BILL CONDON
Sir Ian McKellen owes his first Oscar nomination, for the biopic about troubled gay filmmaker James Whale, Gods and Monsters, to the sterling direction of Bill Condon. That was 17 years ago and they became fast friends, although they bided their time on working together again until this month’s Mr. Holmes – an adaptation of the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind that reimagines the fictional sleuth as a real person.