Ian McKellen on Not Retiring, Not Being the First Choice for Gandalf and Going Evil for ‘The Critic’: ‘The Devil Has the Best Lines’

variety.com:

Ian McKellen usually has critics exhausting the superlatives. But he’s not immune to the rare bruising notice, and when that happens, he calls his friends. “The best thing is to let everyone know that I’ve read it and they needn’t pussyfoot around it,” he says. “I know that I’ve been chastised.” For his latest role in “The Critic,” it’s McKellen who is delivering the blistering assessments as Jimmy Erskine, an acid-tongued theater reviewer who yields a corrosive influence over a struggling actress named Nina Land, played by Gemma Arterton.

He’s a Mephistophelian figure — one who exchanged his moral compass for great orchestra seats. “Often the devil has the best tunes and the best lines, and it’s fun to play an outrageous man who clearly has some emotional problems,” McKellen says during a Zoom interview from his London home.

His gray hair is a thicket of indifference, he’s nursing some stubble and chain-smoking, but despite his informal appearance, he still seems so elegant.

Blessed with a stentorian tone that makes him perfect for classical heroes, every one of McKellen’s asides and utterances arrives with an air of profundity. “The Critic” will have its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where the producers will try to sell it to a studio.