Salah satu hubungan persahabatan paling menarik di balik franchise X-Men adalah hubungan Patrick Stewart dan Ian McKellen.
Di layar, keduanya dikenal sebagai Professor X dan Magneto, dua sahabat lama yang kemudian memiliki perbedaan pandangan mengenai masa depan manusia dan mutan.
Namun, di dunia nyata, Stewart dan McKellen justru merupakan sahabat dekat. Keduanya bahkan telah saling mengenal sejak berkarier bersama Royal Shakespeare Company sekitar setengah abad lalu.
McKellen menyampaikan penghormatan panjang melalui sebuah tulisan yang mengenang perjalanan hidup dan karier sahabatnya tersebut.
Dalam pesannya, McKellen mengenang asal-usul Stewart di Yorkshire, Inggris, kejujurannya dalam menyampaikan pendapat, hingga bagaimana ia akhirnya mengambil kesempatan untuk membintangi Star Trek meski sempat mendapat peringatan mengenai risiko meninggalkan karier teater di Inggris.
McKellen juga mengenang bagaimana Stewart tetap mempertahankan kecintaannya terhadap kampung halaman meskipun Amerika telah menjadi rumah keduanya.
Salah satu bagian paling menyentuh dari pesannya adalah pengakuan McKellen bahwa Stewart merupakan sosok yang ia kagumi dan cintai.
Ia juga menutup tulisannya dengan menyinggung penampilan terakhir Stewart sebagai Professor X dalam Avengers: Doomsday, yang saat itu masih belum disaksikan publik.
Berikut pesan lengkap Ian McKellen:
"SIR PATRICK STEWART (1940-2026)
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. 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.
We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about 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?”. 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.
America was his adopted home, 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.
His farewell performance in 'Avengers: Doomsday' is yet to be seen.
Ian McKellen 29 October 2026"
