Jamie Dornan, like most of us, hopes Hunt For Gollum works out

As Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy illustrated quite thoroughly, chasing the lightning-in-a-bottle success of The Lord Of The Rings film trilogy, at least critically, is a fool’s errand. Yet Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema have found that the enduring magic of those films, not to mention the billions of dollars and heaps of Oscars they pulled in during their three-year run, is difficult to leave well enough alone. And so we have Andy Serkis’ The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum, the latest in the LOTR franchise, which has recruited every actor from the original series still capable of performing and is headed for a December 2027 release. Yet unlike WB, New Line, Serkis, and Jackson, one person has been able to set aside the franchise: Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in the films, and who passed on WB’s offer to reprise the role back in April. (The film has reportedly had to de-age some of its returning stars, including Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, and Lee Pace, and has presumably let the visages of its new cast members, Kate Winslet, Leo Woodall, and Anya Taylor-Joy, stand as is.) 

Bravely taking on the thankless task of filling the Viggo-shaped hole in Serkis’ production is actor Jamie Dornan, who recently shared his emotional reaction to learning he would play the future king of Gondor. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight to promote his new Apple TV series 12 12 12 with Avengers: Doomsday actor Anthony Mackie, Dornan expressed the sense of duty he feels to the role Mortensen once made his own, and the responsibility he’s taken on to ensure fans embrace this latest cinematic trip to Middle-earth. “I cried. I actually cried,” he said as Mackie looked on. “It’s like a dream. It’s an absolute dream and an honor to be entering that world in any capacity, let alone playing a character of such significance and such admiration, and that we all love and love what Viggo did with that role in those three films.”