[Lalwendë]

Nogrod, the thing is, an actor just has to have charisma or the part doesn't come across well on screen and it's incredibly boring to watch, or painful if you're really unlucky. An actor with no charisma can ruin a film and destroy a story.

If you're saying that Hobbits should have been played by actors with no screen presence then nobody would have liked them as characters as even the simplest of audiences can easily detect poor acting.

The problem with some of the actors chosen for LotR was that they were chosen for looks not acting ability and this doesn't always work depending on the role. Orlando Bloom got away with it in style as he could ham it up as Legolas (and continues to ham it up in his best roles) whereas Elijah Wood failed as the subtlety of Frodo couldn't be carried off on simply staring round-eyed at things and letting a bit of spittle run out of his mouth. Likewise Liv Tyler is more wooden than a forest of Ents but got away with it by whispering whimsically in subtitles.

If you look at a Ken Loach film, he often uses total unknowns and amateurs who have never acted before, as he believs they bring across the gritty reality he's hoping to portray much more effectively - but none of them lack charisma or screen presence or we'd just switch off.