I'm not slowing down... I shall return to Middle Earth as Gandalf

Lord of the Rings star on a lifetime of acting & new challenges at 86

- BY MARC BAKER

Playing Gandalf in the most recent film, 2014's The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

By the age of 86, most octogenarians are deeply settled into retirement and certainly not contemplating taking on any more major new work projects.

But not so Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen, who is reprising his role as the wizard Gandalf the Grey in a new Middle Earth blockbuster, scheduled for release in December 2027.

Hopes of the actor ever uttering his character's iconic line “You shall not pass” again looked bleak last summer, after Sir Ian fractured his wrist when he fell off a West End stage.

Now recovered, he plans to start work on The Hunt for Gollum - to be filmed in New Zealand next May and directed by Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in all of the Peter Jackson Rings and Hobbit films.

Sir Ian, 86, says: “Next year, I'm talking about going back to Middle Earth and reprising a little bit of Gandalf. I am not slowing down.

“Well, I am in the sense that however hard you are working on a film it’s not as hard work as being in the theatre - or, as I now realise, anywhere near as dangerous.”

Last June the renowned Shakespearean actor tripped during a performance of Player Kings at the Noel Coward Theatre in London and fell into the lap of a front row audience member.

Fortunately the padded fat suit he was wearing for the role of obese knight John Falstaff offered some protection, and the damage was limited to the fractured wrist and a sprained neck.

But in the moment, the actor admits, he did think he was “a goner”.

He recalls: “My foot caught in a chair. As I tried to shake it off with the other foot, standing on a newspaper, I started to glide on the polished surface of the stage, inevitably towards the audience.