Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, recently addressed whether he will return to the role in the upcoming The Hunt for Gollum film.
During an interview on Today while promoting his film The Cut, Bloom was asked, “Are you returning to Middle-earth?”
He answered, “I have not heard a peep, actually. So I don’t know who-. I know it’s focusing on Gollum so anything’s possible. I went back for The Hobbit. It’s such an amazing part. I’m so grateful to be part of those movies, but I haven’t heard anything.”
He added, “I’d hate to see anyone else play Legolas. What are they going to do? Put somebody else in as Legolas?”
Andy Serkis, who will reprise his role as Gollum and is directing the film, previously hinted that a number of characters might return for the film. He told Deadline in May 2024, “I don’t want to commit anything right now. I mean, because it’s so raw and so raw and wriggling, and we are just literally having very early state script discussions and ideas of exactly where and how we’re going to drop anchor with the character and his journey and how he is or comes into contact with other characters, and the characters that we know and don’t know. So still, I would hate to say anything that’s going to commit us at this point, because it’s literally all up for grabs.”
In author J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf regaled Frodo about the hunt for Gollum revealing that he tracked him into Mirkwood and that he worked with the Wood-elves to do so, “The Wood-elves tracked him first, an easy task for them, for his trail was still fresh then. Through Mirkwood and back again it led them, though they never caught him. … But at the western edge of Mirkwood the trail turned away. It wandered off southwards and passed out of the Wood-elves’ ken, and was lost.”
Gandalf then informed Frodo that after they lost Gollum, he let the matter be. However, he picked it back up again with the help of Aragorn, “nd my search would have been in vain, but for the help that I had from a friend: Aragorn, the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age of the world. Together we sought for Gollum down the whole length of Wilderland, without hope, and without success. But at last, when I had given up the chase and turned to other paths, Gollum was found. My friend returned out of great perils bringing the miserable creature with him.”
After Aragorn captured Gollum, he left him in the custody of the Elves of Mirkwood. It is there that Gollum is able to escape with the help of Sauron’s Orcs. Legolas is dispatched to Rivendell to inform Elrdon and Gandalf of the news. Legolas informed the Council of Elrond, “The tidings that I was sent to bring must now be told. They are not good, but only here have I learned how evil they may seem to this company. Smeagol, who is now called Gollum, has escaped.”
He went on to explain, “Not through lack of watchfulness, but perhaps through over-kindliness. And we fear that the prisoner had aid from others, and that more is known of our doings than we could wish. We guarded this creature day and night, at Gandalf’s bidding, much though we wearied of the task. But Gandalf bade us hope still for his cure, and we had not the heart to keep him ever in dungeons under the earth, where he would fall back into his old black thoughts.”
He then went into detail about his escape, “‘In the days of fair weather we led Gollum through the woods; and there was a high tree standing alone far from the others which he liked to climb. Often we let him mount up to the highest branches, until he felt the free wind; but we set a guard at the tree’s foot. One day he refused to come down, and the guards had no mind to climb after him: he had learned the trick of clinging to boughs with his feet as well as with his hands; so they sat by the tree far into the night. ‘It was that very night of summer, yet moonless and starless, that Orcs came on us at unawares. We drove them off after some time; they were many and fierce, but they came from over the mountains, and were unused to the woods. When the battle was over, we found that Gollum was gone, and his guards were slain or taken. It then seemed plain to us that the attack had been made for his rescue, and that he knew of it beforehand. How that was contrived we cannot guess; but Gollum is cunning, and the spies of the Enemy are many. The dark things that were driven out in the year of the Dragon’s fall have returned in greater numbers, and Mirkwood is again an evil place, save where our realm is maintained.”
Legolas then shared that he and his compatriots tracked Gollum and the Orcs, but abandoned the trail as they drew close to Dol Guldur.
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I sure hope he comes back. I really like Orlando Bloom! He was great in Carnival Row.