[I]n the theatre, life is happening now. That's Falstaff's first word: "Now!" It's not reported life, it's life right there. - Ian McKellen

Heterosexuality is far too interesting a phenomenon to be ignored.

The audience I play to really is the bright 14-year-old: someone who is capable of sitting still and listening and watching and feeling for even three hours. I know, as I did at that age, they'll potentially have their lives changed.

You must accept that there are very very few famous homosexuals in this country. There are no sportsmen who declare that they are gay because they don't like to because they are frightened of what will happen to them. And this is the area in which schoolchildren, to get back to the Bill, the schoolchildren who having no role models in society discover, fear, that they are gay, they go to their parents where they get a dusty answer, they go automatically, of course, to the other adults in their lives, they go to their teachers. And their teachers need to be in a position to be able to discuss that sexuality and reassure them that it is not against the law, it is not wrong and they must feel at ease with it, if they have decided at the end of their experimentation with their sexuality that they are one thing or the other. And this Bill will restrict dangerously that perfectly proper activity of the schools.