In olden times, in days of yore…
When digital technology was slow & expensive. A novelty…
When Peter Jackson was known for Heavenly Creatures…
When a Lord of the Rings film was less likely than a Star Wars film…
Back in the days of Elgin…
A conversation began and it went something like this:
Craig and Bill need help casting “Lord of the Rings” The Movie. We assume that, in the near future, digital technology will progress to the point where we will be able to cast any actor from any time period, regardless of whether or not s/he is still among the living. Likewise, due to advances in makeup and digital technology, any actor may be cast in any role, regardless of height, etc. In other words, you don’t necessarily have to cast short actors as Hobbits, Dwarfs, Gollum, et. al. No limits have been set, no rules imposed. Only one thing is certain…
Character | Actor | |
Hobbits | Bilbo Baggins | Ernest Borgnine |
Frodo Baggins | Michael Caine | |
Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck | Joel Hodgson | |
Hamfast “The Gaffer” Gamgee | Burgess Merideth | |
Samwise “Sam” Gamgee | Colm Meaney | |
Farmer Maggot | Harry Morgan | |
Lobelia Sackville-Baggins | Rhea Perlman | |
Lotho Sackville-Baggins | Ron Howard | |
Peregrin “Pippin” Took | Mike Nelson | |
Wizards | Gandalf | Charlton Heston |
Radagast | Malcolm MacDowell | |
Saruman | Donald Sutherland | |
Elves | Celeborn | young Ricardo Montalban |
Elrond | Morgan Freeman | |
Galadriel | young Audrey Hepburn | |
Glorfindel | Ben Kingsley | |
Legolas | Errol Flynn | |
Dwarfs | Gimli | Arnold Schwarzenegger |
Humans | Aragorn “Strider” | “Raiders” Harrison Ford |
Boromir | Gary Busey | |
Barliman Butterbur | Peter Boyle | |
Denethor | Patrick Stewart | |
Eomer | Liam Neeson | |
Eowyn | Emma Thompson | |
Faramir | Kenneth Branagh | |
Bill Ferny | Dan Hedaya | |
Harry Goatleaf | Tim Robbins | |
Grima “Wormtongue” | Dwight Schultz | |
Theoden | Sean Connery | |
Orcs | Gorbag | Samual L Jackson |
Grishnakh | Johnathan Frakes | |
Shagrat | Michael Dorn | |
Snaga | Dennis Franz | |
Other (Good) | Tom Bombadil | Burl Ives |
Fangorn “Treebeard”, Voice of |
James Earl Jones | |
Goldberry | 1960s Teri Garr | |
Other (Bad) | Barrow Wight | Boris Karloff |
Gollum | young Peter Lorre | |
Lord of the Nazgul | Gary Oldman | |
Mouth of Sauron | John Malkovitch | |
Shelob | Kathy Bates |
- Are these choices still the right choices?
- Were they ever the right choices?
- Do we need to start adding decades to more actors?
(1990s Kenneth Branagh & Emma Thompson?) - What other characters need to be cast?
- Do I need to correctly spell names now that we have IMDB?
- Do we need images of these actors in these roles to decide?
- What do older and wiser heads believe?
Let us know in the comments, but remember the one constant:
For what it’s worth, there’s some cast from the movie that I feel really hit the mark. Sean Bean as Boromir made that a character I actually cared about. Ian Holm as Bilbo felt pretty on target as well.
Tolkien super-fan Christopher Lee as Gandalf this time around, perhaps?
I’m also intrigued with the idea of Brendan Coyle (Mr. Bates from Downton Abbey) as Samwise stemming from a discussion with Trogdor about his finally being able to better able to explain the British master/servant relationship of Sam and Frodo now that Downton is in the public consciousness.
Colm Meaney still needs to (officially) be a hobbit, though.