The Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen has attacked Donald Trump, accusing him of being a terrible public speaker.
In an interview with The times in which the Oscar-winning actor, 85, offered a withering assessment of his podium skills in front of a crowd.
‘Trump is an absolute bewilderment. I haven’t seen it live. But he is one of the worst public speakers who ever lived,” the actor told the outlet.
“Whether you’re reading a script or not, it’s obvious what it is.”
McKellen also revealed that when he gets home from a late-night performance, he tunes out the outside world and turns on left-wing CNN, which may explain his comments about the Republican presidential hopeful.
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 theater roles alone in the three years since cinemas reopened from 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 on election campaigns without a microphone’.
“There are no great speakers like that,” 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 met with derision in the United States, with Nicholas Borelli saying on X: “We prefer Trump’s excellent policies and governance to prayer.” Obama spoke well, performed poorly. “Joe Biden speaks badly and acts badly,” said Nicholas Borelli.
A commenter on a conservative website. The Western Journal He also came to Trump’s defense, stating that McKellen’s comments were “very strange.”
‘If we grant the actor’s point of view and accept his premise that Trump is a terrible speaker… what does that make for a highly correctable Biden? Unintelligible? Incoherent? Indecipherable?’ Bryan Chai asked.
‘Trump is an absolute bewilderment. I haven’t seen it live. But he is one of the worst public speakers who ever lived. Whether he’s reading a script or not, it’s so evident 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 scheduled a series of fundraising events.
“Given that all Americans (even Democrats, deep down) know the answer to the above question, critics of Donald Trump would do better to avoid any mention of public speaking skills, at least until November,” he said.
McKellen has had a career in the meantime, he has no problems with his public speaking skills having enjoyed a career spanning more than 60 years.
While he continues to work on stage and screen, with six theater roles alone in the three years since theaters reopened from Covid shutdowns, he still worries about choosing his next script, fearing each one will be his last.
McKellen played the wizard in six feature films between 2001 and 2014. He appears in 2003’s The Return of the King.
‘If you want to know that you are mortal you just have to look at your address book. And then when a script comes in, or the hint of an offer, you think, ‘This could be my last job.’ No. I’m not going to do that.”
He notes that there are rumors about a new Lord of the Rings movie and that he could be asked to reprise his role as the wizard Gandalf, “if I’m alive.”
“But there is no script, there is no offer, there is no plan,” he points out dryly.
McKellen played the magician in six feature films between 2001 and 2014.