Jonathan Bailey’s “spiritual, religious experience” working with Sir Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen is one of the great Shakespeare and film actors of all time.
Having only truly gotten famous in later life as Gandalf, the iconic wizard from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, McKellen has long been revered in the theatre circuit ever since he became a leading man and producer for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Now 86, the actor has pledged to continue working on films and theatre productions, and has inspired a generation of Hollywood actors to try their hand at the stage, receiving the much-revered Tony Award in 1981 for his performance in the West End production of Amadeus. So it’s no wonder that the British actor Jonathon Bailey referred to his time working with Ian McKellen as a “spiritual, religious experience”.
The two first worked together on Jonathan Munby’s 2017 production of Shakespeare’s King Lear at Chichester Festival Theatre, where the National Theatre was originally founded in the 1960s. The production was widely considered one of the best renditions of King Lear, bringing the play to a contemporary setting in their classic style.
Jonathan Bailey, who is best known for bursting onto our screens as the handsome Lord Anthony in Netflix’s Bridgerton, plays King Lear’s legitimate son and heir Edgar in the production, whose transformation from naivety and innocence to resilience and moral strength is widely seen as one of the most difficult roles in the Shakespearean tragedy genre.
Bailey recalled the pressure of being in the presence of “one of the greatest Shakespearean actors”, and wanting to work as hard as hard as he could so that “you can play as fiercely and as intelligently, and as sillily as [McKellen] does”. But the actor shouldn’t have worried; he later went on to earn a Laurence Olivier Award in 2019 for ‘Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical’ for his performance as Jamie in the West End revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company.
He was supported by McKellan throughout the production, who became his sort of mentor, having played the role of Edgar himself before, and the two actors made a powerful force together on stage, working off each others’ energy and intensity to create characters highly praised by critics, and the show completely sold out. Their dynamic on the stage was almost comical, with Bailey recalling that at one point, he was squatting down in a tiny thong made of plastic bags and covered in mud, and looking up at McKellen, who had flowers in his hair, an experience he described simply as “amazing”.
The two also built a friendship off-screen, sitting together after each King Lear showing around an electric fire, having been drenched onstage with a rain machine, and in Bailey’s words, “putting the world to rights”. Moreover, being from different eras, the two have also expounded on their experiences of being openly gay actors, playing straight roles, and how the landscape has changed for queer people over time.
You can catch Bailey starring in Gareth Edwards’ Jurassic Park: Rebirth and sharing magical off-screen chemistry on the press tour with Scarlett Johansson, currently in cinemas.
