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Sir Ian McKellen has said he will return to the Lord of the Rings franchise if his health permits him.
The actor, who played Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s blockbuster JRR Tolkien adaptations, addressed rumours he might feature in the forthcoming film, centred on Andy Serkis’s Gollum, during a new interview.
After Warner Bros announced The Hunt for Gollum earlier this year, it was theorised by fans that McKellen’s character might appear – and, after confirming there were “stirrings in Tolkien land”, he has now revealed he’s “been told there are going to be more films and Gandalf will be involved and they hope that I’ll be playing him”.
It’s just as well, too, as McKellen told BBC Radio 4: “I’m not letting anyone else put on the pointy hat and beard if I can help it.”
However, 85-year-old McKellen, who sustained wrist and neck injuries in a dramatic fall while performing onstage in June, said his involvement in the production will depend on whether “the legs and the lungs and the mind keep working”.
The two-time Oscar nominee, 85, lost his footing while playing John Falstaff in ‘Player Kings’ at the Noel Coward Theatre and has since been dealing with a chipped vertebrae and a fractured wrist.
He said he will take the rest of the year off to recover fully, but expressed hopes of returning as Gandalf once that happens. But McKellen urged the film’s writers to “be quick”.
Another Lord of the Rings actor recently said he would be up for returning in a future film. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s original trilogy told The Independent series Go to Bat he would reprise the role “if it seemed right and was faithful to what Tolkien wrote.”
The Hunt for Gollum is the first of several planned new Lord of the Rings franchises that will be released by Warner Bros in the coming decade. They will follow Prime Video’s Rings of Power, which is now back for a second season.
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Serkis, who will direct the film, said of the news: “Yesssss, Precious. The time has come once more to venture into the unknown with my dear friends, the extraordinary and incomparable guardians of Middle Earth Peter, Fran and Philippa. With Mike and Pam, and the Warner Bros team on the quest as well, alongside WETA and our filmmaking family in New Zealand. It’s just all too delicious.”
Meanwhile, Jackson and his fellow producers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, added: “It is an honour and a privilege to travel back to Middle-earth with our good friend and collaborator, Andy Serkis, who has unfinished business with that Stinker – Gollum! As life-long fans of Professor Tolkien’s vast mythology, we are proud to be working with Mike De Luca, Pam Abdy and the entire team at Warner Bros on another epic adventure!”
McKellen will next be seen in The Critic, which is being released in cinemas on 13 September.
