As if I needed to love Ian McKellen any more: In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor said that he almost decided not to reprise his role as Gandalf for The Hobbit, but he signed on at the last minute because that’s what the fans would want him to do.
Awww, Sir Ian. We love you, too.
His reticence to don the pointy hat and grey robes for another two (now three) movies comes from the fact that he already knows the character so well. “It was a little like going back to something that wasn’t necessarily going to be particularly challenging. Gandalf is still inside me, as it were, so the business of getting to know a new character — I was sort of going to be robbed of that.”
In the end, it was a friend asking McKellen how he’d explain his departure to the fans that got the thesp to return. (Whoever this friend is, I want to shake their hand.) Says McKellen, “You felt, how many millions of people are waiting for it? They wouldn’t understand if you weren’t as keen as they were.”
Can I just say: Whew! We dodged a bullet there. I can’t imagine anyone else as Gandalf—though maaaaybe Patrick Stewart. Not in The Hobbit movies themselves, but in a parody short film or something. OK, now I really want that to happen. Funny or Die? College Humor? Someone? Make it so.
(via: blastr)
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