Ian McKellen Pays Tribute to Patrick Stewart’s Friend After Death at 86

Ian McKellen joined the many stars mourning Patrick Stewart on Thursday, paying tribute to his cherished friend one day after the celebrated stage and screen actor died at 86.

McKellen, 87, reflected on the pair’s five-decade friendship and admitted that he once gave Stewart misguided advice by urging him to reject the Star Trek role that would ultimately make him an international icon.

McKellen later followed Stewart into the franchise of major Hollywood roles, joining him in 2000’s X-Men. He went on to achieve worldwide fame of his own as Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

To remember his late friend, McKellen posted a dignified Instagram photo showing Stewart in academic robes at the University of Huddersfield.

‘Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt,’ McKellen wrote. ‘Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.’

The X-Men star recalled meeting Stewart ‘as ambitious young actors’ at the Royal Shakespeare Company ‘half a century ago,’ although the two were performing in separate productions.

Ian McKellen joined the bevy of stars honoring the late Patrick Stewart when he paid his respects to his beloved friend on Thursday, following the stage and screen star’s death the previous day at 86; above, in 2018 in London

Stewart and McKellen starred together in multiple X-Men films, as well as in several theatre productions; above, in X-Men: The Last Stand with Halle Berry (L) and Hugh Jackman (second to right)

McKellen then recalled his next major memory of Stewart, when they met in London and Stewart revealed that he had received an offer ‘to take over a leading part in Star Trek.’ 

‘But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”’ McKellen recalled responding. 

‘Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.’

McKellen said that Stewart’s ‘adopted home’ of the US was ‘where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin.’

‘But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire,’ McKellen added.

He concluded by noting that Stewart’s ‘farewell performance in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ is yet to be seen.’

McKellen is also featured in the upcoming superhero film. 

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After meeting in the theater, McKellen and Stewart appeared together on stage later in life in multiple productions.

McKellen honored his late friend by sharing a stately photo on Instagram of Stewart looking refined in academic robes at the University of Huddersfield; above in January 2020 in London

He revealed the meeting early in their friendship when Stewart revealed he had been offered a major Star Trek role, which the Lord of the Rings star was initially suspicious of

They went on to appear together on stage in a 2009 production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in London (above). They reprised their roles in a double production of Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land on Broadway in 2013 and ’14, before brining No Man’s Land to London in 2016

In a 2020 Wired interview, Stewart admitted: ‘I’ll be frank with you – I’m in love with [him]. But then, so is my wife in love with him, too, so that’s all right’; Above, Stewart and McKellen in London in 2020

McKellen went on to officiate Stewart’s wedding with his third wife, Sunny Ozell, in 2013 on the banks of Lake Tahoe, Nevada. McKellen registered as a minister with the Universal Life Church, which celebrates freedom of religion, in order to officiate the ceremony

In 2009, they starred in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in London, and then in 2013 and 2014 they reprised their roles on Broadway. 

The two actors appeared in an acclaimed double production of both Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land.

In 2016, they returned to London’s West End, this time to reprise No Man’s Land on stage. 

In a 2020 interview with Wired, Stewart recalled how his friendship with McKellen deepened when they starred in X-Men at the turn of the century.

‘We had adjoining trailers. On those kind of movies, you spend more time sitting in your trailer than you do in front of the camera. So Ian and I hung out together, drinking tea – and maybe, in the afternoon, something a little stronger – and we got to know one another, and the charm of it was that we found we had so much in common,’ he recalled.

Elsewhere in the interview, Stewart added: ‘I’ll be frank with you – I’m in love with [him]. But then, so is my wife in love with him, too, so that’s all right.’

Stewart and McKellen showed off their friendly affection in public, where they would sometimes kiss on the lips for photographers and fans. 

McKellen went on to officiate Stewart’s wedding with his third wife, Sunny Ozell, in 2013 on the banks of Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

McKellen registered as a minister with the Universal Life Church, which celebrates freedom of religion, in order to officiate the ceremony.