Peter Jackson comes from New Zealand, says to me, “Sir Ian, I want you to be Gandalf the wizard.” And I say to him, “You are aware that I am not really a wizard,” and he said, “Yes, I am aware of that. What I want you to do is use your acting skills to portray the wizard for the duration of the film.” So I said, “Okay.” And then I said to myself, “Hmm, how would I do that?” And this is what I did: I imagined what it would be like to be a wizard, and then I pretended and acted in that way on the day… And how did I know what to say? The words were written down for me in a script. How did I know where to stand? People told me. If we were to draw a graph of my process, of my method, it would be something like this: “Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian. Action. WIZARD! YOU SHALL NOT PASS! Cut! Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian.”

-Ian McKellen