Wat-Not Staff
Ian McKellen is eager to visit Middle-earth once more and hopes to do it soon. The 85-year-old actor seems to be hinting in a recent interview with Big Issue that he might not be performing for an indefinite period of time. This could have an impact on his ability to play the wizard Gandalf in the planned new Lord of the Rings films.
McKellen told about the upcoming LOTR movies in recent interview
McKellen stated in the interview, which was released on Monday, September 2, “I’ve just been told there are going to be more films and Gandalf will be involved and they hope that I’ll be playing him.” “When?” I’m not sure. What is the script? It’s not yet written. Thus, they had better move quickly!
Filmmaker Peter Jackson is collaborating with Andy Serkis on The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which is slated for release in 2026, after his successful trilogy of films adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which actor Ian McKellen played the wise wizard Gandalf.
Warner Bros. revealed on May 9 that Jackson, 62, will serve as producer and Serkis, 60, will both direct and return to his role as Sméagol, a.k.a. Gollum, in the next installment. Filmmakers from the Oscar-winning original trilogy, including screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, are joining them on the producing team.
McKellen, meanwhile, received an Academy Award nomination for his breakthrough performance as Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001. Having made appearances in The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003), he returned to the part in Jackson’s The Hobbit adaptation in the follow-up trilogy.
McKellen fall during the performance felt like an ‘end’ to him
Regarding the story and characters in the impending Gollum film, Jackson hinted that “it’s too soon to know who will cross his path” in a May interview with Deadline. He stated, “We really want to delve into those parts of his journey that we didn’t have time to cover in the earlier films and explore his backstory. It’s enough to say that we will follow Professor Tolkien’s lead.” Earlier this summer, McKellen had a fall during a performance at London’s Noël Coward theater, which sent him to the hospital for three days. During a combat scene in a Henry IV performance of Player Kings, he apparently lost his balance and tumbled off the front of the stage.
The actor, who plays Sir John Falstaff, revealed to Saga Magazine last month that he was terrified to leave the house following his mishap on June 17. However, he also acknowledged that his injuries might have been much worse because “the fat suit I wore [for his character] saved my ribs and other joints, so I consider myself lucky.”
“I’ve experienced that fall innumerable times. It was awful,” he remarked. “I believed things were coming to an end. It was really distressing. The play’s finale felt like the end of my involvement in it, even if it didn’t entail my death. McKellen told the source that he has to constantly remind himself that he is not too old to act, even if he described it as a “lucky escape”. It was merely a horrific mishap, he declared. “I wasn’t unconscious, and I wasn’t lightheaded, but I couldn’t get back on stage, so they went on without me.”
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