Dressed in gray robes and sporting a gray beard and a false nose, Sir Ian McKellen reflects on the character of Gandalf and his kinship with various magical figures in literature: "Tolkien was playing with various types of character: the wizard from fairy-stories, Merlin in the Arthurian legends, maybe even Prospero in Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
Known in the Elvish as Mithrandir ("Gray-wanderer"), Gandalf is one of the chief wizards, or Istari, of Middle-earth. A friend to Bilbo Baggins and his nephew, Frodo, Gandalf knows something of the dark history and fearful destiny bound up in the One Ring and has a crucial part to play in the struggle against the Lord of the Rings.
When he embarked on the role of Gandalf, McKellen recieved many suggestions as to how he should play the character: "From teenagers and readers old as wizards came the advice, the demands, the warnings - united by hope that the film's Gandalf would math their own individual interpretations."
The actor is philosophic about the meeting and expectations of the books' admirers: "I can't be everbody's Gandalf, I have to be the Gandalf that belongs in this particular movie, and he comes out of myself, out of the script and out of the response to it. If that Gandalf happens to accord with other people's Gandalf, I shall be delighted."
After studying at Cambridge University, but without any formal training, McKellen made his professional debut in a production of A Man For All Seasons. It was the beginning of a distinguished stage career during which he has given memorable performances in many Shakespearean role, opposite Gregory Peck, was in the unfinished 1966 pictures, The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling.
Subsequently, he portrayed novelist D.H. Lawrence in the film Priest Of Love; Tsar Nicholas II in Rasputin (for which he won a Golden Globe Award); and filmmaker James Whale (the director of Frankenstein) in Gods and Monsters.
McKellen's other films include Apt Pupil, Restoration, Six Degrees of Separation, Plenty, and X-Men. He also cowrote, executive-produced and starred in his award-winning modern-dress production of Richard III.
Sitting in the makeup chair each morning at 4:30, Sir Ian McKellen ponders the necessity for beards, wigs - and false noses. "Of course," he laughs, "I really have to look like everyone's idea of a wizard, and if it means making my nose bigger, then so be it!" He pauses then, with a twinkle in his eye, remarks: "Actually, i suspect that Gandalf does wear a false nose - and a wig - and that he has a quite different person at the other end of the forest.
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