Sir Ian McKellen makes heartbreaking confession after falling off West End stage: ‘Ashamed’

Sir Ian McKellen was in the middle of a fight scene when he fell off the stage in June.

Sir Ian McKellen has made a heartbreaking confession months after he shockingly fell from the stage while performing a theatre show in London.

The 85-year-old actor was in the middle of a fight scene in the production Player Kings at the Noel Coward Theatre on June 17 when he reportedly lost his footing and tumbled off the stage, resulting in a hospitalisation.

Sustaining multiple injuries including a chipped vertebrae and fractured wrist, the Lord of the Rings star soon announced he was withdrawing from his role in the West End play to focus on his recovery.

Now, just one month after telling fans he has been experiencing “agonising” pain since the incident, he has made a heartbreaking confession about the emotions he has been feeling over the past two months.

Speaking to AP, the star said that while he is “mobile, pain-free and ready to go”, the same can’t be said emotionally.

“Emotionally, I feel guilty and ashamed, you know, quite irrational because it was an accident. And it could have happened to anybody,” he admitted. He continued to tell Sky News that he will be going back to work as soon as possible.

“I’m just aware there isn’t much time left and so I’m giving myself three months off instead of six months, I don’t need six months,” he said.

Ian McKellen stars in The Critic. Photo / The Critic,True Brit Entertainment

But while he knows of his mortality, he said it seemed after his fall, some of his nearest and dearest thought his time had already come.

“I got the impression that dozens of friends wanted to come and say hello that, actually, they wanted to say goodbye. They thought I was on the way out,” he told AP. “So I very determinedly always open the front door and run up the stairs and show that I’m not going anywhere!”

While McKellen is taking a brief break from acting, his promotional commitments for his upcoming movie, The Critic, are filling in his spare time.

Sir Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton attend the Europeans Premiere of The Critic at The Curzon Mayfair on September 2. Photo / Joseph Okpako/WireImage

The thriller, set in West End in 1930, follows the fictional life of gay newspaper writer James Erskine, whose career takes a shock turn when his sexuality is exposed during the era of homosexuality being illegal.

Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong, Romola Garai, Ben Barnes and Lesley Manville also star in the film which is set to be released in New Zealand cinemas on September 13.