Adrien Brody has spoken about passing on a role in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings trilogy. The first installment of Jackson’s adaptation for JRR Tolkien’s seminal work is nearly two decades old, and the film trilogy is now considered to be one of the most successful book-to-film adaptations of all time. Jackson continued his work on bringing Middle-Earth to the big screen, as the success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy prompted a follow-up adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Brody, who won an Academy Award for his performance as Władysław Szpilman in the 2002’s critically acclaimed The Pianist, worked with Jackson several years later. The actor starred in Jackson’s King Kong remake in 2005, playing first mate Jack Driscoll. Brody’s filmography also includes multiple collaborations with director Wes Anderson, acting in The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Darjeeling Limited, and more recently, Brody has appeared on TV in Succession and Peaky Blinders. Brody will also appear in Netflix’s upcoming Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde, in 2022.
Now, in an interview with GQ, Brody has revealed that he passed on a role in Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings trilogy. While the decision initially left the actor feeling “incredibly stupid” after seeing the films, he doesn't think he would have been cast in Jackson’s King Kong if he had taken the role. Read Brody’s full comments below:
“They were casting Lord of the Rings, and I somehow didn't grasp it. I don't remember what part I would have been right for, but it was some hobbit-like character, surely. I was looking for something else. And I remember going to see Lord of the Rings in the theatre with an ex-girlfriend and she turned to me and said “you passed on Lord of the Rings?” I remember feeling so stupid!”
Brody missed out on a part in a film trilogy which was met with incredible commercial and critical success, however he has still gone on to achieve an enviable acting career. Amazon Prime Video is now adding to the legacy of The Lord of the Rings by creating its own version of Tolkien's work, but it won't be a remake of Jackson’s films. Instead the adaptation will be set during Middle-Earth’s Second Age, preceding the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies. The adaptation will be a TV series, and casting news has come thick and fast, most recently with the announcement that Hobbits in the series won’t be exclusively white. The series has already been commissioned for a second season, and if there are still Hobbit roles to fill, the series’ producers could do worse than checking to see if Brody is available.
From the actor’s comments, it doesn't sound as though he regrets the decision, though appearing in the trilogy certainly would have changed his career’s trajectory one way or another. It’s interesting to imagine how the films might have been changed by having a different cast, and with Brody suggesting that he would have played one of the four main Hobbits, they certainly would have been different. It’s hard to envisage any of Frodo, Sam, Merry, or Pippin being portrayed by different actors, but Brody would have surely brought something positive to any of the roles in The Lord of the Rings.
Source: GQ