they had never seen two men be

affectionate to each other in public.

Hard to believe now, but there was a defiant bravery in staging Edward II.

A courage that Ian would need to call upon again.

Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are

being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.

All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life.

Yes, cheated.

In 1988, the government introduced Section 28.

legislation banning local authorities from intentionally promoting

homosexuality.

I

always

knew that you were creative and

I just really wanted you to follow your dream.

So how did you get involved in the campaigning?

Because you've suddenly come forward, as it were, or been projected. Was it you?

Did you suddenly decide you wanted to... Well, I mean, you know, I've been gay

all my life. It's just that I haven't ever come on a chat show and said it.

And I've now felt the need to, because the government, with this new law, has

brought my private sexuality into the public arena by having a law about it.

And so I felt I had to oppose it, not just as an actor who feared censorship,

but as a gay man who...

didn't like the climate of opinion that was being encouraged through this law.

This was a letter that I asked you to sign, which you did, and Sir John

Gielgud.

There are our signatures, Ian McCallan, John Gielgud and Judy Dench.

And that was sent to the Prime Minister, who was John Major.

It was important, I thought, because the three of us involved in live

entertainment.

We're legitimately concerned that at school they might take down out of the

school line with the works of Oscar Wilde and the music of Tchaikovsky and

anything else, or the plays of Christopher Marlowe, so on and so on.

The poems of W.H. Auden.

12th of February, 1988.

We are worried. The laws may be...

as a signal to victimise homosexuals in word and deed.

Our concern is all the more urgent at a time when there is a general, although

irrational, antagonism towards homosexuals as AIDS spreads throughout

the world.

We hope that you may feel able, even at this late stage, to delay our worries by

encouraging an appropriate amendment to Clause 28.

As one of the founding members of Stonewall, Ian, in 2003, was part of one

of its greatest successes.

Please raise your glasses to the death of Section 28.

Thank goodness those days are gone. I mean, we do now live in a country with

some of the best laws with regard to gay people in the world.

Yeah. There's no restrictions, I think, any more than there should be.

So you did your bit.

This is one of my favourite books, Armistead Mopping, Tales of the City.

Oh, yes.

He wrote about life in San Francisco many years ago, but one of his main

characters was gay, and he has him writing this letter to his mother.

It's called Letter to Mama.

I'm sorry it took me so long to write, Mama.

Every time I try to write to you and Papa, I realize I'm not saying the

things that are in my heart.

And that would be okay if I loved you any less than I do.

But you're still my parents, and I'm still your child.

I have friends who think I'm foolish to write this letter, and I hope they're

wrong.

I want to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual.

I'm sorry, Mama, not for what I am.

But for how you must feel at the moment, I know what that feeling is.

For I felt it for most of my life.

Revulsion, shame, disbelief.

Rejection through fear of something I knew even as a child was as basic to my

nature as the colour of my eyes.

I know what you're thinking now. You're asking yourself, what did we do wrong?

How did we let this happen? Which one of us made him that way?

I can't answer that, Mama, in the long run, I guess. I really don't care, and

all I know is this.

If you and Papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you.

With all my heart, for it's the light, light and the joy of my life. You know,

Judy, will there ever again man read this?

It gets them.

Because it's what they want to say.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

It should be written in stone somewhere. Yes.

Oh, dear. I'm sorry.

I'm not sorry.

It just catches you.

I'm sorry.

But I know, Emily, if you're...

daughter turned out to be gay or your beloved grandson.

How could you not go on loving them, you know?

And... You love them whatever.

Exactly. Whatever happens.

Under any circumstances.

Do you look back in any detail?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes, all the time. Always with joy?

Or with regrets? Well, with a bit of everything.

A bit of everything. Mostly, though, you know, how lucky I've been.

What about death?

Well, out of the door.

Don't talk about it.

Don't think about it. No.

I think about it every single day. No, I don't.

Don't you? No.

Well, I think you've got it right.

What else shall we talk about?

I fell off the stage recently.

Oh, Ian, I was going to ask you about it.

I slipped on some paper. Some paper?

And as I fell off the stage, I said to a full house, Help!

And as I was helped back onto the stage and laid down, I said...

Do I know anyone who's listening?

I am dying.

I wasn't dying.

I sprained my wrist. That's all I did.

Very, very lucky.

The joy for me of acting is that I know what I'm doing at last.

In life, I'm not too good at it.

But on stage, I know what's happening next on the whole.

I know what to do about it. I feel it's secure. I feel at home.

But I've been back on stage since and I enjoy it as much as I ever did.

Tell them over and over and over again.

Heaven forbid on June and his misdeeds over.