Ian McKellen just posted a touching tribute to his longtime friend Patrick Stewart. Since the iconic actor’s passing was announced, several of his past co-stars and friends have posted lovely tributes to the actor. Names like Hugh Jackman, the Russo Brothers, Wil Wheaton, and so many more posted their memories of Stewart and what he meant to their lives. However, when looking at the people who were really close to Stewart, few matched the length of time that he and McKellen spent as friends, co-stars, and contemporaries both in movies and theatrical productions.
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In his touching tribute following Stewart’s death, McKellen posted on Instagram and spoke about how he warned Stewart against taking the role of Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, fearing he would get lost in Hollywood and miss out on his love of theater performances. McKellen wrote, “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.”
Ian McKellen Knew Patrick Stewart Better Than Most
Ian McKellen went on to say that America became Stewart’s adopted home, and that was where Stewart met his wife Sunny Ozell, “who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin.” McKellen finished by saying that the proudest achievement that Stewart ever received was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire. In fact, the photo that McKellen included in his Instagram post was Stewart following his appointment as chancellor. McKellen also added that Stewart’s final performance was yet to be seen and would be in Avengers: Doomsday.
McKellen likely took Stewart’s leap of faith by appearing in Star Trek to heart when he took on the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies. For an entire generation of fans, McKellen will always be Gandalf and Magneto, and Stewart will always be Picard and Professor X. It was those X-Men movies where the two played the most important characters in the movies, and their relationship goes back much further than the X-Men movies. They initially met in the 1970s when both men were working for the Royal Shakespeare Company in the U.K.
They were not close friends during that time, as Stewart found McKellen to be aloof and intimidating, but that changed over the years. When Stewart had the chance to join the Star Trek franchise, he asked McKellen for advice, but then ignored it and took the chance. Years later, they became very close as they worked together in the X-Men franchise. In 2009, they even took the stage together in a West End version of Waiting for Godot, and then reunited for No Man’s Land, which played through 2016. Their friendship became so close that when Stewart married Ozell, McKellen officiated their 2013 wedding.
What are your thoughts on Ian McKellen’s touching tribute to Patrick Stewart? Let us know your favorite memories of the close friends’ relationship in the comments below.
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