Ian McKellen says he turned down $1.5m (£1.14m) to officiate at Napster billionaire Sean Parker’s wedding dressed as Gandalf the wizard.
McKellen, who played the character in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, didn’t know the source of the offer when he was asked to marry Parker and his wife, singer Alexandra Lenas. The request came via a mutual acquaintance of Parker and McKellen’s, according to the Mail on Sunday. McKellen said he would have considered the offer if Parker hadn’t stipulated that he come in character.
“I don’t go dressing up, except in plays and things,” McKellen said. “So I said, ‘I am sorry, Gandalf doesn’t do weddings.’”
Parker and Lenas’s Lord of the Rings-themed wedding went ahead in 2013 without McKellen. It was set in a fake ruined castle in Big Sur, California, where fur-covered tables were laden with whole roast pigs and guests were outfitted in clothes supplied by the film trilogy’s Oscar-winning costume designer, Ngila Dickson. The event, for which Parker negotiated exclusive use of an area of California redwood forest for months, cost $10m, while the company Parker had set up to run the wedding, Neraida, was hit with $2.5m in penalties for building on the site without permits.
Even though Gandalf didn’t marry Parker,the real McKellen may be available for weddings: the actor qualified as a celebrant in 2013, which allowed him to officiate the civil wedding of actor Patrick Stewart and musician Sunny Ozell.
