Richard Harris had originally taken up the mantle to much acclaim before he unfortunately succumbed to Hodgkin's disease in per Entertainment Weekly. After Harris died, producers wanted to ensure that the next actor to portray Dumbledore was capable of doing so with the same level of renown.
They approached McKellen about the part, but the actor decided to turn them down for this reason. Ian McKellen seemed like a sure fit for the role of Professor Dumbledore after Richard Harris' death, but McKellen said he firmly declined the offer from producers when approached about the part. It might not be the most important piece of Harry Potter trivia , but I was living with that assumption -- and I thought it was understood from the Lord of the Rings star himself.
Maybe not. As promotion for the November 15 movie, they played a game of Two Truths And A Lie, and the first round surprised me with a different version of the Dumbledore story. Ian McKellen read off three statements about himself, with the understanding being that two would be true and Helen Mirren had to pick out the lie:.
Helen Mirren laughed at the Kate Beckinsale one -- girl, I get it -- and quickly picked the Dumbledore one as the lie. Ian McKellen responded, "Well, that's correct! I say. Watch their conversation :. Helen Mirren is a very good liar! But the Dumbledore lie confuses me, because I thought there was a whole thing about that. Harry Potter 's original Dumbledore actor, Richard Harris, had made some comments about various actors, including Ian McKellen, saying McKellen was "technically brilliant but passionless.
As McKellen said, at the time :. When they called me up and said, 'Would I be interested in the Harry Potter films? I worked out what they were thinking and I couldn't.
Sir Ian McKellen is a living legend. Oh yeah, lots of stuff. He was already playing a famed archetypal wizened wizard in a different book adaptation but could have easily inhabited yet another one. Still, he said no. Only recently and during the 20th-anniversary episode of a British talk show did the actor reveal the real reason as to why he declined one of the greatest offers that fell unexpectedly in his lap.
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