Xoanon here,

Well this was a rather unsuspecting surprize. After placing a call with Elijah Wood’s agent concerning ‘media matters’, I heard some rather cool news!

‘He’s down under right now, working on LOTR’

‘Right this very second?’ I asked

‘Yes, he’ll be there for the next 18 months’

Well we all knew filming is set to start next month, but to actually hear news that the cast and crew are gathering in NZ sends shivers down my spine!

As far as we can tell, Billy Boyd is in NZ right now, along with John Rhys-Davies, and now Elijah Wood!!

Great things are afoot!!

Xoanon here,

Ringbearer.org is reporting that Brian Sergent has been cast as Ted Sandyman. While these bit castings are going on all the time, I have yet to hear about this one. If any NZers want to contact me with some more news about this, please do so. More news to come πŸ™‚

Xoanon here,

Ethan Hawke

AICN is reporting that Ethan Hawke has stated himself that he will play Faramir, while this can be seen as the ultimate confirmation I stress to you that I spoke with his people just yesterday and it was still 50/50.

Still, read on:

You may have already heard this, but Ethan Hawke disclosed at the Toronto Film Festival that he will make an appearance in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. According to Mr. Thurman — who was sporting grotty fu manchu maxillofacial hair and a grotesque thrift-bought cowboy shirt — he will play Faramir, younger brother of Boromir, who by your reckoning will played by Sean Bean. Hawke went on to state his lifelong fondness for Tolkien’s work, his reverence for the material, etc. He also said that Tom Bombadil (sp?) will NOT appear in the first film, which you probably already know. Hope this is of use to you.

‘‘Doo-Ron Upchuck’’

Xoanon here,

As more and more NZers send me these great scoops (keep it up guys!). More little interesting tidbits come flying my way. Here what I recieved this morning.

I signed up with a talent agency a few weeks ago, and was delighted to find out that they were putting forward people to LotR…

…while talking to one of the guys there found out about the filming. That was all he could tell me as it was all he had been told by Weta.

Also, a friend of a lady I work with was selected as an Orc. She is under 5’2″ and my co-worker told me she had to wear these big platform shoe type things.

Thanks to ‘A’ for the scoop!

Well it looks like I’m going to have to debunk my own rumor here. “urax” sent me a detailed report of what went down in Sweeden.

Apparently a reporter caught Ashley Judd for an interview, during the interview the reporter noticed her copy of LOTR and asked her if she was involved. She said ‘no, but I did see some details and I’m very interested’.

So there you go