Ian McKellen says the fat suit he wore for his role in ‘Player Kings’ helped prevent worse injuries when he fell off the stage during a performance in June.
Ian Mckellen says his fat suit prevented far worse injuries when he fell off a stage during a West End performance in June.
“I was wearing a fat suit for Falstaff,” McKellen said in an interview published Tuesday in Saga magazine, [and that] saved my ribs and other joints, so I consider myself lucky.”
McKellen portrayed John Falstaff in the stage adaptation of “Player Kings,” which merges Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” Parts 1 and 2. Set in 1403, the play focuses on the rebellious noblemen conspiring to overthrow King Henry IV. During a battle scene, the “X-Men” actor tripped on a newspaper causing his foot to get caught on a chair and stumbled offstage into the front row of the audience screaming, “Help me!”
“My chipped vertebrae and fractured wrist are not yet mended,” McKellen told the magazine.
