Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings show, which probably won’t be called that by the time it’s finished has cast its first familiar character. So far we have had Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle , Ema Horvath, and Maxim Baldry confirmed for the show, but all as seemingly new characters not familiar from Tolkien’s works.

Now we have learned through Variety that Morfydd Clark has been cast as Galadriel. The star has recently been appearing in an unsettling role within His Dark Materials on BBC/HBO, though this was a fairly minor part in that show and you can catch the image of her above. Then again, there is no real reason that Galadriel will be a big role within The Lord of the Rings show, because the period in which this show will cover, from the Second Age of Middle-earth, is not one where Galadriel is mentioned by Tolkien in his description of events from that period. Even though she absolutely was alive and active, as Galadriel is one of the oldest Elves that still live in Middle-earth.

Of course, Galadriel was a fairly prominent character in the movies and there played by Cate Blanchett, and there was some wonder from fans whether Amazon would try to tempt back some of these stars to make cameo appearances in their show. After all, as Elves the characters do not really age and would have looked roughly the same thousands of years prior. However, the real actors that could appear, such as Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving have actually aged and probably if anything should look a little younger in this show given it is set so far back.

This probably allows the showrunners more freedom with their story by recasting and it may even avoid any rights complications with New Line who financed the movies these characters previously appeared in. Does this mean we could see a recast of Elrond happening, previously played by Weaving? This is possible as Elrond was active during this period, though again not really mentioned much by Tolkien for this period. We do know that both Elrond and Galadriel rejected the offer of help from Annatar of making Rings of Power, and Annatar though they did not know it then, was really Sauron. But will they go right back to the forging of the Rings in this story, that we do not know?

Filming for Season 1 begins next year in New Zealand and they are already looking for extra’s, so if you are very tall or unusual looking and don’t mind going to New Zealand, then you could get involved.

What do you think of Clark’s casting as Galadriel, are you excited for this The Lord of the Rings TV show, or is it just me? Leave your thoughts below in the usual place.

SOURCE: Variety