There are hundreds, if not thousands, of stories throughout the history of Hollywood of actors turning down roles that later became iconic. We know that Will Smith could have starred in The Matrix, and Tom Selleck was almost Indiana Jones. Careers and movie history would have changed drastically if things had gone a different way.
But the opposite is also true. It turns out that Ian McKellen only had the ability to say yes to two of his most iconic roles after he had turned down another major film. It turns out that McKellen was offered a role in Mission: Impossible 2, but he had to say no. Stepping Through Film recently spoke with the actor who said he was offered a part in the Tom Cruise sequel, but chose to say no. McKellan revealed,
I was asked to do Tom Cruise’s films. What are they called? Mission: Impossible 2, and I turned it down, because they wouldn’t show me a script.
McKellan doesn’t say what the part he turned down was, though the role of pharmaceutical company CEO John C. McCloy, who was ultimately played in the film by Brendan Gleeson, seems like a strong possibility. The most notable thing about McKellen’s decision is that had he been able to see a script, there’s every possibility that he could have said yes to the part.
However, the rest of us were lucky, as the actor says that had he said yes to Mission: Impossible 2, he would not have been available to play his two most iconic roles. He continued:
If I’d said yes to Mission: Impossible, I couldn’t have done X-Men, nor could I have done Lord of the Rings. Wasn’t that lucky?
Gandalf and Magneto are two of those roles that it’s now all but impossible to imagine anybody else playing. Meanwhile, Mission: Impossible 2 is generally regarded as the least popular of the franchise.
The original cast of X-Men is so beloved that Marvel Studios is bringing many of them, including Ian McKellen, back for Avengers: Doomsday. The Lord of the Rings is one franchise that, while it may continue to be expanded upon, it’s hard to imagine anybody ever trying to top Peter Jackson’s films, or the cast that makes them so great.
The “What Ifs” of Ian McKellen’s career don’t stop there, though. It turns out that due to a delay in the production of X-Men, McKellen thought he would have to bow out of playing Gandalf anyway. Peter Jackson, however, wasn’t ready to let him go. McKellan recalls,
When X-Men was delayed, that’s when I had to call up Peter Jackson and say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do Gandalf.’ He said, ‘We’ll hold on.’
Considering the massive undertaking that was the production of Lord of the Rings trilogy, it’s hard to image that anything was done to accommodate a single actor. And yet, it seems that’s what happens. McKellan says he later found himself in a restaurant with Robert Shaye, the head of Lord of the Rings’ studio New Line Cinema, who apparently wasn’t willing to let McKellen go. The actor concludes his story saying,
That night, I was in Shiki’s Fish restaurant and the head of New Line Cinema, his name escapes me, put his hands on my shoulder and said ‘Looking forward to the movie!’ And I said, ‘Oh, I’ve just heard today I can’t do it.’ [He said] ‘You can’t play Gandalf? Why? Leave it to me,’ he said. Which is what producers should say. [He] said ‘I can’t put it in writing, but I promise you we’ll get there.’ Luck, people’s kindness.
It’s unclear exactly what needed to be done to allow Ian McKellen to be both Magneto and Gandalf, but whatever it was, it happened. As McKellan says, between luck and people’s kindness, we got two iconic performances.