This isn’t news to me (or many others who read this), but the way he said it is beautiful.
(from the IMDB)
McKellen: “Homosexuality Made Me Feel Like a Mutant”
Sir Ian McKellen took inspiration for his role in X-Men: The Last Stand from society’s treatment of homosexuals, because he was made to feel like an inferior outsider. The Lord Of The Rings star has been openly gay since the 1980s, and he takes exception to the common assumption that homosexuals can be “cured” – and channeled his fury into the role of Magneto. Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival Monday, McKellen vented, “As a gay man, some people think that it ought to be cured and made normal again and I find it as offensive as someone saying that they have a cure for the color of their skin. This particular story was close to my heart; it has an important message to young people who may for one reason or another be disaffected with society because society points at their differences and says that they’re inferior to the rest of us.” In Brett Ratner‘s third installment of the comic book adaptation, McKellen’s character leads the evil mutant’s struggle against government plans to introduce a cure for their conditions.