A student has gone viral after bumping into Ian McKellen while dressed as Gandalf on a pub crawl – check out the footage below.
Ben Coyles, 22, was dressed as the Lord Of The Rings character for his birthday night out in Bristol on April 13, when he encountered the Gandalf actor in the street.
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A video of the moment was posted to TikTok by Coyles’ friend Scarlet Learmonth, which has since amassed over 3.5million views.
Speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph, Felix Spencer, who was also on the pub crawl, explained how the meeting happened.
@.scarletlearmonth SIR * Ian McKellen #bristol #birthdaygandalf #ianmckellen #sirianmckellen #gandalf
“We were on the penultimate pub on the pub crawl and, as we’re walking there, someone comes up behind me and asks if he’d like our Gandalf to meet the real Gandalf,” Spencer said. “I assumed it was someone just joking around but when I turn around to talk to him he gestures towards his friend.
“It takes me a while to realise at first but then I see that it is in fact Ian McKellen. I only spoke to him briefly but he was very polite and kind and definitely excited to see that people were dressing up as characters from a film he really enjoyed making.”
McKellen played Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy, which came to an end with 2014’s The Battle Of The Five Armies.
Back in February, it was announced that Warner Bros and New Line had signed a deal to make “multiple” new movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books.
Last year saw the debut of prequel series The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, which is currently filming for its second season.