Sir Ian McKellen says he imagined wrecking Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate while filming a destructive scene for Avengers: Doomsday.
McKellen, 87, was speaking on Sunday at the Cinema in Piazza in Rome, where he presented advance footage from the forthcoming Marvel film to an audience of 2,000 people, according to The Guardian.
Avengers: Doomsday is the first Avengers instalment since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which grossed $2.799bn worldwide and became the second highest-grossing film in cinema history. The project was announced in July 2024, along with news of Robert Downey Jr’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe after previously portraying Iron Man.
The film is expected to unite characters from across the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four franchises and will serve as the first half of a two-part story concluding with Avengers: Secret Wars.
McKellen, who is reprising his role as the mutant leader Magneto, recalled filming a scene in which his character unleashes large-scale destruction.
“They got me at one point to destroy New Jersey,” McKellen told the audience, and then rose from his seat to re-enact the scene, explaining that directors Anthony and Joe Russo wanted him to appear angrier on screen.
“They told me to look more furious: make it look as if you hate what you’re destroying,” McKellen said. “So I stood there and I shouted: ‘Mar-a-Lago!’”
open image in galleryMar-a-Lago is Trump’s private resort in Palm Beach, Florida, which he has owned since 1985 and frequently uses as a residence and political meeting venue.
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McKellen has been openly critical of Trump for years, particularly over his administration’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights. In 2017, he criticised the Trump administration’s rollback of LGBTQ+ protections as “appalling and quite unnecessary and very un-American”.
“The gay rights movement began in America. It began in San Francisco, it began in Stonewall, the city where Donald Trump was born and thrived,” he told Variety at the Cannes Lions.
In 2024, McKellen took another swipe at Trump, telling The Times of London: “I haven’t seen him live. But he’s one of the worst public speakers there has ever been. Whether he’s reading a script or not, it’s so patent what he is.”
open image in galleryMcKellen is also reprising another beloved role as he revealed in Rome that he was heading to new Zealand soon to shoot for the forthcoming Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. He will be returning as Gandalf in the film, as well as Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins, Lee Pace as Thranduil, and Andy Serkis as Gollum, who is also directing.
According to McKellen, the new film will “tell a story that I don’t think Tolkien wrote.”
In April, it was revealed that Jamie Dornan would be taking on the role of Strider, the alias Aragorn uses when he is first introduced in The Fellowship of the Ring. The White Lotus star Leo Woodall, Kate Winslet, and Anya Taylor Joy have also joined the cast.
Avengers: Doomsday will be in theaters on 18 December 2026, and Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum on 17 December 2027.