Ian McKellen first played the wizard Gandalf in three films of The Lord of the Rings and returned for the adaptation of The Hobbit. However, the second time he faced significant difficulties on set, due to sudden changes in the rules.
Ian McKellen is a legend in the British acting world, but also beyond. He is best known to most for his major roles in franchises like X-Men or the films of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
However, McKellen has been performing in plays since 1961. Since 1965, he has also been seen in television productions and films. According to IMDb, he has played 133 roles in film and television alone. For his work on Broadway, McKellen received seven prestigious theater awards, including a Tony Award, which is comparable to the Oscar in the film industry.
Throughout his career, McKellen has gained a lot of experience. He brilliantly embodied Gandalf and captured the hearts of the audience with ease. However, the return to the role for the filming of The Hobbit was anything but easy for him.
This even led to the actor experiencing a breakdown on set.
CGI is both a curse and a blessing
What was the problem? Thanks to the extensive behind-the-scenes materials from the set of The Hobbit, we know that Ian McKellen experienced some difficulties during the filming. This primarily concerned the novel way the film was shot. Unlike The Lord of the Rings, there was a greater reliance on CGI, or computer-generated imagery.
Not only to bring fantastic creatures like the dragon Smaug to life, but also to depict aspects such as the size difference between Gandalf and the Hobbits or Dwarves.
In The Lord of the Rings, this was still done using perspective tricks and the skillful use of the camera. You can get insights from this clip on YouTube.
In The Hobbit, director Peter Jackson chose to skip that and simply placed his actors in a studio fully equipped with a greenscreen. This refers to a green fabric or wall that can be replaced by any background in post-production.
The idea was to film Gandalf alone in front of the greenscreen and to shoot the other actors separately. In the end, the two recordings were combined, and the actors could be made larger or smaller at will.
What at first sounds practical was unusual and a problem for Ian McKellen. A clip from the making-of on YouTube shows him sitting alone at a table and talking to cardboard cutouts representing the Dwarves. Mid-sentence, he suddenly breaks off and collapses.
“I was totally unhappy and cried a little,” the actor describes the experience in the making-of. The fact that he was not working with other actors was draining for him.
“It was so taxing, daunting, and difficult that I thought: I do not want to make this film if this is what I have to do. This is not my profession, I perform with other people, not just with myself.”
Ian McKellen
For Ian McKellen, this method of working was particularly challenging because he is a classically trained old-school actor. For him, direct contact with the person he is addressing in his role is crucial. Speaking alone on set with invisible figures does not align with his understanding of acting.
Director Peter Jackson was aware of the problem and emphasized in the making-of how sorry he was to see McKellen in such a state. Consequently, the team made extra efforts to make the actor feel loved.
The story shows how much modern technology can facilitate filmmaking in some respects, but also complicate things for some people. Whether the heavy use of CGI in The Hobbit has helped or harmed the films is likely a matter of taste. What do you think about it? Feel free to let us know in the comments. On MeinMMO you can find a ranking of all films from Tolkien’s work: All 9 films of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit ranked – Which one is the best?
