For the record, I really dig The Hobbit movies. Sure, they’re a bit bloated because they borrowed so heavily from The Silmarillion, but they’re still pretty entertaining, even if you could improve each installment by trimming a good 30 minutes from each. Anyway, one of the highlights from the trilogy has been Lee Pace as Thranduil, who is EVERYTHING (and who inspired some great stuff from Gingerhaze). And now, it turns out Pace may have just been outed by Ian McKellen. Via Queerty …
The subtle slip came during an interview with Brash.de, a German website that asked several questions regarding McKellan’s sexuality and the difference in being an out actor in 2001 (when the first Lord of the Rings film was released) and now.
The following excerpt has been translated via Google translate, so we’re prone to believe this may just be a technical error (any German speakers here?):
Brash: Still, there is hardly colleagues who follow your example, right?
Ian McKellen: I would say that has been done in this regard in the last ten years in the industry a lot. Just look only how many openly gay actors in the Hobbit with were: two of the dwarves, to Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Lee Pace. In The Lord of the Rings I was the only one next to it there was my make-up artist and one from the wardrobe team. That’s only once a progress, right?
I have no idea if this is just a bad translation or whatever, but I’ve always had a crush on Pace since Pushing Daisies was canceled prematurely. Chalk this one up to wishful thinking, but who knows?