Hollywood pals Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart bring play from London stage to the big screen
The two British actors, who worked together on several X-Men films, will do a live broadcast of their West End production No Man’s Land
One of the great theatrical bromances of our time is coming to the big screen.
Onstage co-stars and offstage pals Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are capping a West End run of Harold Pinter’s bruisingly funny No Man’s Land with a live broadcast to dozens of cinemas around the world on December 22. There are repeat screenings over the coming weeks as part of the UK National Theatre’s NT Live series.
The two eminent actors – both knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth – became friends while filming the superhero X-Men movies, and their onstage chemistry has blossomed alongside an exuberant offstage friendship, complete with Instagram selfies.
In 2009 they co-starred as the limbo-lost Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. In 2013 on Broadway, they paired Beckett’s drama with No Man’s Land, performing the two plays in repertory.
This year they headed back to Britain with Pinter’s tragicomedy about two writers: one struggling but hopeful, the other successful but trapped. As the play opens, McKellen’s eager Spooner has been invited to the grand home of Stewart’s imperious yet befuddled Hirst for an ocean of whisky and a titanic battle of wills.