{"id":49919,"date":"2011-11-08T16:09:09","date_gmt":"2011-11-08T21:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=49919"},"modified":"2011-11-08T16:09:09","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T21:09:09","slug":"why-ian-mckellen-turned-down-gandalf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2011\/11\/08\/49919-why-ian-mckellen-turned-down-gandalf\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Ian McKellen turned down Gandalf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/gandalf.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"gandalf.jpg\" width=\"193\" height=\"205\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-28552 no-lazyload\" \/>Sir Ian McKellen initially said no to Gandalf and only scored the pivotal Lord of the Rings role thanks to a chance meeting in a restaurant. While it&#8217;s almost inconceivable to imagine wizened wizard Gandalf being played by anyone else, McKellen says shooting for The Fellowship of the Ring &#8211; the first film in Peter Jackson&#8217;s blockbuster trilogy &#8211; clashed with another role he&#8217;d signed up for in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>The frank admission comes in a new Lord of the Rings 10-year anniversary special in the December edition of Empire magazine, in which McKellen admits Gandalf was &#8220;the role of a lifetime&#8221; &#8211; but he initially turned down Jackson&#8217;s offer. <strong><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/entertainment\/news\/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&#038;objectid=10764745\">More..<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir Ian McKellen initially said no to Gandalf and only scored the pivotal Lord of the Rings role&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[49,29,31,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mckellen","category-fotr-movie","category-rotk-movie","category-ttt-movie"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-cZ9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}