Ian McKellen may be returning to the big screen in his iconic role of Gandalf in forthcoming Lord of the Rings films! The stage and screen actor revealed to Big Issue that he has been approached to reprise his role in future films that have yet to be written.
“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,” McKellen said. “When? I don’t know. What the script is? It’s not written yet.”
The 85-year-old actor then joked, “So they better be quick!”
Read the original story on Big Issue.
Ian McKellen played the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (consisting of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), released between 2001 and 2003. He won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his work in The Fellowship of the Ring and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the same role. He provided the voice of Gandalf for several video game adaptations of the Lord of the Rings films.
McKellen later reprised the role of Gandalf on screen in Peter Jackson’s three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit starting with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), followed by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and finally The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).
Most recently, McKellen was seen on stage in London in Player Kings, during which he famously suffered a fall. Although his injuries were not life-threatening – he suffered a chipped vertabrae and a fractured wrist – the incident did cause the actor to withdraw from the remainder of the play’s West End run as well as its national tour.
