Back in May, Warner Bros. announced plans for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, a new movie set near the beginning of the original trilogy starring and directed by Andy Serkis.
Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh, who wrote the previous movies, are set to pen the screenplay, along with Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou (The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim). Filmmaker Peter Jackson, meanwhile, is producing the project.
We're expecting at least a few familiar faces to join Serkis in the prequel, but will Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn be among them?
GQ put it to the actor that he's previously said he'd reprise the role if the story was right and his character did something of note and asked directly if he'd be open to starring in The Hunt for Gollum.
"Sure. I don't know exactly what the story is, I haven't heard. Maybe I'll hear about it eventually," Mortensen said. "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," he concluded.
The actor would need to be de-aged to play Aragorn again, though we know the technology exists to do that. In a separate conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Mortensen shared what it would take to bring him back to Middle-earth.
"I haven’t read a script. So I don’t know," he started. "The script is the most important thing to me unless I’m broke, I have no money and I’m lucky to get any job. So it depends."
He's not the only actor from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to say he'd be open to returning because Sir Ian McKellen recently shared similar sentiments when asked about playing Gandalf again.
Explaining that he'd heard "stirrings in Tolkien land," the legendary actor joked, "I haven't shaved in months...But there is no script, there is no offer, there is no plan." As for whether he'd be up for returning, he laughed, "If I'm alive."
This project is expected to be the first of many set in Middle-earth, with the idea being to revisit familiar faces in new ways. That could be with the same actors or different ones; if we do get a new Aragorn or Gandalf, those actors will have big shoes to fill.
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will be released in theaters in 2026.