[HPFGU-Movie] Casting choices for PoA

[ABandt at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/24/2003 5:43:56 AM Central Standard Time, 
dianasdolls at yahoo.com writes:


> I'm 
> still a bit disappointed that Ian McKellan won't be Dumbledore 
> because I would have LOVED to have seen McKellan's interpretation of 
> the character!  :)

Well, I can see McKellan's reasoning if turned it down.  He's just gotten off 
a rather expansive project, where he played a wizard, and he's already in the 
middle of another project that may or may not have other parts attatched to 
it.  I can see how he wouldn't want to get involved in another series at this 
point would not be in his best interest or a desire of his.  Having to do a 
movie every year or so is a time consuming business that takes away from 
availablity to do other projects, especially if that other project were to be 
theater which McKellan likes to do and does not have the type of schedule 
that's easy to work around.  He may also have felt that playing another 
wizard so close to the heels Lord of the Rings was not a good thing because 
it's very easy to get type-cast in the movie business no matter how 
wonderfully talented the actor is.  

There probably was, more than likely, some sort of money issue.  While 
McKellan is probably not in the pay range of say a Tom Cruise or Harrison 
Ford he's probably up in a higher range than any of the actors currently 
signed to contracts.  Given the depth of the project I can see him having 
taken some sort of pay cut to do LotR, though I haven't heard anything to 
that affect or to do theater but as much as I love Harry Potter I doubt that 
it made the same sort of impact on McKellan that LotR did.  This money issue 
could even have come into play on the HP Powers that Be's side, if they 
really wanted Gary Oldman for Black I could see how it may have become a one 
or the other prospect.  Paying big salaries isn't as big a problem on a 
single flim but over the course of a series, especially one with as many 
important cast members and special effects and other production things as HP, 
paying a lot of money for the talent isn't going to work out.

So while I too would have l loved to see McKellan in the role, and he was the 
first person to come to mind after I heard that Harris had passed, I can 
understand why it didn't happen.

Wow -- this is my first post and a very long winded way of saying hi.

Hi :-)

~Amy


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