Michael Gambon Scored the Iconic Dumbledore Role Because Someone Insulted Sir Ian McKellen
Harry Potter’s Dumbledore was played by veteran actor Michael Gambon, who picked up the role from Richard Harris. But before Gambon, Ian McKellen was courted for the role. An insult, however, discouraged McKellen from joining the Harry Potter franchise.
Why Ian McKellen turned down playing Dumbledore
Thespian Richard Harris was the first actor to portray the Hogwarts professor. He only appeared in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and The Chamber of Secrets before his passing. Still, his brief appearance in the Harry Potter films left a lasting impact.
The wizard franchise would later cast Gambon as Dumbledore, who would portray the character for the rest of the films. Before Gambon, however, McKellen was briefly in talks to potentially replace Harris.
“When they called me up and said would I be interested in being in the Harry Potter films, they didn’t say what part,” McKellen once told BBC. “I worked out what they were thinking, and I couldn’t.”
It turned out that Harris once criticized McKellen as an actor back in the day. Although Harris thought the X-Men star was brilliant in his own way, he called McKellen’s performance passionless. Because of this, McKellen couldn’t in good conscience inherit the role of Dumbledore given Harris’ comments.
“I couldn’t take over the part of an actor who I’d known didn’t approve of me,” McKellen said.
Michael Gambon wondered if Dumbledore was gay because of him
Gambon received a similar call to McKellen when he was first offered the role. But unlike McKellen, the actor was more than willing to pick up the wizard’s robe. Gambon, however, was later surprised by the scale of the character he played.
“They rang me up and said, ‘Will you do it?’ Like any other job I said, ‘Sure,’” Gambon recalled to Today. “Then you find yourself in the middle of this thing.”
Gambon got in touch with an entirely new generation of fans thanks to his Dumbledore character. He found himself being recognized by young fans of the show, which showed him the franchise’s broad appeal.
“It’s very odd,” Gambon said. “I hadn’t realized before just how powerful these things are. I just do the job and go home and you forget it.”
In 2007, J.K. Rowling offered more insight into the character by revealing that Dumbledore was gay. This came as a bit of a surprise to some, including Gambon, who wondered if his performance played a part in Dumbledore’s sexuality.
“’Is it because of the way I’m playing it?’” he’d later ask J.K. Rowling.
Dumbledore being gay created a bit of controversy back then. McKellen felt some of the reactions to Dumbledore’s sexuality spoke to a greater issue in Hollywood.
“Well, nobody looks to Hollywood for social commentary, do they? They only recently discovered that there were black people in the world. Hollywood has mistreated women in every possible way throughout its history. Gay men don’t exist. Gods and Monsters, I think, was the beginning of Hollywood admitting that there were gay people knocking around, even though half of Hollywood is gay,” McKellen once told Time Out.
How Ian McKellen and Michael Gambon handle being confused for one another
McKellen would end up playing his own iconic wizardly character in the Lord of the Rings franchise. Given his role, it might be easy to see why McKellen is often mistaken for Gambon’s Dumbledore.
‘People come up to me and say ‘My son’s seen all the Harry Potter movies because they think I’m Michael Gambon,” McKellen said.
McKellen wondered if Gambon ever faced the same confusion.
“I asked him if he ever gets confused with me. He said, ‘Urgh, all the time.’ I asked him what he did. He said, ‘Oh, I just sign your name,’” McKellen said.
