In Defense of Acting and Activism : Ian McKellen is a knight as dedicated to social causes, including gay rights, as he is to his stage and film career.

Many actors would settle for but one brilliant career, but not Sir Ian McKellen. Widely hailed as the preeminent classical thespian of his generation, he has, in recent years, also taken on the mantle of a tireless gay rights advocate.

Making headlines in 1990 by coming out shortly before he was knighted for his services to the performing arts, the British actor has since managed to juggle with alacrity his two careers. They are, he says, complementary.

“I don’t make any division between acting and activism,” says the gracious and almost soft-spoken actor with the mesmerizing blue eyes, reclining on a couch in his temporary Hollywood Hills home.

“On occasion I’ve found I had a public voice that was listened to on issues like ‘Should there be value-added tax on theater seats?’ In other words, I had a public life already that was related to acting but that wasn’t acting, so it wasn’t a huge leap for me.”

Besides, McKellen says, he was raised with the activist imperative. “It was almost inevitable that I would someday find myself on the soapbox,” he says. “There are a lot of do-gooders in my family--preachers and missionaries. My family background [taught that] you stand in the pulpit and tell how it is. Your duty is to think beyond yourself to your family and society.”

Which is part of the reason why McKellen is about to make his first Los Angeles stage appearance since his highly successful run of “Richard III” at UCLA’s Royce Hall in 1993. As a benefit for a number of local theater and gay organizations, McKellen will perform his solo show “A Knight Out in Los Angeles” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, beginning Friday. Preview performances are also being presented through Wednesday at Highways in Santa Monica.

“A Knight Out in Los Angeles,” directed by Gregory Cooke, was first performed as “A Knight Out” at the Gay Games in New York in 1994. The solo features the actor’s reminiscences of both his early life and professional years acting in London’s West End, on Broadway and in Hollywood, interspersed with excerpts from literary eminences from Shakespeare through Armistad Maupin.

“It’s about acting and performing and about being a public figure who’s gay and how those two sides of my life have related,” says the actor whose other solo show, “Acting Shakespeare,” has been seen around the globe.

Nor is he unaware that the run of “A Knight Out” is well-timed to contribute to the dialogue sparked by the recent coming out of Ellen DeGeneres and her companion, actress Anne Heche. “I thought it was something that might be of special interest in this particular time and in this particular place,” McKellen says.

“It seems to me that since I came out a lot more people are coming out,” he continues. “The idea that it’s safer in the closet is just not true.”

The Cambridge-educated McKellen, 57, won a Tony for his performance as Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” as well as a record five Olivier Awards (the British equivalent of the Tony). Yet he hasn’t appeared in a play (other than his solo performances) since “Richard III” was seen in L.A.

He found success with the 1995 screen version of “Richard III” and has been concentrating on film work since then. He has just completed shooting the Bryan Singer-directed film “Apt Pupil,” in which he plays a Nazi war criminal. Based on a Stephen King novella, it’s slated for release early next year.

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After one more film he hopes to do in June, McKellen says he plans to return to London’s Royal National Theatre. Next season, the actor will perform in Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” and two other works staged by Trevor Nunn, who previously directed McKellen in “Romeo and Juliet,” “Macbeth,” “Othello” and more.

McKellen says he is ready to be home. “I’m very excited about going back to London this time,” McKellen says. “It’s a bit early to be too optimistic, but there’s a self-confidence in London at the moment. Things are really changing.”

The change appeals to McKellen’s political sensibility. “There’s a government that I sense is going to be a reforming government on social matters,” he says, referring to the recent and unprecedented victories by the Labour party. “There are five openly gay MPs in the new parliament, as well as a lot of women, and one of these gay men is in the cabinet. Politicians are now happy to talk about gay issues.”

These changes and others suggest that England is becoming a more hospitable atmosphere for homosexuals. “London is now the gay capital of Europe,” McKellen says. “There’s now a quite openly gay area right in the center of London, there are more gay enterprises and the mainstream media covers gay stories in a way they never used to do.”

The shift in attitudes is also reflected in the arts. “There are films with [key] gay characters being made that have a wide appeal,” McKellen notes. “At the moment, David Hare has just written a play about Oscar Wilde. Tom Stoppard has just written a play about A.E. Houseman, who was also a gay poet, which has Oscar Wilde as a character in it.

“Well, Oscar Wilde has just had an anniversary of his imprisonment, but there’s something in the air,” he says. “It’s a benign infection, spreading good in the context of a culture that is changing in front of our eyes.”

* “A Knight Out in Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown. Friday-Saturday, May 20-25 and May 27-June 1, 8 p.m. $20-$25 (except gala opening, Saturday, $50-$500). (213) 485-1681. Preview performances at Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica; today-Wednesday, 8:30 p.m., $20. (213) 660-TKTS.