Token Smokin’ Hottie: Ian McKellan

So, okay, Ian McKellan is about 175 years old (or maybe 68) but before you curl your lip and wonder what today’s token smokin’ hotties are coming to just cool your heels and have a look at him. Take in that knowing smile, the piercing eyes, the rakish tilt to his hat and the acerbic wit that could cut you to shreds if he wasn’t busy dating a string of hot, younger men. You’ve got to admit there’s something about Ian McKellan that is weirdly attractive.

This is a man who, when asked to give (Conservative UK fucknuckle) Michael Howard an autograph for his kids, wrote “Fuck off, I’m gay”.

It is the same man who not only famously came out on the radio while arguing against Maggie Thatcher’s plan to make the “public promotion” of homosexuality a crime but spent the next 15-ish years campaigning for gay rights while turning up to successive awards ceremonies with a series of improbably hot and young dates on his arm.

It’s also the man who made the hairs on the arms of audience’s worldwide stand up with his killer delivery on the line “is that what they say?” in the first X-Men movie and probably built a new storey on his house with the money he presumably received for the two sequels.

He’s like the English professor you fancy because he’s so brainy and wears a linen suit, or a character from a Waugh or Forster novel who spends his days being horribly charming and getting champagne drunk on terraces at country houses. It’s not exactly that you want to sleep with him, per se, but it would be so flattering to be asked you’re just not quite sure how to say no, and you did polish off that bottle of champagne all by yourself and now it's so very late…

UPDATE: Paragraph breaks are fucked. Apologies.