Actor Ian McKellen said Tuesday he is looking forward to returning to work after he toppled off a London stage mid-performance and was hospitalized.
McKellen, 85, said he was "hugely indebted" to medics who treated him after the tumble on Monday night during a performance of "Player Kings" at London's Noel Coward Theatre.
"They have assured me that my recovery will be complete and speedy and I am looking forward to returning to work," he said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Performances on Tuesday and Wednesday were canceled after the accident and are scheduled to resume on Thursday.
The stage and screen veteran, who played Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" films, cried out in pain after the fall, according to a BBC journalist at the theater. McKellen was playing the roguish John Falstaff in "Player Kings," an adaptation of William Shakespeare's two "Henry IV" history plays, directed by Robert Icke.
Theatergoers were startled when McKellen lost his footing and fell off the stage in a fight scene involving Toheeb Jimoh's Prince Hal and Henry Percy, played by Samuel Edward-Cook.
"Sir Ian seemed to trip as he moved downstage to take a more active part in the scene," audience member Paul Critchley told the PA news agency, saying it was a shock. "He picked up momentum as he moved downstage which resulted in him falling off the stage directly in front of the audience."
Staff and two doctors in the audience helped the actor, the theater said in a statement. The theater was evacuated and the performance was canceled.
McKellen played Magneto in the "X-Men" films and is one of Britain's most acclaimed Shakespearean actors, with roles including Richard III, Macbeth and King Lear.
He has won a Tony Award — for "Amadeus" — several Olivier Awards, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards, five Emmys and several BAFTA awards.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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