“I’ve had a very lucky escape.”

The Lord of the Rings’ Gandalf actor Ian McKellen has said he needs to keep telling himself “I’m not too old to act” after falling off a stage during a performance in June 2024.

McKellen told Saga Magazine he’s not yet recovered from the fall, but the emotional damage has seemingly had just as much an impact on the 85-year-old as the physical injuries.

“I started screaming ‘Help me’ and then ‘I’m sorry, I don’t do this’,” he said of the moment he fell. “I thought it was the end of something. It was very upsetting.” Since then, “I have to keep assuring myself that I’m not too old to act and it was just a bloody accident.”

McKellen was playing John Falstaff in Player Kings on London’s West End when he got his leg stuck in a chair during a battle scene. He started shaking it off and his foot slipped on pieces of newspaper scattered around the stage.

“The more I tried to get rid of it, the faster I proceeded down a step, onto the forestage, and then on to the lap of someone in the front row,” McKellen said. He was wearing a fat suit for the role, which he credited with saving his ribs and joints. “I’ve had a very lucky escape,” he added.

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McKellen is most famous for playing the wise old wizard Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies and may even reprise the role in upcoming live action film Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Aware of his age, McKellen responded when asked if he’d be interested in returning to Middle Earth: “If I’m alive.”