This is a great scoop picked up by none other than Tehanu herself. She tells me that she went to dinner with some friends and other people she didn’t know, the topic turned to Lord Of The Rings and after weeding out the useless people at the table, (Hey! Those are buddies of mine! 🙂 -Tehanu) Tehanu found a lady with tons of great news:

I hurled myself into that conversation, and got talking to a woman, she knows tons of actors and film people, some in Wellington. We raved on and ignored everyone else for hours. SO:

1.The rumour about Sean Connery being involved is still going strong among actor circles here, she at least believes there is a strong possibility that it’s true. Gandalf?

2.VOICES: She’s heard that the Hobbits will have something like a Yorkshire country dialect; the Dwarves will be more cockney, the Men will be American (OUCH!) and the elves slightly Irish (NOT comic-leprechaun Irish, just a faint lilt.) The wizards will be very BBC English. I reckon this is worth putting in as a speculation on the website.

3.Now I’m pretty sure Fiordland is a location, will send pics soon. My friend said “White Island.” It’s as active as hell, steaming fumaroles everywhere, and it’s far enough offshore that it would be difficult for sightseers to get to. Great Mordor location.

4.We decided that we both wanted to drive down to Matamata and Hinuera to look for Hobbiton. We will do this later this month. Aerial views. That seems like a completely wild suggestion, I don’t know here well enough to know if she really means it. But we will at least drive down!!!

5.She knows somebody who was auditioning for Gimli.