Although there are still plenty of Harry Potter fans who prefer Richard Harris' depiction of the Hogwarts headmaster, the role was recast ahead of the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, after the two-time Oscar winner passed away in 2002 from Hodgkin's disease. Harris had expected that he might not be able to carry the character, which he took to please his granddaughter, to its cinematic end. He told the press, "I'll keep doing it as long as I enjoy it, my health holds out and they still want me, but the chances of all three of those factors remaining constant are pretty slim."
The part would eventually go to Michael Gambon, who starred in all six of the films to follow, but he wasn't the first major British star who was invited to don the heaping wig and decadent cloaks. Years after the fact, Sir Ian McKellen revealed that he, too, had a shot at becoming Albus Dumbledore but turned it down. He later explained on BBC's HARDtalk, "When they called me up and said would I be interested in being in the Harry Potter films, they didn't say in what part. I worked out what they were thinking, and I couldn't take over the part from an actor who I'd known didn't approve of me." Harris was reportedly unimpressed with McKellen during his life, implying that he was a "passionless" actor. Even so, though, McKellen added that he sometimes saw himself in the posters of Gambon as Dumbledore.
