Sir Ian McKellen Dances With Anthony Hopkins After Stage Fall

Sir Ian McKellen is back on his feet! One week after the 85-year-old actor fell off stage while performing in Player Kings, Anthony Hopkins took to Instagram to share a video dancing with his longtime pal.

In the sweet video, the men — wearing matching plaid jackets — hug and dance, smiling as they twirl around the room to Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love.”

“Today I celebrate my dear friend, Ian and his unbreakable spirit… I love this man,” Hopkins captioned the clip with his The Dresser co-star.

Hopkins, 85, continued by shouting out his friend, Salma Hayek, who starred in House of Gucci, writing, “‘We both have our Gucci on…’🕺🏻🕺🏻 Thank you, Salma ❤️.”

During a June 17 performance of Player Kings at the Noël Coward Theatre in London, McKellen lost his footing during a fight scene and fell off the stage. McKellen was rushed to the hospital, the theater was evacuated and the production was canceled.

The production team behind Player Kings later told ET, “Following a scan, the brilliant NHS team have assured us that he will make a speedy and full recovery and Ian is in good spirits. The production has made the decision to cancel the performance on Tuesday 18 June so Ian can rest. Those affected will be contacted by their point of purchase as soon as possible tomorrow. Thank you to doctors Rachel and Lee who were on hand in the audience and to all the venue staff for their support.”

Veronika Muzika, who was in the audience at the time of McKellen’s fall, told ET that she initially thought the accident was part of the play.

“So he fell down the orchestra pit just in front of our eyes and he was screaming something like, ‘Help,’ and I thought it was part of the play because there were a lot of wounded people, like, you know, it’s a war act, and yeah, it was quite shocking,” she said. “He seemed like he was moving pretty OK through the stage as normal. I didn’t see any kind of tripping. Maybe there was some slippery sort of fabric or something and it must have been something really, really small because he was acting and walking naturally until the last step when he actually fell and that’s why I thought it was staged.”

Charlie Johnson, another audience member, added to ET, “What I did see was Sir Ian pretty much diving head first into the audience and actually landed, from what I saw, on one of the members of the audience, and within seconds, you could hear Sir Ian screaming.”

“He was shouting, ‘Help me! Help me!’ And the lights all went on and the curtain was drawn and within another five, ten seconds the ushers came over, members of the cast were looking to see if he was OK,” Johnson recalled. “As time went on, within a minute really, the whole of the auditorium was evacuated, so that Sir Ian could be treated with a bit of privacy.”

McKellen spoke out the following day, tweeting, “I want to thank everyone for their kind messages and support. Since the accident, during a performance of Player Kings last night, my injuries have been diagnosed and treated by a series of experts, specialists and nurses working for the National Health Service. To them, of course, I am hugely indebted. They have assured me that my recovery will be complete and speedy and I am looking forward to returning to work.”

Afterwards, the Player Kings team announced that David Semark would be taking on McKellen’s role of Sir John Falstaff for the final three scheduled performances in London. The production’s national tour will kick off in Bristol on July 3.

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