Sir Ian McKellen is currently in Melbourne, Australia rehearsing ‘Waiting For Godot‘ and unintentionally fooling clueless citizens into thinking he is a common vagrant looking for a handout.
The image below, via Reddit, shows McKellen taking a break from ‘Godot’ and receiving an Australian dollar coin from a kind soul walking past the actor. It’s a sweet story according The Telegraph.
“During the dress rehearsal of Godot, I crouched by the stage door of the Comedy Theatre, getting some air, my bowler hat at my feet (and) seeing an unkempt old man down on his luck, a passer-by said, ‘Need some help, brother?’ and put a dollar in my hat.”
McKellen now claims the coin is his lucky “talisman,”placing it above his dressing room mirror, and proves yet again that he’s quite amazing alongside recurring partner in crime, Sir Patrick Stewart.
The Reddit thread also brings up an interesting and somewhat relevant connection to “The Wire” via this New Yorker profile.
Once, a man pressed a package of heroin into the hands of Andre Royo, the actor who plays the sympathetic junkie and police informant Bubbles, saying, “Man, you need a fix more than I do.” Royo refers to that moment as his “street Oscar.”
Someone needs to get McKellen his street Oscar, immediately. And while we are at it, how about a real Oscar as well.
Via Reddit/The Telegraph