Andy Serkis has defended the apparent lack of diversity in the cast of the forthcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, saying the film will not pursue “politically correct” casting simply to tick boxes.
The film, produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Serkis, is set between The Hobbit trilogy and The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. It follows Gandalf and Aragorn as they race to find Gollum before Sauron’s forces can capture him and extract what he knows about the One Ring.
“Tolkien himself was influenced a lot by Norse mythology, there’s a lot of that feeling,” Serkis told the BBC. “The Shire feels very, very much like a very, a very white, you know…”
“They’re not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of The Shire, but they know they don’t want people coming in.”
Acknowledging criticism of the franchise’s historic lack of diversity, Serkis said: “Yes, there have been criticisms.”
“This particular film is somewhat acknowledging that. But we don’t think we will be doing a politically correct just-casting-for-the-sake-of-casting-and-ticking-boxes version of the film. So, it’s only where relevant basically.”
Serkis, 62, is reprising his role as Gollum alongside returning Lord of the Rings stars Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins, and Lee Pace as Thranduil.
In April, it was revealed that Jamie Dornan was taking on the role of Strider in the new Lord of the Rings film, the alias Aragorn used when he was first introduced in The Fellowship of the Ring. The White Lotus star Leo Woodall and Kate Winslet play Dúnedain Halvard and matriarch of the Stoors Marigol, respectively.
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The following month, Warner Bros confirmed Anya Taylor Joy’s casting as Seren, a Sindar elf from the Woodland Realm who is “a trusted and lethal agent of King Thranduil”.
The film’s screenplay is written by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, writers of the original trilogy, alongside Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou.
Serkis described the story to the BBC as a “deep dive into the psychology and history of Gollum before he became Gollum, but also with a very burning question from Gandalf about what the potential origin of this ring that Bilbo Baggins has is”.
“The hunt takes place in two different dimensions really and that’s about as far as I can say at the moment,” he added.
In February 2022, a profile of Amazon’s television prequel The Rings of Power revealed that the series would feature the franchise’s first Black elf, Ismael Cruz Córdova’s Arondir, and its first Black dwarf, Sophia Nomvete’s Princess Disa.
The reveal was met with criticism from several fans online, who argued that it departed from Tolkien’s descriptions of Middle-earth and accused the production of introducing modern identity politics into the author’s work.
The series’ executive producer Lindsey Weber defended the casting, telling Vanity Fair that “it felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like.”
She added: “Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together.”
Multiple cast members faced racist abuse online, which led to the ensemble cast to issue a joint statement condemning “the relentless racism, threats, harassment and abuse”.
Stars of Jackson’s original trilogy, Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan also publicly backed the cast by sharing images bearing the message “You are all welcome here” in Elvish.
The Hunt for Gollum is scheduled for release on 17 December 2027.
