Ian McKellen has missed the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival premiere of his latest movie, The Christophers, due to ill health. He explained in a video introduction to the film that his absence was on the orders of his medical advisers, Variety reports. "Better safe than sorry," McKellen said, as he addressed the audience at the Princess of Wales Theatre in his pre-recorded message. "If you enjoy it, will you tell your friends?" he asked. "That's partly what festivals are about, isn't it?" McKellen stars in the Steven Soderbergh-directed film alongside Michaela Coel, James Corden and Jessica Gunning. He plays the role of a once-famous painter, Julian Sklar, whose children hire a forger (Coel) to use her masterful imitation skills to complete some unfinished, long-ago abandoned canvases. Variety called the film "a crackling original drama" starring "two top-notch English actors of wildly different backgrounds and styles, Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel, at the top of their respective games". McKellen didn't go into further details about his health. The Lord of the Rings actor was previously hospitalised for three days in June 2024, after he fell off the stage during a performance of his play Player Kings at London's Noël Coward theatre.