At the age of 86, the esteemed actor Sir Ian McKellen is aware that his time is finite, but he has no intention of stepping away from his passion for acting.
While most individuals in their mid-eighties might enjoy a peaceful retirement, McKellen remains as active and engaged in his craft as ever.
In a recent interview, he humorously remarked about his late-blooming fame, noting that he only became widely recognized in his sixties when he took on the roles of Magneto in X-Men and Gandalf in The Lord Of The Rings. He quipped that audiences mainly associate him with these two iconic films.
However, McKellen’s illustrious career began much earlier, in 1961 on the stage. His deep-rooted passion for theater quickly established him as a prominent figure in the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the National Theatre during the 1970s.
His repertoire spans a wide array of genres, from classic Shakespearean plays and contemporary theater to beloved fantasy and science fiction. McKellen’s contributions to the arts were recognized with a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1991.
McKellen, born in Burnley, UK, in 1939, acknowledges the reality of aging. In a candid conversation with The Sunday Times, he stated, “But, yes, I have accepted that I’m not immortal.”
In June 2024, he had an accident during a performance of Player Kings at the Noël Coward Theatre in London, resulting in a fractured wrist and chipped vertebra. Reflecting on the incident, he expressed gratitude for his ability to ‘remember lines considering my age’, an experience that highlighted the unpredictable nature of live theater compared to film production.
He humorously pointed out that film projects allow for breaks if something goes awry, joking, “Can I have a tea?”
“Yet I still function. And really the inevitability of mortality comes not just from what you are feeling about yourself, but the simple fact that your friends die — all the time. When you are young, death is astonishing, a fascinating thing, but it’s a feature of getting older. Death becomes ever present,” he elaborated.
Despite it being 25 years since McKellen first stepped into the role of Gandalf, he is not considering retirement anytime soon. He will be reprising the role next year in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, stating that he ‘cannot have anybody else play Gandalf’.
Describing the upcoming project as an ‘adventure story’, McKellen is set to travel to New Zealand for filming in July, by which time he will be 87. As he reflects on his life’s journey and contemplates mortality, it is clear that Sir Ian McKellen will continue to grace the screen for the foreseeable future.
In Gandalf’s words: “Death is just another path, one that we all must take.”