One of the most wonderful things about Hollywood is the stories of roles that weren’t, when actors open up about major roles they auditioned for but for one reason or another didn’t get to in the end. These ‘maybe’ moments often open up a whole world of what fans would have if and among those anecdotes an interesting intersection between Addams family TV series and Lord of the Rings. John Astin, who brought Gomez Adams back to life in the popular sitcom of the 1960s, recently opened up about AV . Club About his experience of another iconic character, Gandalf in Lord of the rings.
Astin explained that he had tested for Gandalf several times, but his interpretation wasn’t quite what Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh were looking for, and while he could have run another experiment, he realized he “didn’t want to spend much a year and a half on a horse”. The role went to Ian McKellen.
“I tested many times for Gandalf [in Lord of the Rings]’ said Astin. The last test I did, they gave me something from the second book, and I studied it and came up with what I thought was a good explanation for it, but it wasn’t what Peter thought and Fran wanted. I knew them well enough to say, “Hey, let me try to work on it and come back again,” they would accept. But I thought about it, Shawn [Astin, John’s son] I was trying to get into the movie too, and I…well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to spend almost a year and a half on a horse! “
Interestingly, Gandalf’s Astin Test isn’t the only “what if” tale Lord of the rings. Late last year, Jackson, whose docu-series The Beatles: Get Back debuted on Disney+, revealed that the Fab Four wanted to make their own adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy long before Jackson, but that author JRR Tolkien denied them their rights. .
“I expect because there are three, I send one book to each Beatle,” Jackson said. “I don’t think Ringo got one, but John, Paul and George got one Lord of the rings Book to read in India. And they got excited about it.”
Jackson went on to explain that the musicians’ excitement led them to want to turn the story into a movie and even decided to cast the cast – Paul McCartney would be Frodo, John Lennon would be Gollum, George Harrison would be Gandalf, and Ringo Starr would be Sam with the band’s wish. 2001: space flight Director Stanley Kubrick to lead the project – but Tolkien dropped them.
In the end, they couldn’t get the rights from Tolkien, said Jackson, “because he didn’t like the idea of a pop band doing her story.” “So, he canceled it. They tried to do it. There is no doubt about it. For a moment in time, they were seriously considering doing it at the beginning of 1968.”
What do you think? Can you imagine anyone else as unkilled as Gandalf? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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