Audition tapes for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show surface online

Amazon’s ridiculously expensive Lord of the Rings show is set to begin production in New Zealand, where director Peter Jackson filmed his The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. The show will take place during the Second Age of Middle-earth, when Aragorn’s people lived on the island of Númenor, and at roughly 3,000 years old, Galadriel and Elrond were still whippersnappers by elf standards.

We’ve already learned of three actors cast in the show, mostly in unspecified roles, but other than that, casting news has been sparse. But we’re getting a little more from CBR, which reports on a few actors’ audition tapes floating around online. We can’t see most of them, unfortunately, but one featured an actor auditioning for the role of Tyra, a part that eventually went to Picnic at Hanging Rock star Markella Kavenagh.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – DECEMBER 05: Markella Kavenagh attends the 2018 AACTA Awards Presented by Foxtel at The Star on December 5, 2018 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brook Mitchell/Getty Images for AFI)

The fact that these videos are on the internet at all — or were, rather — indicates that the actors involved didn’t get the parts, but we might still be able to learn something from their auditions.

Another video shows Australian actor Nick Hardcastle auditioning for the part of “Aric,” who CBR describes as a rogue. We don’t have his actual audition video, but we do have him touting his hosting abilities:

Finally, singer/actor Chloe Bremner auditioned for the role of Eldien. In the clip she uploaded, she’s having a conversation with a character named Beldor, a role that Conor Fogarty auditioned for. It’s hard to tell if the two are elves or humans, but they definitely sound like warriors.

"Beldor: “I hoped I’d find you here. This vintage is said to heal many unseen sorrows of the heart.”Eldien: “Some sorrows are not meant to be healed.”Beldor: “You deserve the honors of this day, and the rest it promises.”Eldien: “I always believed I’d rest here, with them, yet instead I am to leave them. I, who loved and remembered them best.”Beldor: “You have brought them justice. The battle is over.”Eldien: “Not for me, it isn’t. If I could but have a longboat of warriors to sweep up through the western vale of the Núme…”Beldor: “You have nothing further to prove. Your victories against evil are immortalized.”Eldien: “You are blessed, Beldor. For you, evil is pictures in the glass of the cathedral windows. But I have fought the nameless dark. The blood of dragons is ever-well sated in my sword…and if I don’t finish the task, all will be in vain.”"

Again, we can’t embed the video itself, but we do have this much sillier video of Bremner doing cardio and playing romance:

“The blood of dragons is ever-well sated in my sword.” Yeesh, Eldien sounds intense. We’re not sure if this is actual dialogue from the show — sometimes scenes are written just for auditions — but it does have that lofty Tolkien feel.

In any case, we now know four characters involved in the new show: Eldien, Beldor, Aric and Tyra. It’s coming together, slowly but surely.

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