No Liv Tyler in The Hobbit; Elijah Wood Looking Forward to His Return
Posted 06.27.11 by Ryan
Writer-director-producer Peter Jackson has brought plenty of cast members from his The Lord of the Rings trilogy back for his two-part prequel,
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again. Ian McKellen's return as Gandalf, along with Andy Serkis as Gollum and Hugo Weaving as Elrond, were expected due to the character's inclusion in J.R.R. Tolkien's original text, but Jackson has also found room for Elijah Wood to return as Frodo Baggins, as well as Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Ian Holm as an elder Bilbo, and Sir Christopher Lee as Saruman.
Not included in the prequel is Liv Tyler, who told PopEater that she's "definitely not" returning as the elf Arwen in The Hobbit.
I'm definitely not in The Hobbit and I actually don't know anything about it. I realized I need to call my friends in New Zealand to ask them what's going on so I have some facts when I get asked questions about it.
Tyler called the Lord of the Rings
production a "magical experience," and said she wouldn't have been against returning to New Zealand, where The Hobbit is shooting. "I would love to go back there and bring my son to New Zealand and see all those amazing people," said Tyler, who went even further with the UK's Express, remarking, "I wish that I could be in it."
Wood's invitation is already lined up, and the actor will fly out to New Zealand in October. Considering Frodo's absence from Tolkein's original novel, it was thought that Frodo would return to appear with Bilbo as narrative bookends and discuss the fictional books their characters have written, something Wood confirmed while talking to Movieline.
It's a tiny little piece. Frodo's obviously not alive at the time of The Hobbit — it's about 60 years before Frodo's birth. So they've written a bit of a piece with Ian Holm as well, reprising his role as the older Bilbo, that I'll do. I can't really talk too much about it; it might be a bookend sort of deal. The story of The Hobbit he wrote down as There and Back Again: A Hobbit’s Tale, and you see that in The Lord of the Rings. And Frodo then carries on finishing the book from his side, from his perspective of his journey. And so I think it'll have something to do with the writing of that book and potentially getting into the story of The Hobbit that he ultimately wrote.
Wood said he's "very much" looking forward to returning, and discussed his feelings about Jackson's decision to direct the movies after original director Guillermo del Toro left the project.
You know, there’s a production diary that Peter did leading up to the filming of The Hobbit, and at the end of the production diary it shows the first day: They did a Maori ceremony, which we had done on Rings as well. They’re on this big empty soundstage, and the crew’s there, and these incredible traditional Maori people, and they did the haka and there was a Maori speech. Then Peter comes up and gives a speech; they showed a bit of his speech. It was really interesting, because we’d talked about the fact that he’d never really wanted to do The Hobbit. And I remember asking him when we were making [Lord of the Rings] if he’d ever do it, and he said he wasn’t interested.
And now he said, "You know, we were to the point where Guillermo was going to do it, and then he didn’t do it, and now I’m doing it. And here I am standing with all of you; we’ve all been down these roads before." And what made the impression on me — what I found so emotional to watch — was him saying, "Regardless of what we’re making together, so much of it is about the personal relationships that we’re about forge together, and the family we’re going to create." That speaks so much to what our experience was on Rings. It was really beautiful to see that that’s the same atmosphere for which they’re creating this new one. Isn't it awesome?
Jackson co-wrote The Hobbit movies with del Toro, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. The movies co-star Martin Freeman as the younger Bilbo, Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman, Richard Armitage as dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield, Sylvester McCoy as the wizard Radagast, Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the dragon Smaug, Mikael Persbrandt as the shape-shifter Beorn, Evangeline Lilly as the Woodland Elf Tauriel, and Barry Humphries as the Goblin King.
Next Showing: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14, 2012, and
The Hobbit: There and Back Again follows on December 13, 2013