Viggo Mortensen says if he will return to The Lord of the Rings for 'The Hunt for Gollum'

Viggo Mortensen, the actor who played Aragorn in Peter Jackson's beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy has been asked if he will reprise his role of the Numenorian king in the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum movie.

2

For those that missed the news, last year Warner Discovery announced it was creating three new Lord of the Rings movies. There was radio silence from the studio for quite some time until its recent earnings call this year where it announced the title and release year for next film. The Hunt for Gollum will star and be directed by Andy Serkis, and produced by Peter Jackson. More good news is that it will be written by Jackson's original trilogy writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.

Canonically, The Hunt for Gollum takes place between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies. Please read no further if you don't want any spoilers, as I'm about to explain the basic premise for the movie based on the events that take place in the books.

The Hunt for Gollum story occurs during a time when Gandalf is looking for any evidence of the One Ring after many years of it falling out of history, with the majority of his suspicions falling on Bilbo's mysterious magic ring that he found the goblin tunnels during the events of the Hobbit. Gandalf's suspicions are later proven correct. However, many things happen before Gandalf is proven right as shown briefly in The Fellowship of the Ring.

After losing the One Ring to Bilbo in the goblin tunnels in The Hobbit, Gollum sets out to find his thief. He travels to Dale and Lake Town eventually learning of the exploits of the famous hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, and a place called The Shire. Now with a name and a location, Gollum backtracks but is eventually drawn to the darkness calling out from Mordor. Gollum is then captured by the Enemy, telling Sauron all he knows about the Ring under torture, revealing the name "Baggins" and "Shire" (briefly shown in The Fellowship of the Ring).

Gollum is then set loose, which is later learned by Gandalf. The Grey Pilgrim then sets out himself to find Gollum, and also tasked Aragorn with the creature's discovery and later interrogation. Here is where Viggo Mortenson comes in. Since a young Aragorn does eventually find Gollum we can assume Aragorn will be in the movie at some stage, but since Mortenson is much older than he was when he filmed the original trilogy, and Aragorn is meant to be younger in the new movie, it would be difficult, near impossible to cast Mortenson in his iconic role.

"Sure. I don't know exactly what the story is, I haven't heard. Maybe I'll hear about it eventually. I like playing that character. I learned a lot playing the character. I enjoyed it a lot. I would only do it if I was right for it in terms of, you know, the age I am now and so forth. I would only do it if I was right for the character. It would be silly to do it otherwise."