The Irish Film and Television Academy has announced that due to illness, Michael Gambon will be unable to attend tonight's Film and Drama ceremony in Dublin where he was due to be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
In a statement it said the actor was taken into hospital earlier this week and has now been discharged.
However, following medical advice, he was deemed not well enough to travel to Dublin to collect his award tonight.
According to IFTA Michael "had been determined to come to Dublin to receive his IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award. Naturally, he is devastated not to be able to travel to be part of the Awards Ceremony."
The Irish Film & Television Academy confirmed to Michael that he will receive his Lifetime Achievement Award at a special event to be held in his honour later this year and in the meantime it has wished him a speedy recovery.
Younger movie fans will know Gambon chiefly as Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter films but the Dublin-born actor has played some of the stage and screen’s most iconic roles since first starting out in the early 60s.
Still working, he recently took to the stage at The Gate Theatre in Dublin for a production of Beckett's Eh Joe.
