I read King Lear in my senior year of high school, which has now been about two years and it is one of my favorite plays. I chose this video about Ian McKellen, a famous actor, talking about the role he portrayed in King Lear as King Lear.
He starts off by stating that King Lear is an extremist because King Lear believes in the beginning of the play that he has power between him and the gods. He is considered a priest like king since there is a connection between kingship and relationship with the gods. Which I agree, when I first read the play I saw how intense he was about his power. At the end of the play, Lear realizes that there was more than life than having fame, fortune, and power. He was able to see past his materialistic ways and actually reconciled with the real world and focus on love, friends, and family. McKellen stated that playing Lear he had to assume a backstory that Shakespeare never wrote, in order to get into character that includes a life filled with hardships and expectations to be future king to reveal all the emotions throughout the play.
What was interesting was the fact that McKellen kept saying that Lear retired; instead of saying Lear passed down his title. Lear couldn’t give away his title of being a king. There is power connected with the title which he didn’t want to let go of. The sad part about it is that after Lear retired he was stopped being treated like a king and was ignored. This may be due to the fact that he was a bully, starting with the fact that he was putting his daughters in a competition of who loved him the most so they can get awarded with land that he rules over. McKellen even states that Goneril and Regan become bullies as well because of the play shows how Lear and his daughters do not have a special bond and because he does not treat them with respect that they deserve. Basically, Lear takes advantage of his power as a king and father to intimidate and force the daughters to obey him. The two oldest daughters, Goneril and Regan, remind me of the step-sisters of Cinderella. Why you may ask? They are both motivated by greed and fortune and it also starts when they fakely express their love to their father just so that they can get the inheritance of land early. I think Cinderella was inspired by Goneril and Regan, but that’s just my opinion.
Ian McKellen and I both agree on the same values and lessons that Lear learned and that he was able to grow as a person. King Lear lost faith but he “discovered his humanity” according to McKellen and that’s the perfect way to sum up King Lear’s character evolution.