The Hobbit: Unexpected Journey star Ian McKellen has been dealing with a prostate cancer diagnosis for “six or seven years.” In a new interview with the Daily Mirror, the 73-year-old said he has not undergone any treatment because the cancer has remained contained in his prostate.
"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 said. "Many, many die from it, but it's one of the cancers that is totally treatable so I have 'wasteful watching.' I am examined regularly and it's just contained, it's not spreading. I've not had any treatment.”
"You are told what the situation is: you can have an operation but there is no point [in] me having an operation because there is no need for it," McKellen explains. "What they are concerned about is the cancer going to spread outside the prostate? If it doesn't you are fine. How do you know if it is spreading? You keep being tested."
"I have heard of people dying from prostate cancer, and they are the unlucky ones, the people who didn't know they had got it and it went on the rampage. But at my age if it is diagnosed, it’s not life threatening," adds McKellen.
McKellen reprises his role as Gandalf for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. He played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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