In an interview today with MTV, Peter Jackson revealed that three Lord of the Rings actors will be returning to reprise their roles in The Hobbit:
“Gandalf, being a 2,000-year-old wizard, is still around and plays a major role in ‘The Hobbit,’ and we’re having Ian McKellen reprise,” explained the filmmaker, who is executive-producing the flick and writing the screenplay. “There’s a couple of other characters: Elrond, who was played by Hugo Weaving [in the original films], and there’s a possibility of Galadriel, who was played by Cate Blanchett.”
The search for Bilbo Baggins has begun. Casting on “The Hobbit” begins this week, with wide auditions expected for each part except Gandalf, which is being reserved for Ian McKellen, who played the wizard in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
“We’re auditioning for every role,” Jackson said in an interview, adding he is a big believer in casting a wide net to better match actors with the roles. “What we’ve done over the years is discover a lot of interesting actors, like Orlando Bloom (in ‘Rings’), Kate Winslet (in ‘Heavenly Creatures’), Saoirse Ronan (in ‘The Lovely Bones’). So if you start looking and auditioning seriously, it’s amazing what incredible talent you’ll find out there.”
Jackson denied that he had settled on any actors besides McKellen and pooh-poohed Web chatter that he has approached James McAvoy for a key role. “Apart from Ian McKellen, who we obviously want to return as Gandalf, we are not really offering any roles to anybody until we’ve done a casting sweep,” Jackson said. Notable that Andy Serkis and Hugo Weaving were not mentioned with McKellen as actors reserved for their previous roles. Was that on purpose or a simple oversight? We are sure TORN posters will have some comments on this! Read the entire article at The Hollywood Reporter.
Epleterte writes: Again an awesome Hobbit casting rumour from Aintitcool’s “AICN: Downunder” column, From Latauro’s post: AICN-Downunder: your one-stop shop for HOBBIT casting news. There’s nothing like breaking the (admittedly-unconfirmed) news about Brian Cox getting all dwarf-like to bring your old sources out of the woodwork. Another trusted anonymous name from way back — who, I might add, had heard the Brian Cox rumours before I published them — has another name to add to the pile: Tom Waits. As much as I’d like to say he’s a lock, I’m told he’s simply someone the production is talking about — but they seem to be talking about him pretty seriously. But how inspired is this? So very left field, yet oddly perfect. And here I was thinking Cox was the coolest guy they could hand an axe to.
US, December 5, 2009 – IGN Movies chatted exclusively tonight with Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson at a cocktail reception for his new film The Lovely Bones, during which time he spoke about The Hobbit.
We specifically asked Jackson if he could rule out any of the oft-rumored candidates to play Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings prequel, specifically Daniel Radcliffe, Martin Freeman, James McAvoy and David Tennant. He said some of them were not under consideration, but refused to say who had been ruled out because he didn’t want anyone to figure anything out via process of elimination. More..
Guillermo Del ToroIt is confirmed, casting is under way on the Hobbit and that is news enough. There have been rumors but now we have confirmation from a source that told us other details about casting as well. In addition to all of that, we have this juicy bombshell: They are casting one female role! Continue reading “Exclusive: ‘Hobbit’ casting 1 female role”
Stephen Fry’s name has long been bandied about by fans as a possible and worthy choice to play a Dwarf in the upcoming two-movie film project “The Hobbit.” Today, spy “Dave” sent in a bit from the Twitterverse that leads us to think Jackson’s team and the project’s director Guillermo del Toro may be thinking the say way. Continue reading “A another candidate for a dwarf?”
In an interview today with MTV, Peter Jackson revealed that three Lord of the Rings actors will be returning to reprise their roles in The Hobbit:
The search for Bilbo Baggins has begun. Casting on “The Hobbit” begins this week, with wide auditions expected for each part except Gandalf, which is being reserved for Ian McKellen, who played the wizard in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
Epleterte writes: Again an awesome Hobbit casting rumour from 
Stephen Fry’s name has long been bandied about by fans as a possible and worthy choice to play a Dwarf in the upcoming two-movie film project “The Hobbit.” Today, spy “Dave” sent in a bit from the Twitterverse that leads us to think Jackson’s team and the project’s director Guillermo del Toro may be thinking the say way.