It's hard to imagine anyone other than Ian McKellen playing Gandalf, but a bad experience on the set of The Hobbit almost caused him to quit acting altogether. Having played the iconic wizard in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy so memorably, McKellen’s return to Middle Earth via the Hobbit films was widely (and rightfully) celebrated - but was very nearly over before it had truly begun. Throughout shooting The Lord of the Rings, McKellen had become accustomed to the old-school, practical filmmaking techniques used to achieve the height difference between himself and many of his co-stars. While Gandalf stands at a fairly average height, the hobbits and dwarves that he associates with are very small - requiring the actors and filmmakers to utilize trick-perspective shots whenever the characters interact on-screen.
When making The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Jackson and his team decided to jump on the 3D bandwagon - forcing them to change their previous working methods. While the practical approach had served The Lord of the Rings extremely well, such techniques proved futile on The Hobbit, with the 3D cameras exposing any attempts at in-camera trickery. Instead, McKellen was isolated from the other actors on a greenscreen set and fed his cues through an earpiece. Meanwhile, the hobbit/dwarf actors were on a fully-decorated set and performed the scene as if McKellen was present. The two sets were shot simultaneously at different scales and the footage merged together digitally to create the final effect, with Gandalf appearing much taller than the other characters in the finished film.
While effective on-screen, the experience overwhelmed McKellen and led him to reconsider his future, both with the Hobbit trilogy and with acting in general. This stumbling block is well-documented in The Hobbit’s extensive behind-the-scenes “Appendices”, wherein McKellen expressed his dissatisfaction with the process. Speaking on the issue, McKellen said:
“You can’t see the faces of the other actors you’re working with, who can all see each other on the adjacent set... I got absolutely miserable and had a little cry to myself. I didn’t realize that the microphone I was wearing was open so that everybody could hear me, muttering to myself about how I wanted to go home and so on... It was so distressing and off-putting and difficult that, I thought, ‘I don’t want to make this film if this is what I’m going to have to do’. It’s not what I do for a living. I act with other people; I don’t act on my own."
This culminated in McKellen questioning his future as an actor, openly admitting so in an email to Peter Jackson.
While imagination is a massive part of being a successful actor, acting is largely a team sport, with McKellen’s grievances easily understood by The Hobbit’s cast and crew. Director Peter Jackson said, “We felt sorry for him [McKellen] being, just, dumped in greenscreen land, and we wanted to make him feel a little bit better. We wanted to make him feel loved.” It’s safe to say that the production team achieved this - pimping McKellen’s backstage tent with props and set-decor from the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a surprise for the veteran actor. Additionally, Jackson assured McKellen that the effect shots had worked well and that he shouldn’t be at all disheartened with his performance. In short, McKellen says, he was made to feel that he “belonged”.
Thankfully, the kind efforts of the cast and crew were enough to convince McKellen that he ought to persevere with the project, and he was able to act in more natural set-ups during his scenes with the White Council. Since, McKellen has appeared in both Beauty and the Beast and Cats - CGI-heavy projects that, while not as isolating as The Hobbit, suggest a change in feeling towards digital techniques. With Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings TV show purported to take place in the same continuity as Jackson’s previous trilogies, Gandalf’s return is possible but unlikely. That said, the 3D fad has now passed its heyday, so the series may return to more practical, in-camera techniques when rendering any height discrepancies - making McKellen’s return that bit more possible.