“Harry Potter” Star Michael Gambon Retires from Stage Due to Memory Loss
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Brad Barket/Getty Images(LONDON) — British actor Michael Gambon has been a star of stage and screen for decades, but inspired a whole new generation of movie fans when he starred as Dumbledore in six of the eight Harry Potter movies.
Now, Gambon, 74, is retiring from stage theater due to memory loss.
In 2009, he had two visits to the hospital after he suffered panic attacks following episodes in which he forgot his lines. Now, the beloved actor spoke with London’s Sunday Times about the decision to stop stage acting.
Gambon admits for a while he tried wearing an earpiece and having someone read lines to him that he would then recite.
“There was a girl in the wings and I had to plug in my ear so she could read me the lines,” he said. “After about an hour I thought, ‘This can’t work. You can’t be in theater, free on the stage, shouting and screaming and running around with someone reading to you.'”
It didn’t work. Now he’s come to grips with his choice.
“It’s a horrible thing to admit, but I can’t do it. It breaks my heart,” he said. “It’s when the script’s in front of me and it takes me forever to learn it. It’s frightening.”
He explained why this is such a huge loss for him.
“Theater’s the only place for me to be. When the curtain goes up, on you come. No one’s stopping you. No one can shout ‘cut’. There’s a thousand people sitting there and they can see you moving, all over. They watch every part — how you walk, how you stand. The way you sit. The way you look at people,” he said.
But it won’t be the last you see the famed thespian, as he will not be giving up acting altogether.
“You’ve got to go to work, haven’t you?” he says of film and TV.
Gambon will star in BBC One’s The Casual Vacancy, based on another novel by J.K. Rowling.
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