From onscreen foes to real-life friends, Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen’s friendship was one for the books — and fans will never forget it. The British actors — who knew each other for nearly 50 years ahead of Stewart’s death in October 2026 at the age of 86 — met in 1977 while working on Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour at the Royal Shakespeare Company. It wasn’t until decades later when they played enemies Professor Charles Xavier, or Professor X, and Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto, in 2000’s X-Men, that Stewart and McKellen forged their lifelong fr...