Ian McKellen befriends honey bees for Sherlock role in ‘Mr. Holmes’

TORONTO – Ian McKellen admits he had more than a few qualms about working with the tiny co-stars of his latest film, “Mr. Holmes” — a colony of honey bees.

The veteran actor says he initially balked at sharing the screen with the buzzing insects when he learned his character was an avid apiarist.

“It was the one thing I was tentative about and said — that I am not going to work with bees,” says McKellen during a phone interview from London earlier this year, recalling a conversation with director Bill Condon.

“I thought there would be a way around it but Bill said, ‘No. You have got to open that hive, pick up that frame, have a look at those bees and we’ll film it.’ So we did and I wasn’t hurt, nor were any of the bees.”

The bees are a little-known element of the legendary Sherlock Holmes story, which picks up here after the 93-year-old detective has retired from sleuthing to relax at his remote seaside cottage and care for his honey bees.

The year is 1947 and Holmes finds himself grappling with creaking bones, a failing memory and lingering unease over the unsolved case that forced him into retirement.

His only company is a short-tempered housekeeper, played by Laura Linney, and her young son, Roger, played by Milo Parker. The boy can’t hide his fascination with the famous detective and is soon drawn into the aging man’s quest to solve a final mystery.

The 76-year-old McKellen needed a fair bit of makeup to appear 93, but says faking those imagined aches and pains was easy. It was tougher to portray Holmes at age 60 in flashbacks, when his body was more spry and responsive. But the most challenging age? McKellen’s own.

“It’s difficult often playing your own age because you’re not depending on any disguise — you are what you are and that can be much trickier,” says the “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” star.

“Playing old is relatively easy.”

“Mr. Holmes” is based on the 2005 novel “A Slight Trick of the Mind” by Mitch Cullin, and reimagines Sherlock as a real person whose cases were turned into bestselling novels by his friend and partner Dr. John Watson.

In doing so, it plays with those iconic images of Sherlock as the man with the deerstalker cap and calabash pipe, revealing those accessories to be inventions for the books’ illustrations and resulting films.

The new take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s enduring character is just the latest to tackle the legend. Guy Ritchie directed two Sherlock films starring Robert Downey Jr. and two contemporary-set TV series starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller.

McKellen says he was intrigued by this unique look at an aging Sherlock, as well as the opportunity to reunite with Condon, who directed him in 1998’s “Gods and Monsters.”

Little did McKellen know he’d eventually find himself handling buzzing bees with only a hat for protection.

“I’m a huge fan of bees now, I know quite a lot about them, I’ve seen them at close quarters,” boasts McKellen, who no longer fears them.

“You just have to keep out of their way, they’re not interested. They don’t want to go around stinging you, it’s only if they feel threatened that they’ll do that.”

“Mr. Holmes” opens Friday in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver before hitting Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Halifax and Victoria on July 24.