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Making the trilogy was a massive undertaking for Jackson, and a crucial part of that process was casting the perfect actor for each iconic role. But the actors who ended up playing each character in the trilogy weren’t always the first choice.

Daniel Day-Lewis As Aragorn

Peter Jackson’s top choice for the role of Aragorn was Daniel Day-Lewis. The famously picky actor turned down the part immediately, but since Jackson was desperate for him to play the role, he kept offering Day-Lewis more and more money until he eventually gave up.

Meanwhile, the studio offered the role to Russell Crowe, but there was a scheduling clash with A Beautiful Mind, and Crowe didn’t think The Lord of the Rings trilogy would be successful enough for the box office percentage he was being offered to be worth it.

Sean Connery As Gandalf

The studio executives paving the way for Peter Jackson’s gargantuan adaptation of The Lord of the Rings stipulated that Gandalf had to be played by a major movie star. So, the role was offered to Sean Connery, but he turned it down because he doesn’t like the fantasy genre. He’d previously turned down the role of Dumbledore for the same reason.

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Connery later said that Ian McKellen was the perfect choice to play Gandalf. Executives were so desperate to get Connery in the role that they offered to give him 15% of the trilogy’s total box office receipts, which would’ve earned the original Bond a whopping $400 million — more than any actor has ever earned for a role.

Liam Neeson As Boromir

Peter Jackson initially wanted Liam Neeson to play Boromir. However, the Schindler’s List star turned it down, as he didn’t want to get killed off in the first part of another trilogy after playing Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

As a huge fan of the books, Bruce Willis lobbied for the role of Boromir, but Jackson wasn’t interested in casting him.

James Corden As Sam Gamgee

Ever since he started hosting The Late Late Show, it seems impossible to get James Corden off our screens, as he shows up in several movies a year and, in true Jimmy Fallon fashion, everything he does inexplicably goes viral.

But just like everybody else, Corden was once a struggling actor. He’s said that his first ever audition was for the role of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of course, Sean Astin turned out to be the ideal casting choice.

Uma Thurman As Arwen

Prior to the casting of Liv Tyler, the role of Arwen was offered to Pulp Fiction star Uma Thurman, but she couldn’t make the shoot because she was pregnant at the time.

After she gave birth and the trilogy’s massive production was still ongoing, Thurman and her then-husband Ethan Hawke were approached about playing Faramir and Éowyn, but they turned down the parts to focus on raising the baby.

Nicolas Cage As Aragorn

After Peter Jackson’s choice of Daniel Day-Lewis and the studio’s choice of Russell Crowe both turned down the role of Aragorn, the director and the studio decided on Nicolas Cage for the role, but he didn’t want to make the time commitment required to shoot three whole movies.

Eventually, Stuart Townsend was cast, but a few days into shooting, Jackson deemed him to be too young for the character and fired him. Then, he was replaced by Viggo Mortensen.

Kate Winslet As Éowyn

Peter Jackson initially approached Kate Winslet for the role of Éowyn, but she turned down the offer. At the time, the officially stated reason was that there was an issue with scheduling.

However, there have been rumors that Winslet wanted to distance herself from blockbuster cinema after the unprecedented fame brought on by Titanic’s success.

Jake Gyllenhaal As Frodo Baggins

Before the casting team discovered Elijah Wood, Jake Gyllenhaal was near the top of the shortlist for the role of Frodo Baggins. Gyllenhaal was even asked to do a private audition for Peter Jackson himself.

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However, no one told the actor that the role would require him to do a British accent. When this was sprung upon him at the private audition and he attempted to ad-lib one, he screwed it up so badly that he was removed from the shortlist then and there.

Patrick Stewart As Gandalf

Peter Jackson met with Patrick Stewart to discuss the role of Gandalf, but the Star Trek actor was disappointed by the offer, as he wanted to play a different Lord of the Rings character (although he’s never stated which one).

Still, he was willing to read the script to see if he liked it. Unfortunately, he didn’t.

The Beatles As Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, And Gollum

Years before Peter Jackson would bring the Tolkien epic to the screen, the Beatles asked Stanley Kubrick if he’d direct them in a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. It would’ve starred John Lennon as Gollum, Paul McCartney as Frodo, George Harrison as Gandalf, and Ringo Starr as Sam.

There are a couple of rumors about why this version never happened; either Kubrick considered the book to be unfilmable or Tolkien rejected the proposed adaptation.

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