Hobbit cast!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Or Hama. Or Gamling.

[Dave_LF]

Or Aragorn. Or Faramir.

[Lalaith]

Ahh, you beat me to Faramir.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I get what you are saying, but my need to be pedantic forces me to say that, particularly with Gamling, it truly was a completely different character that just uses the same name, not just the same character with some different personality traits and actions. After all, in the book Gamling only was not located in Edoras and was not in any way a counselor to the king, the name Gamling wasn't even really his name, it is a description of him, since Gamling is Anglo-Saxon for "old man". In the films, Gamling wasn't even old.

[Primula Baggins]

Probably old news (it's a 2002 clip), but Ian McKellen can bring the drama, no matter what:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhEL0ioJ ... e=youtu.be

(It's question 4; they never get to 5.)

[Elentári]

There's a couple of interviews with Luke Evans circulating...

Firstly on MTV there's a video (only available to US viewers, ) and also this write-up on Moviefone. Both say much the same - Luke says he will be shooting until the middle of 2012, he's been in training with a longbow and that it is the longest acting job of his life so far.

Could be that we'll be seeing more of Bard on film than is in the book!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Assuming he's not joking around, Benedict Cumberbatch comfirms that he will in fact be doing motion capture for Smaug (and not just his face):

Naturally, Cumberbatch already has his next job lined up. Through motion capture, he'll be playing the villainous dragon Smaug in Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit."

"I'll be donning … well, probably not Andy Serkis' sweaty wet suit … I'm sure they dry clean it," Cumberbatch says. "Playing a reptile is something I don't believe has been done before. I've already started working out, crawling around on my belly whenever I can without alarming people too much."

Cumberbatch: Brit finds no shortage of worthy roles

[Primula Baggins]

I don't know. There's probably a difference between what an animator knows about movement and character, and what an actor knows. With the stakes as high as they are here, and given that you've already hired an excellent actor to do the voice, why not get his input on how Smaug might move as well as speak? Think what Andy Serkis's body motion added to Gollum. Granted, Gollum is humanoid—but sometimes it's the humanlike gestures in the unhuman that can give us a visceral shock of recognition—or horror.

[axordil]

sometimes it's the humanlike gestures in the unhuman that can give us a visceral shock of recognition

Very much so when it comes to the face or equivalent thereof.

[Elentári]

More casting information has been unearthed: it seems that Robin Kerr has apparently been cast as an elf...

...called Elros ??!?!?!??

Surely they are not going to feature Elrond's twin in The Hobbit, so rather bizarrely it appears to be another case of Jackson and co having no qualms about using such a high profile character name for an OC.

Oh, and the actor who played Erland in FotR, and who was rumoured to have been cast as "old bellringer", is now seemingly being named as "net mender" so almost certainly an inhabitant of Esgaroth.

[Alatar]

I don't really see this as a big deal. None of us think Morwen in LotR was meant to be the same character as Túrin's mother. If he needs a name for a character, better he use a Tolkien name than an invented one.

[Elentári]

Maybe so, but it rankles with me!

Sure, to the majority of movie-goers it won't mean anything, but considering the effort the team put in for the book fans, there are plenty of other less well-known Tolkien-created elven names they could have used instead.

[Alatar]

Actually, if he's going to be some sort of Hero Elf, I'd prefer if they used Glorfindel.

[Elentári]

Definitely!

[Dave_LF]

But what if he's a Mirkwood elf? (in which case Elros is wrong too, I suppose).

[Elentári]

and that's why it would be better to go with a more obscure name...IMHO

[axordil]

So far as I know, the Morwen character in TTT...was never called by name. Unless you hung out on fan sites, she was "Rohan mom number 1" to all intents and purposes. As much as anything naming the characters like this is to make it easier to identify them in scripts, to identify their costumes on racks, et al. Purely logistical.

[Elentári]

Actually, wasn't it the Decipher trading cards that we have to thank for giving many of the background characters names?

[Lalaith]

(I updated the cast thread.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I doubt very much that the name "Elros" will be used in the films.