Jamie Dornan opens up about the pressure of replacing Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn

You might have heard a bit of a ruckus in Middle-earth lately—something about The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. And yes, the big news is that Jamie Dornan (yep, him from The Fall and Fifty Shades) has been cast as Aragorn. Cue the collective holding of breath from Tolkien fans everywhere, as he steps into the shadow of Viggo Mortensen, who, let's be honest, is seared into most people’s brains as the one true king.

Taking Up the Sword

Dornan chatted about all this with L'Officiel, and to his credit, he’s not pretending it's an ordinary job. He’s well aware of the Viggo-shaped boots he has to fill and isn’t trying to spark a “my Aragorn is better than yours” playground spat. In his own words to the mag:

There’s pressure when you’re trying to follow in those footsteps. I’ve been asked to play a super-iconic role, and I’ll do my best. But for me, Aragorn will always be just Viggo. His performance is one of my all-time favourites, and I feel honoured to try to recapture at least some of the energy he originally brought to the character. There’s no part of me that’s trying to outdo him.

So, Dornan’s fully on board with the fact that he’s playing a living legend (well, fictional legend, but you get the point), and he’s not treating Mortensen’s run as a baton to snatch away and sprint in a new direction. If anything, he sounds almost apologetic about the very idea of stepping onto the same battlefield.

What This Means for the Film

The Hunt for Gollum is pitched as a prequel set well before the trilogy everyone knows. It’s meant to dig into the story of Aragorn tracking down Gollum (which, for the lore-obsessed, is hinted at in Tolkien’s appendices but was only glossed over in Peter Jackson’s films). So at least Dornan’s not tasked with impersonating Viggo scene-for-scene—he gets some room to find his own version. Still, the shadow of the original is long, and both he and the filmmakers clearly know it.