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					Originally Posted by Morthoron  Oh my, so many of the actors were often in great movies (or at least memorable enough that I knew them when they appeared on screen) prior to the LotR trilogy. My personal favorites:
 Christopher Lee - Every Hammer horror film ever made, The Three Musketeers, The Man With the Golden Gun (James Bond flick)
 
 Ian Holm - The Madness of King George, Brazil, Time Bandits
 
 Ian McKellen - Richard III (the best Richard III film of all!), Gods and Monsters, Cold Comfort Farm
 
 Hugo Weaving - The Matrix, The Interview
 
 Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth, The Talented Mr. Ripley
 
 Sean Bean - Ronin, GoldenEye, Patriot Games
 
 Bernard Hill - Mountains of the Moon, Titanic
 
 Brad Dourif - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dune, Mississippi Burning
 
 John Rhys-Davies - Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
 
 Viggo Mortensen - GI Jane, Crimson Tide
 
 Elijah Wood - The Good Son (and a couple crappy cable movies like The Faculty and North
 
 Orlando Bloom - Black Hawk Down (although that was the same year as FotR)
 
 Sean Astin - Several silly teen movies like Rudy, The Goonies and Encino Man
 
 Liv Tyler - In several forgettable movies prior to LotR, but well known beauty-wise, particularly from Aerosmith videos
 
 The rest of the cast, I will admit I didn't know previously (mostly Aussie actors, and Brits who did bit parts before the trilogy), but the above list is pretty extensive.
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