Ian McKellen revealed he channeled his contempt for President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate while filming a destruction sequence for the upcoming Marvel film “Avengers: Doomsday.”
The 87-year-old British actor, who reprises his “X-Men” role as the metal-manipulating villain Magneto, made the disclosure at Rome’s Cinema in Piazza festival, a free outdoor screening and Q&A series, where he performed a theatrical reenactment of the moment for the audience.
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, he said, pushed him to intensify his performance during a scene in which Magneto, according to Mr. McKellen, destroys New Jersey.
“They told me to look more furious: Make it look as if you hate what you’re destroying,” Mr. McKellen told the crowd. “So, I stood there, and I shouted: ’Mar-a-Lago!’”
The remarks, first reported by The Guardian, drew laughs from the audience. “Avengers: Doomsday” is slated for a December release.
Mr. McKellen has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump since his first term. In 2017, he told Variety the administration’s rollback of LGBTQ workplace protections and its failure to recognize Pride month was “appalling and quite unnecessary and very un-American.”
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