Ian McKellen has revealed why he didn’t take up the part of Harry Potter’s Dumbledore after Richard Harris passed away.
McKellen, the British actor perhaps best known these days for his roles as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and Magneto in the X-Men franchise, has got pretty good at playing powerful and gifted beings.
Well, it turns out that the actor seemingly had the chance to portray one of the most famous wizards of them all, headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series.
Speaking to the BBC, McKellen was reminded of his critics, including one Richard Harris, the iconic actor behind Dumbledore until his passing in 2002.
Harris had said about McKellen and fellow actors Derej Jacobi and Kenneth Branagh that “these guys [are] technically brilliant, but passionless”.
This had obviously irked McKellen, who called the statement “nonsense”, as he explains when he got the call about the character that he didn’t feel like he could now play the part.
“When they called me up and said would I be interested in being in the Harry Potter films, they didn’t say in what part,” McKellen said. “I worked out what they were thinking, and I couldn’t … I couldn’t take over the part from an actor who I’d known didn’t approve of me”.
Asked if he could have in fact played Dumbledore, McKellen said, “Well, sometimes, when I see the posters of Michael Gambon, the actor who gloriously plays Dumbledore, I think sometimes it is me”.
It’s fascinating how differently things could have turned out if it weren’t for a disparaging comment or two.
Michael Gambon went on to play Dumbledore in the next six Harry Potter films.
Originally published April 4, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
