Ian McKellen: The British Government Warned Me Against Traveling To Russia

Actor Ian McKellen yesterday said that the British government has warned him that he would not be safe in Russia.

In an interview with the Radio Times magazine, the openly gay actor, 74, said he was told by Britain's Foreign Office that it could not "protect him" from the laws. In July a nationwide law banning distribution of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors was passed in Russia. “Imagine trying to be a gay actor, a gay anything in modern Russia?," Sir Ian told the Radio Times. “Where to be positively oneself, to be affectionate in public with someone you love of the same gender, or to talk of that love in the hearing of anyone under 18, will put you in prison? "That’s why I can’t go to Russia."