Ian McKellen channelled Trump anger for Magneto destruction scene in Avengers: Doomsday
Ian McKellen used Trump as inspiration for a Magneto scene (Image: 20th Century Fox | Getty Images)
Ian McKellen said he channelled anger at Donald Trump while filming a destruction scene as Magneto in Marvel’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, shouting “Mar-a-Lago!” after directors told him to look more furious.
The 87-year-old shared the anecdote during an on-stage appearance at Cinema in Piazza in Rome (as per The Guardian), showed preview footage of the film to an 2,000-strong audience.
Recalling direction from Anthony and Joe Russo, McKellen said: “[They told me to] make it look as if you hate what you’re destroying,” before adding: “So I stood there and I shouted: ‘Mar-a-Lago!’”
Mar-a-Lago is a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, that Trump has owned since 1985.
McKellen also described the scale of the sequence, saying: “They got me at one point to destroy New Jersey,” as he re-enacted the moment for the crowd.
Avengers: Doomsday release date
Avengers: Doomsday is expected to unite characters from across the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, and lead into Avengers: Secret Wars. The project was announced in July 2024, alongside news of Robert Downey Jr’s return to the MCU. The film is slated for release on 18 December, 2026.
After, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is set to reboot the X-Men, though details are still largely under wraps.
Ian McKellen’s long-running activism
McKellen has criticised Trump previously. In 2017, he condemned rollbacks affecting LGBTQ+ protections as “appalling and quite unnecessary and very un-American”.
The star is one of Britain’s most acclaimed actors, known for Shakespearean theatre as well as major screen roles including Magneto in the X-Men films and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises.
He came out publicly in 1988 and has long been associated with LGBTQ+ equality campaigning in the UK and internationally, as well as being a frequent public critic of right-wing politics and anti-LGBTQ+ policies, including calling out ICE in a moving Shakespeare monologue and praising the queer short film Meat Raffle.
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