Ian McKellen would like to finish what he started with Falstaff part

By Alicia Powell

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ian McKellen is ready to finish what he started.

In June the British actor was starring as John Falstaff in "Player Kings," an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Parts One and Two," in London's West End, when he lost his footing and fell off the stage during a fight scene.

McKellen - now promoting his latest film, "The Critic" - said the fall had left an unhappy memory, but he would like to one day reprise the role.

"I think I've come to realize that the best thing would be to go back and play the part again," he told Reuters in an interview this week. "Try and get better in the part and then finish and say, well, I played Falstaff well, rather than 'I fell off the stage one night and I couldn't finish it'."

At the same time, he was cautious about making too many future plans, he added.

"At 85, planning too far ahead is a little bit foolhardy," he said.

McKellen broke his wrist and chipped a vertebrae in the fall but has said he was saved from more serious injury by the padding of the suit he was wearing to play the famously rotund Falstaff.

In "The Critic," based on the novel "Curtain Call" by Anthony Quinn, McKellen plays powerful newspaper theatre critic Jimmy Erskine in 1930s London. Desperate to maintain his grip on power after the death of his boss, Erskine strikes a dangerous alliance with Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), a struggling actress. Their alliance results in a high-stakes game of intrigue and manipulation.

Somewhat over-the-top? "If the plot's a bit melodramatic, well, the 1930s were melodramatic," says McKellen.

In the film McKellen - who came out in his forties - plays an openly gay man, something that appealed to him when considering the role.

Such a stance would have been challenging in the 1930s, even for "a famous man who was renowned and secure in his position," said McKellen. "It's very much what it would have been like in them there days... I like that about it."

McKellen, who began his stage career in 1961 and was knighted in 1991, has dazzled audiences for decades with Shakespearean roles like Richard III, King Lear, and Macbeth, as well as Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" movies and Magneto in the "X-Men" movies.

"The Critic," which just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, will be released in UK theatres on Sept. 13.

(Reporting by Alicia Powell, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)