Amazon's Lord Of The Rings series is casting for "hairy people," among other traits, as posted in fascinating casting calls. Sounds like the upcoming show is looking for some Gimlis -- along with some "character faces," very tall and very short people, and even folks with missing teeth. Hey, how about this guy?
OK, I already knew that, Gollum, stop rubbing it in.
The Lord of the Rings prequel series on Prime will be filming in New Zealand -- just like Peter Jackson's movies -- so these casting calls are for people in New Zealand. You probably can't get cast yourself, but the notices put out by the Amazon team do give us some hints on what we'll see on screen.
The casting notices cover a lot of types, but there's definitely an emphasis on hair. Talento talent agency of Auckland, New Zealand recently shared this look at what the Amazon series was asking for:
The upcoming Amazon Original series based on THE LORD OF THE RINGS.We are looking for a mix of people of all ages, genders/other from multi-racial backgrounds with interesting character faces and physicality’s.These are for Background and Featured Performer roles:EXAMPLES OF PEOPLE WE ARE LOOKING FOR...Character Faces (Earthy, Weathered, Dark Skin Tonnes, Missing teeth, Wonderful Noses etc etc)Bearded Hairy Biker Men/Woman/OtherLean Tall Androgynous LooksBeautiful, Fair Fine boned FacesTALL People - 6” ++TALLER People 6”8 ++Small People – 4”6 to 4”11Musicians
This past weekend there was a similar open casting call in Aukland, and New Zealand talent agency BGT shared the details:
Casting for....1. short people under 4 foot 122. Tall people over 6 foot 53. Character faces, wrinkles and lots of them please :-)4. Androgynous men and women5. Hairy hairy people of all ages and ethnicities6. Tall, Long Lithe dancers7. Circus performers who can juggle, stilt walk!8. Stocky mean-looking bikers9. Eurasian people of all ages.10. Hispanic - Latino, Mexican, South American - HOLA11. Red heads all ages, shapes and sizes.12.HAIR HAIR HAIR - if you natural red hair, white hair, or lots and lots of freckles.
I'm intrigued about so much of that -- beyond the HAIR HAIR HAIR emphasis. Like the bikers. What bikers lived in the Second Age of Tolkien's work?! I'm guessing the fine-boned, lean, tall, and androgynous people will be elves, but we'll see. It does look like the series will feature a lot of interesting different looks -- from lots of wrinkles to "wonderful noses" and of course all that hair. As the Talento casting call noted, they were looking for talent for background (extras) and also featured performer roles.
Amazon's Lord of the Rings series was announced with a five season order, including a possible spinoff. So this thing is ambitious to an extreme. It's expected to end up the most expensive series of all time potentially costing a billion dollars.
The Lord of the Rings series has to strictly follow Tolkien's canon and it can only cover the Second Age, or reference things that happened beforehand, but that rules out the storylines we saw in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies, since they were set in the Third Age. But the Second Age has a huuuuge timespan, and there's plenty of room for the creative team to stretch their legs.
One of the Tolkien experts working on Amazon's Lord of the Rings series said he heard Season 1 would have 20 episodes, but that has yet to be confirmed. Not much has been confirmed, since they are still getting their acts together, with filming expected to start in 2020 for a Season 1 premiere on Amazon in 2021. So far, two stars have been reported for the Lord of the Rings, with at least one said to be in a leading role. He's probably not playing Sauron, though, right? We'll still need one.
Amazon's Lord Of The Rings Series Should Cast A Female Gandalf, Two Towers Actress Says
Here's more of what we know so far about Amazon's Lord of the Rings series.
