Reception and Legacy
Gandalf was chosen by Mary Hoffman as one of her favourite fictional characters, saying he was "the best white wizard in fiction".
Ian McKellen has received widespread acclaim for his performance as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, particularly in The Fellowship of the Ring, for which he received both a Screen Actors Guild Award and Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor, as well as an Academy Award nomination under the same category (making him the only individual cast member of the films to be nominated for an Oscar). In addition, Empire named him the 28th greatest movie character of all time.
Gandalf's name is occasionally used allusively to indicate a wise mentor or wizard-like advisor. For example, British politician Oliver Letwin has been called "the Gandalf of the process" of policy formation for the Conservative Party under David Cameron.
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Famous quotes containing the words reception and/or legacy:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
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