Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel on Art, Fear and Soft Hands (opens in new tab)

Michaela Coel didn’t need to read the script for “The Christophers” to understand that she and Ian McKellen would be a good, if unexpected, pairing. In the film, directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Ed Solomon, McKellen plays Julian Sklar, a once-acclaimed artist. Coel’s character, Lori Butler, is hired by his children to pose as his assistant while secretly completing his unfinished canvases. The two spoke about how McKellen’s rehearsal process shaped the story and how they think abo...