Leo Woodall Excited About His New Lord of the Rings Character
Leo Woodall is bound for Middle-earth with a brand-new role in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, a casting Warner Bros. rolled out at CinemaCon alongside Jamie Dornan and Kate Winslet. The British breakout framed it as a lifelong dream during a New York premiere.
If you thought you knew every trivia tidbit about upcoming Tolkien projects, brace yourself — Warner Bros. is officially cooking up another Lord of the Rings film, and there are a few twists in the offing. Most notably, they’ve cast Leo Woodall in a role straight out of the screenwriters’ notebook rather than anything Tolkien himself penned.
The Fresh Faces and Familiar Wands
Woodall (currently seen in cinemas in Daniel Roher's Tuner) takes on a new character called Halvard. And before anyone starts frantically leafing through their battered Silmarillion: no, Halvard is not a deep cut from the appendices. He’s an original invention for the film, one of the Dúnedain rangers — the same mysterious lot Strider comes from. Halvard is set to join Strider on the titular 'Hunt for Gollum'
The studio unveiled Woodall’s casting at CinemaCon back in April, with Jamie Dornan also getting the nod for Strider (that’s Aragorn’s early days, not a role-reversal). Kate Winslet is in too, though as who exactly — the PR machine is keeping shtum on that point for now.
Not content with only new faces, there are a few returning legends as well:
- Ian McKellen donning the wizard’s hat again as Gandalf
- Elijah Wood returning as Frodo Baggins
- Andy Serkis back in the Gollum skin — plus, he’s pulling double duty as director
Woodall: Living the Dream
At the New York premiere for Tuner, Woodall couldn’t hide his enthusiasm — not that I blame him. He called it 'a boyhood dream,' saying the franchise was 'everything' to him as a kid. In his own words:
'It means everything. It’s a boyhood dream for me. I watched it as a kid, and I’ve seen it a million times, so to be part of it now is incredible.'
Don’t expect him to hand out plot details — even at the premiere, Woodall said he 'can’t tease anything.' Classic NDA fear, or perhaps the studio has snipers on the rooftops at these events.
Where This Fits and When It’s Coming
For timeline obsessives: The Hunt for Gollum lands somewhere after The Hobbit but before the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. Filming is set to kick off in New Zealand — the not-so-secret stand-in for Middle-earth — but don’t pack your bags just yet. They’re not starting until 2026, with a release pencilled in for December 2027. That’s a three-year wait from announcement to actual release, and plenty of time for speculation or, if you’re me, controlled eye-rolling over new canon.
The Hunt for Gollum got its official green light in May 2024. For anyone wanting to see Woodall do his thing much sooner, Tuner is out in cinemas right now — no need to wait for a nine-hour cut or extended DVD edition.