Adrien Brody turned down an offer from Peter Jackson to play a Hobbit in the director’s acclaimed The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The Academy Award-winning actor later regretted his decision when he saw the first installment of the epic franchise, The Fellowship of the Ring, in the theater.
The performer made the admission about passing on the role in the screen adaptation of author JRR Tolkien’s iconic 1937 novel of the same name during a recent career retrospective he gave to GQ. During the interview, Brody also discussed the movie he did eventually make with Jackson – the 2005 remake of King Kong.
“I, somehow, didn’t grasp it,” the Golden Globe-nominated actor revealed while discussing that he was asked to star in The Fellowship of the Ring, which will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its theatrical release in December. “I don’t know what part I would have been right for, but it was some Hobbit-like character.
[But] I was looking for something else.”
Brody added, “I remember going to see Lord of the Rings in the theater with an ex-girlfriend. And she turned to me and said, ‘You passed on Lord of the Rings?!'” he recalled. “I remember feeling so stupid. But [if I had,] I don’t think I would have gotten the role of [first mate] Jack [Driscoll] in Peter’s [King Kong]. I don’t think that would have translated.
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The BAFTA Award-nominated performer added that King Kong was a wonderful experience for him and he learned a lot about making a big-budget, epic movie during the epic fantasy film’s production. “We had a premiere in Times Square and they shut down all of Times Square,” he said. “The mayor was there and introduced us to the city.
It was a big deal. My face was immortalized on a McDonald’s soda cup. When does that happen for anyone?”
The Oscar-winning The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is considered to be one of the most successful book-to-film adaptations of all time. Jackson continued his screen adaptation of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth saga with the Academy Award-nominated The Hobbit movie trilogy. The films, which were released between 2012-2014, serve as the prequels to The Lord of the Rings.
A television series adaptation of The Lord of the Rings novel is also in development at Amazon Prime Video. The show won’t be a remake of Jackson’s movies; instead, the TV series adaptation will be set during Middle-Earth’s Second Age, which precedes the events of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies.
After receiving critically acclaim and his Oscar for his role of Władysław Szpilman in the 2002 biographical war drama, The Pianist, Brody’s later notable work includes his collaborations with Academy Award-nominated writer-director Wes Anderson on several projects, including The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Darjeeling Limited.
More recently, Brody has appeared on such television shows as Succession and Peaky Blinders. He’s also set to star in Netflix’s upcoming Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde, which will be released next year.