British actor Sir Ian McKellen said
this week that the Academy Awards also ignores openly gay actors.
McKellen, 76, is best known for playing
Gandalf in the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
trilogies and Magneto in the X-Men films. He came out in
1988.
Asked to weigh in on the controversy
surrounding this year's Oscars, McKellen said that racism is not the
only problem facing the annual awards ceremony.
“It's not only black people who've
been disregarded by the film industry, it used to be women, it's
certainly gay people to this day,” McKellen told Sky
News. “And these are all legitimate complaints and the
Oscars are the focus of those complaints, of course.”
In a separate interview with The
Guardian, McKellen noted that many actors have won the Oscar
for portraying a gay character.
“No openly gay man has ever won the
Oscar; I wonder if that is prejudice or chance,” McKellen said.
“My speech has been in two jackets … 'I'm proud to be the first
openly gay man to win the Oscar.' I've had to put it back in my
pocket twice.”