Man Dressed as Gandalf Bumps into Ian McKellen While on a Pub Crawl: Watch!
"It was such a shock but also a beautiful and magical moment," said the woman who posted the moment on TikTok
A Lord of the Rings fan dressed as Gandalf met his real movie counterpart, leading to a viral moment online.
A TikTok video posted last week showed a man chatting with an older gentleman while walking down a street in England with long brown hair and a thick beard, dressed as the iconic J. R. R. Tolkien character. He donned a long dark cloak, wizard hat and held a large blue stick (which was supposed to represent Gandalf's staff).
However, what grabbed people's attention was the person walking alongside him on the street — none other than Sir Ian McKellen, who portrayed Gandalf in the classic movies. McKellen, 83, who sported a casual look for a night out with blue pants, brown shoes and a light brown trench coat with a matching pageboy cap, could be seen chatting with his Gandalf look-a-like before stopping for photos with him in the middle of the street.
The video read: "POV: for your mates' 22nd he dressed as Gandalf and bumped into THE IAN MCKELLEN"
The TikTok, which was uploaded under the profile of Scarlet Learmonth, received more than 3.5 million views and more than 834,000 likes after it was posted.
Learmonth told the Lancashire Telegraph that the Gandalf cosplayer was her 22-year-old friend Ben Coyles, who had a Lord of the Rings-themed pub crawl because he had been a huge fan of the movies.
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"We were on the penultimate pub on the pub crawl and as we're walking there someone comes up behind me and asks if he'd like our Gandalf to meet the real Gandalf," said Felix Spencer, another friend of Coyles who witnessed the event.
"I assumed it was someone just joking around, but when I turn around to talk to him, he gestures towards his friend," he continued. "It takes me a while to realize at first, but then I see that it is, in fact, Ian McKellen."
"I only spoke to him briefly but he was very polite and kind and definitely excited to see that people were dressing up as characters from a film he really enjoyed making," Spencer added.
Learnmonth dubbed the whole chance event as "magical."
"It was such a shock but also a beautiful and magical moment," she told the Lancashire Telegraph. "I am so unbelievably happy for Ben and to be part of this exciting occurrence."
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McKellen told GQ in 2021 that he wasn't the first choice to play the beloved Lord of the Rings character, but that the role has brought a new generation of fans to his work.
"I still don't quite know how Gandalf came my way," McKellen said. "I think because some of the actors who would have been offered it before me were rather put off by the idea of having to live in New Zealand for a year. 'Where the hell is that?' Well, more fool them."
"I realized the popularity of the books not because I had read them, but I just got so many messages from people who were desperately worried that they were going to see the characters exactly as they had imagined."
He added: "I can't count the number of people who said to me, 'Your Gandalf was exactly as I'd always imagined him.'"
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