Patrick Stewart's longtime friend Ian McKellen pays tribute to his late X-Men costar after his death at 86

Ian McKellen joined the bevy of stars honoring the late Patrick Stewart when he paid his respects to his beloved friend on Thursday, following the stage and screen star's death the previous day at 86.

McKellen, 87, recalled his five-decade friendship with the legendary actor, as well as his short-sighted advice that Stewart should turn down the Star Trek role that made him an international star.

He ended up following Stewart's path and signing on to costar with him in 2000's X-Men, and he cemented his own global stardom by appearing as Gandalf in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. 

McKellen honored his late friend by sharing a stately photo on Instagram of Stewart looking refined in academic robes at the University of Huddersfield.

'Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt,' McKellen wrote. 'Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.'

The X-Men actor recalled when both men met 'as ambitious young actors' while working with the Royal Shakespeare Company 'half a century ago,' though they were appearing in different plays. 

McKellen then recalled his next major memory of Stewart, when they met in London and Stewart revealed that he had received an offer 'to take over a leading part in Star Trek.' 

'But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”' McKellen recalled responding. 

'Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes ('X-Men' of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.'

McKellen said that Stewart's 'adopted home' of the US was 'where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin.'

'But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire,' McKellen added.

He concluded by noting that Stewart's 'farewell performance in 'Avengers: Doomsday' is yet to be seen.'

McKellen is also featured in the upcoming superhero film. 

After meeting in the theater, McKellen and Stewart appeared together on stage later in life in multiple productions.

In 2009, they starred in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in London, and then in 2013 and 2014 they reprised their roles on Broadway. 

The two actors appeared in an acclaimed double production of both Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land.

In 2016, they returned to London's West End, this time to reprise No Man's Land on stage. 

In a 2020 interview with Wired, Stewart recalled how his friendship with McKellen deepened when they starred in X-Men at the turn of the century.

'We had adjoining trailers. On those kind of movies, you spend more time sitting in your trailer than you do in front of the camera. So Ian and I hung out together, drinking tea – and maybe, in the afternoon, something a little stronger – and we got to know one another, and the charm of it was that we found we had so much in common,' he recalled.

Elsewhere in the interview, Stewart added: 'I’ll be frank with you – I’m in love with [him]. But then, so is my wife in love with him, too, so that’s all right.'

Stewart and McKellen showed off their friendly affection in public, where they would sometimes kiss on the lips for photographers and fans. 

McKellen went on to officiate Stewart's wedding with his third wife, Sunny Ozell, in 2013 on the banks of Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

McKellen registered as a minister with the Universal Life Church, which celebrates freedom of religion, in order to officiate the ceremony.