[general_re]

It's a "silver lining" thing, I guess. Besides, Viggo "GI Jane" Mortensen will be lucky if he has half the career that John Rhys-Davies has had, since he's not even half the actor that Rhys-Davies is - of all the performances in those movies thus far, Viggo's is clearly the weakest. He is adequate, at best, and I don't think the hype about him becoming a major-league leading man is likely to pan out. Ian McKellen, on the other hand...well, sometimes you gotta separate the politics from the profession ;)

[RayChuang88]

Ian McKellen, on the other hand...well, sometimes you gotta separate the politics from the profession ;)

You're forgetting that McKellen was trained as a Shakespearean actor and has a long history of excellence doing Shakespeare plays. That means McKellen is an extremely highly-accomplished actor to start with.

By the way, McKellen is actually not very comfortable talking politics, because he very well knows that bringing up the issue of homosexuality (he's openly gay) may not play well in many parts of the world. He'd rather talk about being an actor--and I don't blame him. :-)