Film and TV production in New Zealand resumed several months ago, and one of the biggest shows currently shooting there is Amazon’s highly anticipated Lord of the Rings TV show. A host of new names has now been added to the cast of the series.
As reported by Variety, an additional 20 actors will appear in the series, hailing from a variety of different countries, including New Zealand, Australia, the US, Sri Lanka, and the UK. The full line-up is as follows:
- Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Arrow)
- Maxim Baldry (Last Christmas)
- Ian Blackburn (One Thousand Ropes)
- Kip Chapman (Top of the Lake)
- Anthony Crum (The Wilds)
- Maxine Cunliffe (Power Rangers Megaforce)
- Trystan Gravelle (Mr Selfridge)
- Lenny Henry (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
- Thusitha Jayasundera (Doctor Foster)
- Fabian McCallum (You, Me and the Apocalypse )
- Simon Merrells (Knightfall)
- Geoff Morrell (Deep Water)
- Peter Mullan (Ozark)
- Lloyd Owen (The Bodyguard)
- Augustus Prew (Prison Break)
- Peter Tait (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
- Alex Tarrant (Shortland Street)
- Leon Wadham (The Bad Seed)
- Benjamin Walker (Jessica Jones)
- Sara Zwangobani (Doctor Doctor)
There are no details yet about who any of the new cast members will be playing in the series. In a statement, showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay said, “The world that J.R.R. Tolkien created is epic, diverse, and filled with heart. These extraordinarily talented performers, hailing from across the globe, represent the culmination of a multi-year search to find brilliant and unique artists to bring that world to life anew. The international cast of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings series is more than just an ensemble. It is a family. We are thrilled to welcome each of them to Middle-earth.”
The initial cast list was announced in January, and included Roberto Aramayo (Nocturnal Animals), Morfydd Clark (Crawl), Owain Arthur (The Palace), Ismael Cruz Cordova (Ray Donovan), and Tom Budge (The Proposition). It’s been reported that Clark will play a younger version of Galadriel, the Elf played by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, while Aramayo will reportedly play a young hero named Beldor.
The show will be set thousands of years before the movies in a time known as the Second Age of Middle Earth. The setting was revealed in a series of tweets, which showed the island of Númenor on a map. In Tolkien’s mythology, Númenor was destroyed long before the start of the Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the Lord of the Rings. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director J.A. Bayona is helming the first two episodes, but no other directors or a premiere date have been announced yet.
