Sir Ian McKellen and Troye Sivan explore two generations of sexuality on the cover of Attitude in 2018

No, it’s not an optical illusion: the images from our intergenerational cover boy shoots from issue 296 – featuring Sir Ian McKellen and Troye Sivan – share the same provocative DNA because they were shot by the same photographer. How was this eight years ago already?!

“To be knighted is a very odd thing,” mused McKellen in his 2018 Attitude cover interview, of receiving the accolade from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1991 New Year Honours for his services to the performing arts. “Half of you thinks, ‘I’m thrilled to bits,’” he continued. “The other half thinks, ‘Oh, stop it. It’s not for me.’” 

Sir Ian McKellen on accepting his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II

The Lord of the Rings icon continued, “I’ve looked to a world where no one should be constrained by the law in anything they want to do, as long as they [don’t] hurt anyone else. They can be as radical as they want. But you can’t take that attitude from inside the closet. I’ll always be glad I didn’t accept the knighthood until I’d come out of the closet.”

We’re looking back at this particular issue, not just because Sir Ian recently caused a fabulous commotion at January’s Attitude 101, empowered by Bentley – our annual celebration of trailblazing LGBTQ+s – by helping auction a portrait of him by Spanish artist Julia de Gabriel to the tune of £17,000 – see page 152. The 2018 issue also ushered in a new design era of Attitude (just like the issue you’re reading now), with dual cover shoots by photographer Damon Baker, who also captured a Bloom-era Troye Sivan in thrillingly unvarnished style.

Troye Sivan on his second studio album, Bloom

The now-30-year-old summed up that chapter of his career perfectly with the following quote: “This wasn’t me thinking to myself, ‘Oh, it’s time to grow up and have my “sexy phase,”’ or whatever. I just sort of started to become more comfortable with sharing. For me, the goal of the whole project is to be the representation of somebody else that I don’t feel I’ve necessarily always had. I would think that you would play these songs to any 22-year-old gay guy and they would be like, ‘Yeah, I get that, that’s where I’m at.’”

Elsewhere, All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh reflected on another of his works, the Jonathan Groff-starring Looking. “At a screening of 45 Years, a 14-year-old kid came up to me, in tears, saying how much it meant to him.” Andrew, we are all that kid.  

This is a feature appearing in the May/June 2026 issue of Attitude magazine. Subscribe below.