The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Ian McKellen Has Prostate Cancer

Originally posted 12/11/2012 09:50AM

Sir Ian McKellen has revealed that he suffers from prostate cancer.

McKellen – who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and reprises the role in the soon-to-open The Hobbit – tells the Daily Mirror that he's had "prostate cancer for six or seven years."

But the 73-year-old says the diagnosis is far from a death sentence.

"When you have got it you monitor it and you have to be careful it doesn't spread. But if it is contained in the prostate, it's no big deal," he says.

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Filed Under: Cancer, Health, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Ian McKellen

Credit: Courtesy Weta Workshop

Tolkien's Gollum Has a New Role: Official Airport Greeter

Originally posted 10/29/2012 12:00PM

Headed Down Under? Don't be frightened.

Wellington Airport, in New Zealand, has a new official greeter: Gollum, the misunderstood monster from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings novels and Peter Jackson's movie adaptations.

His arrival comes just ahead of Oscar-winner Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which opens next month. Like Jackson's Rings movies, it too was shot in New Zealand.

"Wellington Airport feels like the home of Gollum after spending so many months here during the last three films," Sir Richard Taylor, of the Weta Workshop – which manufactured and installed Gollum from Japanese fine arts sculptor Masayuki Ohashi's design – tells Wellington's Dominion Post.