LONDON — Ian McKellen is listening to his inner critic.
It’s beating him up for not finishing out his latest theater role after he fell off the stage during a June performance of “Player Kings” and spent three nights in the hospital.
“Emotionally, I feel guilty and ashamed, you know, quite irrational because it was an accident. And it could have happened to anybody,” he said.
The actor, 85, says it could have been a “great deal worse” if he hadn’t been wearing padding to portray the rotund Sir John Falstaff during the adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” plays at London’s Noel Coward Theatre. While his fractures and chipped vertebrae are healing well, though, McKellen can’t shake the negativity of leaving the production early.
“You suddenly abandon all your mates who are putting on the show and you feel something’s come to an end prematurely,” he said.