Microphones in Middle-earth...the BBC Lord of the Rings

[Mithalwen]

May I ask whether you knew who was playing the major roles before you finished the script? And whethet that influenced you at all. I have to say I think most of the casting was at least equal if not superior to the films. Highly superior in regard to Frodo, Sam, Gollum and Gandalf.

The film seemed to base the character of Sam purely on Gollum's stupid, fat hobbit jibe. Bill Nighy got him just right to my mind but he surely was quite young then and certainly a lot less well known than now - I know he had done some good TV work before he achieved Hollywood fame in Love Actually et alia but I knew him because of the Radio production of LOTR - or at least wondered if William Nighy and Bill were one and the same.

I also think that David Collings was a great choice as Legolas. His voice is very distinctive and happily still heard regularly on R4, but it conveys that elvish otherness without being at all camp.