I'm looking at the list of cast members on the IMDB page and I don't recognise a single one apart from Lenny Henry.
Are they casting any big stars and just not got round to confirming them yet? It would be strange for Amazon to chuck a billion dollars at this and the most well known member in the cast is a black British comedian, who probably isn't even that well known outside of the UK.
Lenny Henry? LOL... not someone who jumps to mind quickly when mentally casting Tolkien, but certainly an interesting choice.
I suspect they are keeping the casting budget down by hiring lesser-known actors, as a show of this scale will incur massive costs in most other departments.
I just checked out the cast and Peter Mullan is also in it, a familiar face to most if not a big name, and a good actor too. I only recognise a couple of the other names.
Yes actually I do know Peter Mullan, more for his face than his name, which is probably why I missed him. That's the biggest name so far but maybe a C list actor at best (in terms of recognition).
shareThere are lots of cast members but ZERO character names of who they're portraying. The lack of specification on this makes me worry that the producers are making a fanfiction account of the Second Age based on scant background information. When Peter Jackson's LotR was announced they immediately tied the cast members to specific story characters. I remember when Stuart Townsend was announced for Aragorn and I hated it. LOL
shareThere's no real way to do any adaptation of the Second Age other than basically fanfiction; it's the period in Middle-earth history Tolkien wrote the least about.
shareI'm not sad about that. I don't find (most of) the current crop of younger "big name" actors to be very interesting, so I would be happy if we could find a few new people who are really magnetizing to watch. Also, it's good for the industry to keep giving opportunities to new actors, because eventually there has to be turnover in the ranks.
shareCynthia Addai-Robinson has a pretty big name at 22 characters!
shareFine by me, if they want to cast the best actor for the role instead of the biggest name, they'll get better acting. And less money spent on the cast means more to spend on making it all look spectacular, right?
Also, I've heard a rumor that they're going to be going through the history of Numenor, which would mean changing out the entire cast every time they do a time or era jump. No sense getting attached to cast members who could possibly be changed out every year.