Cate Blanchett’s role as Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit could feel to many like legend at this point. Her enchanting, beautiful and sometimes terrifying performance as the elf queen is still awesome to watch.
It wasn’t exactly a secret that both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit lacked female actors. This especially wasn’t lost on Cate Blanchett, who decided to go to director Peter Jackson and pitch him another role she could take on. Here’s what Blanchett said she pitched while appearing on WTF with Marc Maron:
For me it was super quick. There’s not too many chicks in the Tolkien universe. I loved it so much and I did say to Peter and Fran, they were doing a banquet scene with a whole lot of dwarves. I always wanted to play the bearded lady, so I asked them, ‘Could I be your hairy wife woman when you pan across the banquet table of dwarves?’ Of course I couldn’t because the timing shifted. But it takes them forever. For me, Galadriel it was just three weeks.
This is pretty hilarious. It would be amazing if Cate Blanchett had gotten the role as a “hairy wife woman,” as she called it. Alas, the stars did not align and we’ll never know what that would have been like. But hey, we’ll always have Galadriel.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a massive undertaking by Peter Jackson, and it was a huge risk that eventually paid off critically, at the box office and even at the Academy Awards. The Return of the King had a historical night at the Oscars, winning in 11 categories, including Best Picture.
Now that The Lord of the Rings movies have passed into legend, Amazon has taken up the banner and announced it's developing a prequel TV series. The company wanted Peter Jackson to help out, but outside of potentially looking at some scripts to give notes, he won't be involved with the project.
Not everyone is on board with Amazon doing this series, of course. The Lord of the Rings actors Orlando Bloom and John Rhys-Davies have some thoughts on Amazon’s latest attempt. Orlando Bloom was amazed that they were even doing it, recalling how he never thought anyone would try. Meanwhile John Rhys-Davies didn’t understand why anyone would need to do it in the first place.
After The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies ended, Cate Blanchett has taken on a number of roles over the years, including the villainous Hela in the Marvel box office hit, Thor: Ragnarok. She’s currently filming Nightmare Alley, directed by Guillermo del Toro.
It’s doubtful Cate Blanchett will return a third time to Middle Earth for Amazon’s prequel TV series. But you never know, perhaps they’ll find a way to give her the bearded dwarf role she wanted so long ago.
