Sir Ian McKellen has spoken about coming out -- and how it felt to be a gay man growing up during a time when sex between two men was against the law -- in a revealing interview with Charlie Rose.
"I wish I'd felt able to come out earlier," McKellen told Rose.
"Everything in society was against people of my generation coming out because it was against the law to make love," the actor explained. "So if every time you have sex you remind yourself you're a criminal... that's not something you really want to talk about, unless you're a really, really strong and brave person, which I wasn't."
McKellen went on to say that he got on comfortably with life as an openly gay man without ever really talking about it. "Most people don't have to," he said. "But if you're in the public eye there comes a time when it's appropriate. A law was being passed that I didn't approve of which disadvantaged gay people and that's when I came out."
"It was just the right time for me," continued McKellen, "because [at] 49, I was confident as an actor, as a person, and I could organise a sentence and make a case and feel passionate about it, and I was in the public eye so there was a part for me to play within the gay rights movement in the UK.
"And I loved it, I relished it. Acting was involved, of course, but acting the truth. And then I felt a better person all the way round."