Gandalf the Grey. Okay, freeze on that image. Let me guess: a gray-cloaked, gray-haired, mature European-looking fellow, carrying a staff.
Now try Magneto. Again you've got a gray-haired, mature European-looking fellow, this time wearing a red cloak and helmet.
Last one. Sir Ian McKellen: a gray-haired, mature European-looking fellow wearing... a hell of an impressive acting career!
Yes, the knighted McKellen has forged quite a legacy both onstage and onscreen, but the above-mentioned performances are what set him apart in the minds of genre fans. Hollywood typecasting aside, the venerable actor is just happy to be expanding his range by playing various different "types" of characters.
"Well, that's the fun of acting, isn't it?" McKellen asks. "You don't always get to play the same sort of person. It's not often that you get to play a good person. The devil has the best tunes and I've played some nasty people, but ever so often, you do land on a good man like Gandalf. Good characters are hard to write. It's one of the features of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING that most of the characters are well intentioned and good. But then again, that's one of the themes of the story; what is the nature of good and will it be strong enough to deal with what is not good in the world?"
Ian McKellen as Magneto in Bryan Singer's X-MEN
© 20th Century Fox
Having played such a wide variety of roles, one can't help but wonder how McKellen became infatuated with performance art to begin with.
"I began as an audience member as a kid," he explains. "My parents took me to the cinema and I was so immediately entranced by it that I wanted to find out how it was done. So, my great treat was to go backstage and watch other people do it. I was taken backstage at a variety theater in my hometown and I used to watch the acts from the wings and see that magical moment when those people who were leading wretched lives, touring to a different theater each week, living in digs, many of them a bit worse for the drink and getting ready in a dreadful, dusty dressing room would step from the dust of the wings onto the glamour of the stage and immediately be transformed and entertain the audience. I just wanted to be one of them."
In his quest to do so, McKellen made a number of sacrifices: touring with theater troops for years on end, going public with his homosexuality and, as he mentioned earlier, playing some rather unsavory characters just to prove his acting chops. However, by participating in THE LORD OF THE RINGS, McKellen had to agree to shoot three films simultaneously an act never before attempted and one that would displace him from his home for a great length of time.
"Well, you know if you join the Royal National Theater as I've often done, you stay there for at least 18 months," McKellen says. "And you'll probably get to do three or four plays during that time. In New Zealand, I made three films and they all had the same story, but Gandalf the Grey I don't think it's a secret reemerges as Gandalf the White in the next two films so it feels like two parts. It didn't seem like a particularly challenging thing to do, to live away from home for a year. I've often toured RICHARD III onstage around the world and was away for a similar period."
Gandalf crosses the snowy pass of Caradhras on Mt. Owen in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
© 2001 New Line Cinema
Something that was new to McKellen, however, was working in a film that required so much of him physically. Not to mention the level of sophistication and integration used with THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING's special effects.
"When you see our faces, that's us actually there," McKellen says of performing many fights and stunts. "We were a little bit alarmed of what was going to be expected of us and we had rather long days in that airless studio in which athletic things were expected of us. When you see Gandalf spinning around on his shoulder, with his legs in the air, that was actually me there were some ropes holding my feet up. [There were several instances, however, when I was portrayed by] a digital figure. What's astonishing about the special effects in this movie is that they don't seem to be there. You don't notice them, and in the few reviews that there have been, I don't think there has been a single one yet that has mentioned the fact that Elijah Wood has been shrunk. They just accept it."
Of course, one of the perks with playing a genre character, good or bad, is the inevitable action figure the marketing tool used by PR suits to infiltrate the film deeper into an audience's consciousness. In McKellen's case, however, it's the role not the figure that determines his participation.
"I'm a keen theatergoer and cinemagoer, and I like all sorts of movies as an audience," McKellen says. "So why shouldn't I like all sorts of movies and plays as an actor? It's part of the fun of being an actor. I didn't go into playing Magneto or Gandalf and go, 'At last I'm going to be an action figure.' It solves Christmas present problems; everyone gives them to me and I'm determined to get a collection of the Burger King mugs that I can't recommend too strongly, $1.99, and they have little lights in the bottom and my image on the outside."
The first part of J.R.R. Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RING trilogy comes to live-action life in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
© 2001 New Line Cinema
Love of merchandising aside, don't expect to see McKellen at fan conventions any time soon. For the actor used to the more cozy audiences of the theater, once is enough.
"I went to Comic-Con last year in San Diego and as much as I enjoyed it, I think that will do," McKellen admits. "They shouted lines from the movie that I didn't even know I had said. But you can't grumble because you say, 'This is a good script. I'm going to make a movie.' And then suddenly you discover that there are a million people who want the movie to be made. It's great and, to a lesser degree, it's the same when you're playing Shakespeare. People look forward to the next HAMLET, the next MACBETH and the next KING LEAR. I remember one man bounding into my dressing room saying, 'Congratulations, you're my 70th Hamlet.' So, how could I possibly impact him? At least no one has ever seen Gandalf."
Nor have they seen Gandalf's tattoo... at least, not yet. For you see, McKellen and the rest of the members of the film's Fellowship admit to acquiring a rather permanent and private reminder of their respective roles of a lifetime.
"Well, there are a lot of naughty Hobbits around because when we had this done, all the members of the Fellowship agreed that we would never tell anyone, apart from people who would discover them," McKellen says. "I don't know who first leaked it out and then who it was that first starting showing his tattoo, but I said to someone, 'If you want to see it, you have to pay $70 and come see DANCE OF DEATH because it's on display onstage when I take my shirt off.'"
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