Ian McKellen had a lot of fun playing “an outrageous man” in his new movie The Critic.

In the period drama, The Lord of the Rings actor plays Jimmy Erskine, an acid-tongued theatre critic who has no qualms about delivering blistering reviews about productions and performers in the 1930s.

“Often the devil has the best tunes and the best lines, and it’s fun to play an outrageous man who clearly has some emotional problems,” McKellen told Variety about playing the mean character.

In the film, Erskine, who is gay, is at risk of being fired from his position after he is caught by the police soliciting sex. According to McKellen, the threat of a public scandal pushes Erskine to the dark side.

The movie’s director, Anand Tucker, explained that McKellen had a genuine understanding of this aspect of his character because the British actor didn’t come out as gay until 1988.

“I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need to be gay to play a gay part,” Tucker stated. “But in Ian’s case, there’s something about his own lived experience that allowed him to bring a kind of urgent truth to the role. He had a deep understanding of what it means to be an outsider who is shunned for the truth of who they are.”

The Critic, also starring Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong and Lesley Manville, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last month.

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