Ian McKellen talks about his stage fall and his new thriller

LONDON (AP) — Ian McKellen listens to his inner critic a lot.

In fact, she’s now slamming him for not finishing his latest stage role after he fell off the stage during a performance of “Player Kings” in June and spent three nights in the hospital.

“Emotionally, I feel guilty and ashamed, you know, quite irrational because it was an accident. And it could have happened to anyone,” he says.

The 85-year-old actor says it could have been “a lot worse” if he hadn’t worn padding to play the plump Sir John Falstaff during the two-part adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” at London’s Noel Coward Theatre. However, although his fractures and splintered vertebrae are healing well, McKellen can’t shake the negativity of leaving the production early.

“Suddenly you leave all your colleagues who are putting on the show and you feel like something has come to an end prematurely,” he says.

But he believes that rumours of his imminent death were definitely premature.

“I got the impression that dozens of friends wanted to come and say hello, but they really wanted to say goodbye. They thought I was going to leave,” McKellen told The Associated Press, adding with a laugh: “So I always open the door with a lot of determination and run up the stairs and show that I’m not going anywhere!”

Though not live in a theater, McKellen can be seen near the stage in “The Critic,” a thriller set in London’s 1930s West End theater district that opens in theaters Sept. 13. This time, he’s in the audience, playing a gay newspaper critic named James Erskine who can make or break a career with a single scathing line in an era when homosexuality is illegal. Written by Patrick Marber and based on Anthony Quinn’s novel “Curtain Call,” it co-stars a host of British talent including Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong, Romola Garai, Ben Barnes and Lesley Manville.

McKellen recently spoke to the AP about his love of theater, his relationship with critics, the future of Gandalf and his return to work. The conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

AP: Do you miss being on stage?

McKELLEN: I miss the routine. When I first started, it was a great joy to me that when everyone else was taking time off at the end of a busy day, the actors would be gearing up, ready to start doing their thing, that there was something about being an actor that was different from the rest of the population. But that was probably because I was hiding the fact that I was gay or I wasn’t talking about the fact that I was gay. It felt good to be different.

Acting, especially in the theater, is totally satisfying. And if I’m not doing it, like right now, I think, “Well, what is life about?” At 85, it’s a little late to be asking that question, because I settled for the fact that life for me was acting a long, long time ago. And so, the thought of retiring or not being able to work fills me with dread.

AP: Have you been able to see other productions?

McKELLEN: I haven’t. I’ve been nervous about going out. But I think in the next month or two I’ll be getting back to what I like to do: going to the theatre and seeing all the West End stuff that I hear people talking about.

AP: This film, “The Critic,” celebrates theater, but in it you are offstage in the audience.

McKELLEN: It’s the shady side of theater. A seasoned, corrupt theater critic was willing to give someone a bunch of good reviews if they agreed to help him with a problem he was having. I don’t think any critic has that kind of power today, but in the 1930s, before social media and when newspapers were the source of truth for everyone, theater critics could be extremely powerful.

AP: What did you think of his cruelty?

McKELLEN: I think the source of this might be: How do you survive as a bon vivant, social person who likes to be the center of attention when you have to be discreet, if not secretive, about who you really are? That probably takes a bit of a toll on the brain, don’t you think?

AP: How has your relationship with critics been over the years?

McKELLEN: They started off very well when I was at Cambridge University in a play. It was “Henry IV, Part 2,” which is part of the play I was doing when I played Falstaff. But this was 70 years ago, almost. The Marlowe Society, which was putting on this play, didn’t put the actors’ names in the program, they were all anonymous. And the reviewer from the now-defunct News Chronicle said he wished he’d known what my name was because it might well become a name to be remembered.

When you read that in a national newspaper, and you’re 18 and you’re just an amateur actor, having fun, it lifts you up. That day I decided I was going to become an actor. I wrote to him 20, 30 years later and said, look, I’ve always wanted to thank you for that. He said he couldn’t, unfortunately, remember the performance (laughs).

AP: Do you still read all your reviews?

McKELLEN: Yes, but with a cautious eye. I like to know what the word is on the street and whether you’ve had a lot of bad reviews or good ones. But the whole thing about acting in the theater is that at 7:30, the curtain goes up. All the lights come up and you get to work for that night’s audience. And what happened the first night? Irrelevant. And it should be no secret that actors get better or can get better. And if you do 100 performances of something, you’re probably better off at the 100th performance than you were on the first night.

AP: I wanted to see “The Lord of the Rings,” because you said you’re still Gandalf’s physical representative on Earth. So with the upcoming film “The Hunt for Gollum”…

McKELLEN: I’ve been told that Gandalf is in it and I haven’t read a script and there are no plans for shooting dates yet. But if all goes well, I’d be very pleased. It means I could go back to New Zealand for a while, especially in the summer. That would be lovely. But there’s other work going on and I’m not going to be too upset if it’s just false hope.

AP: So you’ll be back to work next year? Are you already lining things up?

McKELLEN: Yes, I’ve agreed to do a film in January and then hopefully another one a little later. And then be good, right? Go back and play Falstaff again and finish that job? That’s partly why I’m a little emotionally unsettled. It didn’t end properly. So if we go back and do it again, do a little more touring, maybe go to America…