The latest McKellen update - Radagast, Arwen, etc.

This was from a June 16 interview on the official McKellen site:
www.mckellen.com/epost/l000616.htm

THE GOOD NEWS

- Peter Jackson and Ian McKellen both make anonymous visits to fan sites and the latter occasionally even corrects the wilder rumors. Hey, come to the Trail!

- The pointed ears of the Elves are for artistic purposes of exemplifying their eternal youth.

- Ian's been trained to use both Gandalf's staff and Glamdring.

- They're pronouncing "Saruman" correctly! Now let's see if they get "Sauron" right...

- About Gollum: "Gollum's vital connection with the One Ring is explained in the first movie. Gandalf and he do not appear together onscreen, although this may change when we come to film the sequence in the Mines of Moria, where Gollum spies on the Fellowship."

- He's debunked the Arwen rumor before, but here's a really nice exact quote that I love:
Q: "There has been a very nasty rumor that the character of Arwen (Liv Tyler) will accompany the other characters on the quest. Is this true, somewhat true or not true at all? A "spy" had noticed filming at the Door of Moria about to begin. He/she had walked away by the time filming actually began, but did overhear a woman's voice screaming. This was assumed to be Arwen (Liv Tyler)."
A: "The "spy" is incompetent if he/she ever existed. There were no women at the doors of Moria and no screaming.

And to put an end to it - Arwen does NOT accompany the Fellowship in the movie."

THE BAD NEWS

- Radagast will not appear.

- The songs will "not feature as regularly in the film as they do in the novels."

OTHER STUFF

- The movie will not feature any events from The Hobbit but he says, "Our screenplay refers to Bilbo's adventures much as Tolkien does in the trilogy." However, I'm not sure this includes trolls.

- To McKellen's knowledge, nobody's been confirmed to score the films yet.

- This one is very unclear - McKellen didn't actually answer the question:
Q: "How is the production going to portray the invisible wearers of the ring. Is the wearer going to be completely visible to the audience and just 'ignored' by the others on screen, or are they going to be misted etc. to create the effect of being invisible?"
A: "As far as I can judge, once the One Ring is worn, invisibility is complete. Even the ring itself will disappear as well as its wearer."