July 19, 2003

Re: The Original Aragorn
Speedcorn

Joshua, Stuart Townsend was originally cast as Aragorn. He even showed up in New Zealand for shooting but he was not used because they could not make him look old enough. After they realized this, the two actors up for the part were Viggo Mortensen and Daniel Day-Lewis. Supposedly Daniel Day-Lewis was offered the part but refused however that may be just rumor. Daniel Day-Lewis was still staying away from Hollywood at the time though so it might make sense. It was about 6 months later that he agreed to do Gangs of New York. As a side note Timothy Spall was rumored to have been cast as Gimli before JRD. I don't know how much truth there is to that though. A patchwork archive of casting rumors can be found at:

http://movies.go.com/movies/L/lordoftheringsthefellowshipoftheringthe_2000/index.html

Hope this answers the question.

Speedcorn