Sir Ian McKellen told an audience of about 2,000 film fans in Rome that, while filming a sequence for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, he shouted "Mar‑a‑Lago!" as Magneto tore through New Jersey.
McKellen, 87, made the revelation Sunday at the Cinema in Piazza festival as advance footage from the Russo brothers’ film was shown. "They got me at one point to destroy New Jersey," he said, and recalled the directors’ instruction plainly: "told me to look more furious: 'Make it look as if you hate what you’re destroying.' So I stood there and I shouted 'Mar‑a‑Lago!'"
The anecdote landed as the film’s heavy hitters were name-checked: Avengers: Doomsday, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, stars Robert Downey Jr., Pedro Pascal, Chris Hemsworth, Paul Rudd and Florence Pugh, and is due in theaters on Dec. 18.
That McKellen — who first played Magneto in 2000’s X‑Men — chose a real and politically loaded target on set turned a routine on-set story into something hotter. He had already said he used President Donald Trump as an unlikely inspiration while filming the new Avengers movie, offering the audience a glimpse of how he brought personal ire and comedic timing to a blockbuster set.
The detail matters because it reframes a moment meant to read as fury into a live-wire joke tied to a public figure. McKellen has not been coy about his feelings in the past; he previously described Trump as "an absolute bewilderment" and has criticized his rhetoric. The Rome remarks merged those opinions with a small, staged act of destruction that will now be watched for signs of that impulse.
There is a built-in contradiction: the Russos told McKellen to look as if he hated what he was destroying — an instruction aimed at channeling credible rage — and McKellen answered with a comic, named shout. That tension — between directorial intent and the actor’s impulse to puncture it with a pointed quip — raises a simple question for viewers: was the shout performance, a real expression of loathing, or an actor’s in-joke that survived multiple rounds of editing?
McKellen’s anecdote also highlights why his return as Magneto carries note beyond casting: it places a veteran stage actor’s personal sensibilities inside a franchise that reaches billions. Avengers: Doomsday is positioned as the sequel to the studio’s earlier giant, and audiences will now be looking not only for spectacle but for how much of an actor’s off-camera asides remain on-screen.
The immediate consequence is purely cinematic: audiences will learn the answer when Avengers: Doomsday opens on Dec. 18. If McKellen’s on-set shout remains audible or visibly shapes the scene, it will be a rare instance of an actor’s political jab surviving the transition from set to summer-screen scale; if it was trimmed, the anecdote will stand as one of those actorly confessions that entertain in person but disappear in the cut.
Meanwhile McKellen has other franchises on his plate — he is also set to reprise Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Andy Serkis — but for now the Rome crowd and fans worldwide have a straightforward calendar: go see what the editors kept on Dec. 18 and judge how an 87‑year‑old took direction, made a joke, and possibly threaded it into a multimillion‑dollar spectacle.
