Ian McKellen Pays Tribute To Patrick Stewart: “He Wore His Heart On His Sleeve”

As the world mourns Sir Patrick Stewart‘s death at age 86, a longtime friend and collaborator is paying tribute to his legacy.

Sir Ian McKellen, who starred as Magneto opposite Stewart’s Professor X in the X-Men films, explained what made the late actor “a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love” after he Stewart’s rep revealed he died following a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.

“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,” he began on Instagram. “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 marveled 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.”

McKellen continued, “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,” added McKellen after he and Stewart recently reprised their roles from the X-Men franchise in the upcoming MCU movie, which premieres Dec. 18 in theaters.

Stewart’s rep announced that the 3x Golden Globe-nominated actor died on Wednesday at his Los Angeles home, with wife Sunny Ozell by his side.