While it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the iconic wizard nowadays, McKellen says that he wasn’t the first (or even second) choice for the part
It’s hard to imagine anyone screaming “you shall not pass” or spinning through the air like a little top with more gravitas than Sir Ian McKellen, who has portrayed Middle Earth’s most weed-smoking wizard in six films across the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit trilogies. However, as he has revealed in the past, this was almost not the case.
“I don’t think you’re ever the first choice,” the legendary actor, who was also lower on the shortlist for his upcoming film The Critic, said in a recent interview with Variety. “I certainly wasn’t the first choice for Gandalf,” he continued. “Tony Hopkins turned it down. Sean Connery certainly did. They’re all coming out of the woodwork now, and I hope they feel silly.”
McKellen has addressed his one-time competitors in the past, always with a similarly flippant tone. “I still don’t quite know how Gandalf came my way,” he told GQ in 2021. “I think because some of the actors who would have been offered it before me were rather put off by the idea of having to live in New Zealand for a year. ‘Where the hell is that?’ Well, more fool them.”
(Side note: this group of “fools” definitely does not include the late, great Christopher Lee who reportedly really (like… really) wanted to play Gandalf over Saruman (although he apparently also remained convinced that Saruman wasn’t, like, totally evil the whole time). LOTR director Peter Jackson reportedly had to let Lee down over the course of “a very awkward 30 minutes.”)
All in all, Hopkins and co.’s loss is certainly McKellen’s—and everyone else’s—gain. Who else, per his absolutely legendary acting lesson with Ricky Gervais, could have figured out how to “imagine what it would be like to be a wizard, and then pretend and act in that way on the day?” Sometimes, it really is that simple!
