Quickly, since we don’t want to spend too much time on this as we have no way to verify it’s true (and the reportage itself seems rather flaky, honestly). A report is going around that former “Dr. Who” star Sylvester McCoy is up for, or already has the part of Bilbo Baggins in “The Hobbit” which may be directed by Peter Jackson if MGM can figure out their shit soon and pay him very handsomely.
The report is spotted at Bleeding Cool, who are honestly tireless when it comes to looking under every nook and cranny on the web, but tend to pick up on any and every rumor out there.
However, we’re not completely discounting it either if only for a few things it may prove in the future. While most people will cry, “he’s not a star! there’s no way they’ll go with him!” that’s missing the point: almost all of the “Lord Of The Rings” cast were not stars when the film was first cast and some like Orlando Bloom were essentially unknowns at the time. Viggo Mortensen was still just a character actor (an excellent one at that) and regardless, even now he’s hardly what you’d call a huge box-office draw. Even before him, Stuart Townsend was supposed to play Aragorn, so the producers and filmmakers have obviously had enough confidence in the past to go with non-marquee names.
Obviously the stakes have changed now and there are expectations, but our hunch is Jackson, if he does indeed direct, will go with the right actors and not simply marquee-value names. So even if McCoy isn’t in the running, it wouldn’t surprise us at all if a relative unknown like him did get the part (or parts within the film in general); it’s about the brand, not the actors.
McCoy certainly doesn’t look that far off from Ian Holm (who played Bilbo in the ‘LOTR’ trilogy) and “Lord Of The Rings” lore has it that Sylvester McCoy actually was the runner-up for the role in the first place, so perhaps it all makes sense? Recently it was reported that Jackson was quietly meeting with actors so hopefully we’ll know soon. Just please don’t lose your shit if names aren’t cast in this thing (sort of like how people did with Andrew Garfield in “Spider-Man” which is really shortsighted, Tobey Maguire wasn’t a star when he was cast either). [via ScreenRush]
