Sir Ian McKellen, known to the public as Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings film series, had to stop his theater career in June after falling from the stage. But he didn’t like to leave her at that. “It would be better to come back and finish the role properly,” says the 85-year-old English actor.
The event took place in the West End in London, where the woman was eighty-five years old John McColl played John Falstaff in the modern adaptation of Henry IV. by William Shakespeare called Player Kings. During one performance in June, the actor lost his balance in a busy scene and fell off the stage. “Of course I’d rather say I played Falstaff well than fall off the stage and not finish it,” he said.
Even in his eighties, he studied Hamlet again in London. However, due to his old age and health, he does not want to plan too far into the future. “That would be a little ridiculous at 85,” he admits. McKellen broke his wrist and crushed a vertebra in the fall. According to him, he had no worse consequences as a result of the suit, which was filed to make Falstaff more suitable.
Ian McKellen now stars in the hit film The Critic, based on the novel Curtain Call by British author Anthony Quinn. Set in London in the 1930s, McKellen stars as Jimmy Erskine, an influential, egotistical theater critic who judges productions and performances based on his mood.
But then the death of the owner of the newspaper changes to the editor-in-chief, and the critic threatens to lose his job. To keep him, he makes a Faustian deal with the troubled young actress Nina. It was designed by Gemma Arterton. “The story may be a little melodramatic, but the 1930s were melodramatic,” notes McKellen.
The actor who came out in 1988 is forty years old. In the film, he plays a man who does not hide his homosexuality, but is still afraid that someone will discriminate against him because of it.
It is precisely because of this that the character, who is fictional, is interested in him. In the 1930s, maintaining such an attitude would have been “challenging even for someone famous and wealthy,” McKellen admits. “He would look exactly like you see him in the movie. That’s what I like about him,” he said.
“I found the character completely believable. He destroys other people’s lives on purpose not because he’s a ruthless critic, but because he’s human he’s gay living in a society that despises him.” fulfilling the actor in an interview with the New York Times.
He remembers that it was unthinkable in the 1930s, for example, for a man to walk around London holding hands with another man. “If society doesn’t allow you to do things like that, you can’t be surprised if the person sometimes bares their teeth at someone,” he thinks.
He himself admits that already in the 60s, when he was playing on New York Broadway, he sometimes wrote to theater critics if he found an error in their texts. “And in every case they admitted that they made a mistake,” he explains.
“Otherwise, of course, it would be foolish to try to convince them that you are right. They are not writing for you, but for their audience and also for their audience. I read reviews because I am interested I don’t care what other people think,” adds the actor.
Iain McKellen began his theater career in 1961, three decades later he was knighted by the Queen of Great Britain. For decades, he was especially famous as a leading Shakespearean actor, when he played in productions of plays such as King Lear, Macbeth or Richard III. However, the general public knows him mainly as the wizard Gandalf from the three films The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, or as Magneto from the superhero series X-Men.
The film The Critic, which does not yet have a Czech distributor, premiered this week at a festival in Toronto, Canada. It was shot by director Anand Tucker.
Video: The Critic movie trailer
The film The Critic does not yet have a Czech distributor. | Video: Lionsgate
