McKellen, known for playing King Lear, Gandalf and Magneto, started out as an actor in the 1960s when he claims offering sex for roles was rife. “People must be called out and it’s sometimes very difficult for victims to do that,” the six-time Laurence Olivier Award winner said.

“I hope we’re going through a period that will help to eradicate it altogether. But from my own experience, when I was starting acting in the early Sixties, the director of the theatre I was working at showed me some photographs he got from women who were wanting jobs... some of them had at the bottom of their photograph ‘DRR’ — directors’ rights respected. In other words, if you give me a job, you can have sex with me.

“That was commonplace from people who proposed that they should be a victim. Madness. People have taken advantage of that and encouraged it and it absolutely will not do.”

McKellen also said he was concerned about the impact of wrongful accusations.

The thespian told students at a private talk at the Oxford Union in November that while he believes victims should come forward, some innocent individuals may be wrongfully accused as well.

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“I assume nothing but good will come out of these revelations, even though some people get wrongly accused — there’s that side of it as well,” the 78-year-old said.

McKellen, who founded Stonewall, a charity devoted to securing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, also condemned Kevin Spacey’s decision to come out in the wake of lurid accusations made by Rent actor Anthony Rapp, who alleged the House of Cards star molested him. Rapp was underage at the time of the alleged attack.

“The circumstances in which he chose to do it are reprehensible because it linked alleged underage sex with a declaration of sexuality,” said McKellen, who had worked at the Old Vic theatre in London with Spacey when the latter was the artistic director.