Elijah looks angelic but his beauty of spirit is what makes his Frodo leap out of the screen. Unalloyed goodness is one of the most difficult attributes to act.

I have been reluctant to lobby on other issues I most care about - nuclear weapons (against), religion (atheist), capital punishment (anti), AIDS (fund-raiser) because I don't want to be forever spouting, diluting the impact of addressing my most urgent concern - legal and social equality for gay people worldwide.

No one needs to feel sorry for me or anyone else who has fallen victim to success.

I often thought my gravestone would say, 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out,'

In fact, my face has shrunk in the meantime, but it won't be particularly noticeable because it's covered up with hair. So I hope I'm not alarmed if I ever do sit through the five movies.

I think if I were asked to do as many as fifty takes, I would assume the director had no idea what he wanted, and was just hoping, eventually, to see it.

I've played an awful lot of people that other people would call villains, but that isn't a very helpful attitude to have if you're about to play them. They are just people, and they may do dreadful things and say dreadful things, but your job as an actor is to know why they do them or say them.