{"id":478540,"date":"2026-06-15T15:03:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T15:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/478540\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T15:03:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T15:03:05","slug":"ian-mckellen-says-he-imagined-destroying-mar-a-lago-for-new-avengers-movie-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/478540\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian McKellen says he imagined destroying Mar-a-Lago for new Avengers movie | Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday night at an open-air cinema in Rome, Sir Ian McKellen showed a crowd of 2,000 film fans advance footage of his appearance in the superhero film Avengers: Doomsday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The film, which is released in December, sees a return for the X-Men played by McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU\u2019s 39th feature, it is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, and intended as a sequel to their 2019 film Avengers: Endgame, which made $2.8bn and is the second highest-grossing film of all time.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Rome about his experiences shooting the film, McKellen said that at one point \u201cthey got me at one point to destroy New Jersey\u201d. Rising from his seat to re-enact the scene, he said that the Russos \u201ctold me to look more furious: make it look as if you hate what you\u2019re destroying. So I stood there and I shouted: \u2018Mar-a-Lago!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

McKellen, 87, introduced one of his favourite films, Jacques Tati\u2019s 1953 comedy Monsieur Hulot\u2019s Holiday \u2013 which he described watching as a 14-year-old with a friend. \u201cMore than a friend, really,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in love with him. We held hands through the whole film.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKellen went on to describe Hulot as \u201ca character every bit as powerful as Chaplin\u2019s Tramp, or Buster Keaton or Roberto Benigni. He\u2019s the inspiration for Rowan Atkinson\u2019s Mr Bean and the idea of us all gathered together in the open air and a balmy evening to watch the film seems to me a perfect way to watch this particular film.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKellen is experiencing a career renaissance after being injured falling from the stage during a production of Player Kings in 2024. This year saw the release of Steven Soderbergh\u2019s The Christophers, for which McKellen won rave reviews<\/a>, as well as McKellen\u2019s involvement in an innovative video stage installation <\/a>in New York.<\/p>\n

Last month he opened a new performing arts centre<\/a> in County Durham and joined a march<\/a> against the criminalisation of LGBTQ+ people in Commonwealth countries, while last week he unveiled<\/a> an English Heritage blue plaque outside the former London home of Sir Laurence Olivier.<\/p>\n

Ian McKellen unveils a blue plaque at the childhood home of Laurence Olivier at Lupus Street in Pimlico, London. Photograph: Ian West\/PA<\/p>\n

Speaking in Rome, McKellen revealed he was shortly to head to New Zealand to reprise his role as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Andy Serkis, who also reprises the role of Gollum.<\/p>\n

The film, said McKellen, is \u201cgoing to tell a story that I don\u2019t think Tolkien wrote\u201d.<\/p>\n

McKellen\u2019s appearance was part of the Cinema in Piazza festival, a free series of open-air screenings and Q&As organised by the Piccolo America Foundation, created by a group of young activists who occupied an abandoned cinema in 2012 to fight the gentrification of the city. Other stars scheduled to take part this year include Edgar Wright and L\u00e9a Seydoux.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday night at an open-air cinema in Rome, Sir Ian McKellen showed a crowd of 2,000 film…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-478540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}