The actor was asked to marry Silicon Valley tycoon Sean Parker and his now wife, singer Alexandra Lenas, at a ceremony in Big Sur, California, in June 2013. He had overseen the wedding of his friend Patrick Stewart and Sunny Ozell that same year.

Guests at the couple's wedding, reported to include Emma Watson and Sting, did dress up as characters from Lord Of The Rings. For McKellen, however, that was the dealbreaker. "I was offered $1.5 million to marry a very famous couple in California, which I would perhaps have considered doing but I had to go dressed as Gandalf," he told The Mail On Sunday. "So I said, 'I am sorry, Gandalf doesn't do weddings'."

He added he didn't know who had made the offer, but said: "He was a very rich man, that's all I know."

Sean Parker was Facebook's first president and the co-founder of Napster.