Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen has taken a swipe at Donald Trump, accusing him of being a terrible public speaker.
In an interview with The times in which the 85-year-old Oscar-winning actor delivered a scathing assessment of the ex-president’s abilities before a crowd.
“Trump is an absolute baffler. I haven’t seen him live. But he is one of the worst public speakers there has ever been,” the actor told the outlet.
“Whether he reads a script or not, it’s so clear what he is.”
McKellen also revealed that when he comes home from an evening gig, he shuts off the outside world and turns on left-wing CNN, which could explain his comments about the Republican presidential candidate.
Sir Ian McKellen criticized Donald Trump as a terrible public speaker during an interview this weekend
Sir Ian McKellen continues to work on stage and screen, with six stage roles alone in the three years since theaters reopened since the pandemic
McKellen also admitted that as a child he loved nothing more than cycling to the town square to see the leader of the Welsh Labor Party.Aneurin Bevan about hustings without a microphone.
“There are no such great speakers,” he said, adding that politicians “don’t spend enough time looking at themselves and saying, ‘Well, I didn’t believe that person.’
McKellan’s comments were ridiculed in the US, with Nicholas Borelli saying of X: ‘We choose Trump’s excellent policies and administration over oration. Obama spoke well, but performed poorly. Joe Biden speaks poorly and performs poorly,” said Nicholas Borelli.
A commenter on a conservative website The Western Journal also came to Trump’s defense, calling McKellen’s comments “so strange.”
“If you concede the actor’s point and accept his premise that Trump is a terrible orator… what does that make the highly correctable Biden? Incomprehensible? Incoherent? Indecipherable?’, Bryan Chai asked.
“Trump is an absolute baffler. I haven’t seen him live. But he is one of the worst public speakers ever. Whether he reads a script or not, it’s so clear what he is,” McKellen said
Trump speaks at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week. Now that his criminal trial in New York has concluded, the former president has planned a number of fundraising events
“Given that every American (even Democrats, deep down) knows the answer to the above question, critics of Donald Trump would do best to refrain from any mention of rhetoric skills at least until November,” he said.
McKellen has now had a career, has no problems with his oratorio skills and has had a career of more than 60 years.
While he continues to work on stage and screen, with six stage roles alone in the three years since theaters reopened since the Covid lockdowns, he still makes sure he chooses his next script, fearing that any of it could be his last.
McKellen portrayed the wizard in six feature films between 2001 and 2014. He can be seen in 2003’s The Return Of The King.
“If you want to know you’re mortal, all you have to do is look at your address book. And so when a script comes through, or the hint of an offer, you think, “This could be my last job.” No. I do not do that.”
He notes that there are rumors of a new Lord of the Rings film and that he may be asked to reprise his role as wizard Gandalf “if I’m still alive.”
“But there is no script, there is no offer, there is no plan,” he notes drily.
McKellen portrayed the wizard in six feature films between 2001 and 2014.