 McKellen 's father was a civil engineer and lay preacher , and was of Protestant Irish and Scottish descent . Both of McKellen 's grandfathers were preachers , and his great @-@ great @-@ grandfather , James McKellen , was a " strict , evangelical Protestant minister " in Ballymena , County Antrim . His home environment was strongly Christian , but non @-@ orthodox . " My upbringing was of low nonconformist Christians who felt that you led the Christian life in part by behaving in a Christian manner to everybody you met . " When he was 12 , his mother died ; his father died when he was 24 . Of his coming out of the closet to his stepmother , Gladys McKellen , who was a member of the Religious Society of Friends , he said , " Not only was she not fazed , but as a member of a society which declared its indifference to people 's sexuality years back , I think she was just glad for my sake that I wasn 't lying anymore . " 
