Gandalf & The Return of the King

http://actionadventure.about.com/cs/weeklystories/a/aa121503_p.htm

Ian McKellen Interview

Gandalf and the Return of the King

Sir Ian McKellen is so intellectual, I was afraid I wouldn’t even be able to run his quotes for a mass audience. Prove me wrong by telling me you understand his analysis and appreciate his scholarly perspective. This is not an interview about Hollywood B.S., “It was so great to work with so and so” and the like. This is a man who thinks about his statements. The only problem is he speaks so slowly and clearly that there are actually fewer questions addressed than in other interviews. Oh well, quality over quantity.

McKellen has been a respected actor for decades, playing many Shakespearean characters, and more recently the likes of James Whale in Gods and Monsters. Kids may know him best as Gandalf, or as Magneto. You’ve seen him in several small roles too, that when you look back, you finally recognize him now that he’s become so mainstream. I, for one, did a double take last time I watched Last Action Hero.

I loved your Simpsons appearance.

Thank you.

How did you get involved?

Well, they just called me and said that I’d be in it. They were going to London. I suppose they wanted an actor. I was in rather good company, wasn’t I? Prime minister and the queen.

Was it fun to spoof the theater community?

Well, all I got was the script and I went into a studio in London and half an hour later I’d finished. I think they match the animation to your voice, so it was hardly a creative consultation. It was just going in and doing it. They’d say do it louder or something like that.

How do you approach playing such iconic characters?

Well, I don’t think of them as that. That’s the point. I mean, if you did, you’d be overwhelmed. But if you’re playing Hamlet, and every other actor who’s any good has played Hamlet, or Macbeth or Richard III or Iago, Romeo, the fear sort of goes [away] and you realize these parts belong to everybody. You’re just the latest to be treading over the old ground and don’t worry. Just get on with it. Just present your own reaction to what it is to be Hamlet. It dawned on me actually that I was playing an icon with Gandalf, because he hadn’t been iconic to me. But I had the same attitude as playing Macbeth. I just present my personal reaction and interpret the screenplay as best I can. Always aware actually that the fans were waiting nervously. But it was sort of comforting to know that the fans were there and alarming at the same time because you wanted to do best by their expectations. And so the connection between the fans who were waiting for the films and the fans who were making the film were those, not just Tolkien but the illustrations of Tolkien by Alan Lee and John Howe who’d set down how Gandalf should look long before I got to the makeup. And the Gandalf we were matching to was those images. So when I look like that, the fans accepted that I was Tolkien’s Gandalf, but actually I wasn’t. I was Alan Lee’s and John How’s Gandalf because they’d already done the hard working.

Is Lord of the Rings a metaphor?

Well, I don't think it could be much more than that because that’s an almighty struggle that happens between nations and inside a person. I think it should be noted, before anybody starts comparing the coalition in the middle east with the fellowship that went to Mordor, that there is no appeal to the almighty in Tolkien. He was a catholic. Your president and my prime minister may all appear to divinity, but there’s no church in Hobbiton. It’s the perfect place to live and there’s no church in it. There’s no pope, there’s no credo, there’s no archbishop laying down, saying what the almighty wants you to do. There’s Gandalf. Gandalf says you do what you can with the time that’s given you. That’s all. Do what you can and try and do it on behalf of the people you love. And it’s in that spirit that he sends Frodo off. But he doesn’t tell Frodo he’s got to do it. Frodo has to accept. No wonder Gandalf’s so worried that he did the right thing. So, I don't know. That’s the side of the story that appeals to me and my views on the world. There are the little guys who do it in the end. But you relate that in your own way and I think that’s what’s great about these stories is just that Peter Jackson isn’t telling anybody what to do or how to act. He’s just saying look at the way they did it in Middle Earth.

Fame and the Lord of the Rings

What have been the biggest rewards from doing these films?

Well, I must admit that I sometimes do Gandalf The Grey. It's a rather distinguished voice, and people like that. I've always wanted to be one of those performers that they walked out onto stage and they sang “Thanks for the memories, and you had a signature series or a catch phrase where you could just walk out and say, “You shall not pass!” The advantage of having played Gandalf for me is overwhelming, really, because it's made me famous. Now, I've never been attracted by fame. I think that it's got many, many disadvantages, but in the cases when the situation [is good], I wish that we all could be famous like the welcome that we got [at the premiere] in Wellington.

It was like 100,000 people, right?

At least, and that's three percent of the entire population of the country. They recognized me and all you had to do was that. I mean, any politician should be that lucky. It's like being a member of a football team that's come back home and everyone is saying thank you. That sort of fame, that sort of public expression of affection, you can take that, and then, you say, “That's not for me, that's for the movie,” and that is better still because what this was for.

Some of your costars are dealing with fame for the first time, like Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom. Did you have any advice for them?

Well, you know, they’re both good looking young men and they’re playing romantic men of action in the film. So why wouldn’t they excite people in every possible way, men and women? Viggo is so accomplished in so many fields and so skeptical about fame and celebrity, deliberately astute, even though he’s constantly in the public eye because he’s got an exhibition in Wellington and London, his photographs and he writes poetry and gives concerts. But yeah, it seems to me, he handles it very well. He’s mature. And Orlando is a beginner and he’s about to have his big challenge which is a leading part in a film to carry. And that must be exciting. The thing about Orlando, I think it was about 18 months before he started on Lord of the Rings, he fell out of a window and broke his back and was told by the doctor when he woke up that he would never walk again. And 24 hours later, the doctor game back and said, “Oh, I’m sorry but good news, you’ll be out of here in two weeks.” Anyone who’s lived through that 24 hours without going mad and killing himself has got some inner strength

~ Fred Topel