Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen are two of the finest British and Shakespearean actors of their generation, which they've proven time and again on the stage as well as in film, but they're also notorious for one thing: they've both come out as gay after hailing from a generation that was particularly close-minded about non-heterosexual preferences.
As Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen, mostly McKellen, have turned into two of the most iconic voices of the LGBT movement, they were both invited to be grand marshals in the New York City Pride Parade last weekend, just two days after the historic Supreme Court decision extending same-sex marriages throughout the United States.
Out Magazine reports that this was the first time that Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen attended the iconic parade, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Riots (often called the first spark of the gay civil rights movement), and they were guests of honor, featured as grand marshals alongside artist J. Christopher Neal and Ugandan activist Kasha Jacqueline Nagagesera.
According to The New York Times, not only are Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen out and proud, but the two award-winning actors are also the stars of the British PBS "Vicious," where they play an elderly couple - and their relationship dates back all the way to the 50s, when they were both in Cambridge together and bonded over their love of acting and sharing the secret of each other's sexualities, when homosexuality was still illegal in their native UK.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about their first NYC Gay Pride parade and the recent decision, both Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen spoke about what it had been like to live through the major society changes regarding LGBT rights.
"I'm in a 38-year relationship with my civil partner, but I want to, someday soon, to get married," said Jacobi, from films like "Gladiator." "It's such an advance, I think it's extraordinary that we've come this far."
"You can't have had that law in the statute books well within our lifetime and not leave behind a lot of people who think the old law was the right thing," said the "X-Men" and "Lord of the Rings" actor, who has been an outspoken supporter of LGBT rights for decades. "They've got to grow up. They've got to learn, and that process of telling people the truth must continue, even here, let alone in Russia and other places."
Fans can see Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen in the second season of "Vicious" on August 23!
