Madonna on Britney: ‘Let’s go save her’

New York – Madonna wants the media to leave Britney Spears alone.

“They need to step off,” she told the “Yo on E!” satellite radio show. “For real … Let’s go save her.”

Madonna, 49, said her daughter, Lourdes, 11, feels the same way.

“She knows Britney, (but) she doesn’t really watch TV or read gossip stuff,” the pop star said in the interview. “I think she sort of gets the drift of what’s going on, and I think she feels very protective of Britney.”

Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie have a son, Rocco, 7, and are raising a Malawian boy they want to adopt.

“He’s the life of the party,” she said of David, who she brought home from Africa in 2006. “He loves music, he’s an amazing dancer. … He’s a character.”

She said caring for David is no different from her raising her biological children: “I thought it was gonna be, but it feels the same to tell you the truth.”

McKellen wants to play Gandalf in ‘Hobbit’ films

Wellington, New Zealand – Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf the Wizard in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, is hoping to reprise the role in another tale from Middle Earth.

A fan asked McKellen on the actor’s official Web site if he would play the role of Gandalf in “The Hobbit,” which is being produced by Peter Jackson, director of the “Rings” trilogy.

“Yes, I will, if Peter Jackson and I have anything to do with it, he being the producer and me being, on the whole, a very lucky actor,” McKellen, 68, said in a reply dated Wednesday.

Jackson reached a deal with New Line Cinema late last year to make two films of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” a planned prequel to the blockbuster “Rings” trilogy. Jackson will serve as executive producer for the “Hobbit” movies.