Sir Ian McKellen has said he felt “ashamed” and “emotional” after falling from a stage in the West End earlier this year – and that it has made him “aware there isn’t much time left”.
Star of stage and screen, including portraying Gandalf in the Lord Of The Rings series, the British acting legend suffered a chipped vertebrae and fractured wrist during a performance of Player Kings in London in June.
In August, he said the fact he had been wearing a “fat suit” had “saved” his ribs.
Almost three months on from the incident, “everything is physically mended” and the 85-year-old is now “mobile, pain free and ready to go”, he told Sky News in a new interview.
However, he admitted he is still “having to deal with it emotionally”.
“I felt ashamed of myself, I felt I let the audience down and I felt guilty,” Sir Ian said.
The actor had been playing Sir John Falstaff – one of Shakespeare’s most famous creations – in the modern reworking of Henry IV, parts one and two, when the incident occurred.
Despite being fit again, he said he was allowing himself “a bit of a rest” before he gets back to work.
“I’m just aware there isn’t much time left and so I’m giving myself three months off instead of six months, I don’t need six months,” he said.
But fans will still get to see Sir Ian on screen in his new film, The Critic, in which he plays a powerful London theatre reviewer in the 1930s who lures a struggling actress, played by Gemma Arterton, into a blackmail scheme.
Promoting the film, he admitted, has meant fielding countless questions on his health.
“There was such a hoo-ha in the press, it was as if I’d died and I was reading my own obituaries! I must say there were some very nice ones but it wasn’t as bad as it sounded,” he insisted.
While Sir Ian plays a ruthlessly catty critic in the film, in real life he said he has actually confronted one or two journalists who have dared question his artistic methods.
“I’ve nothing bad to say about critics and occasionally when I have done I’ve said it to their face… to no effect, of course,” he said. “And invariably they say, ‘you’re absolutely right, I was wrong’, and so I say: ‘Print that in your damn newspaper!'”
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While the beloved actor will be taking a little break for now, with news of new Lord Of The Rings films in the works, fans hopefully won’t have to be without a certain wizard leader when the franchise returns.
“I’m told Gandalf’s involved but I’m not yet told how much he’s going to be paid or how much he gets to say, so I think we’ll leave it there,” he laughed.
Audiences will no doubt just be relieved to hear he’ll be back on screen soon.
The Critic is out in cinemas on 13 September
