Sean Astin is pretty beloved as Samwise Gamgee in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, but did you know someone else could have played the part? Specifically one Late Late Show host?
Talking to Happy Sad Confused podcast (via JustJared), James Corden revealed that he had auditioned to play Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings and was even called back a second time. He explains:
“Every single person in London auditioned for Lord Of The Rings. Everybody. I auditioned for Samwise. I was doing the accent and everything… Two of my other friends went in [to audition] and then we all got called back the next day. Then we got called back the next day, and then none of us got called back after that.”
With young men being cast in the role of the hobbits, Corden would have been around his early 20s at the time of the audition, and he would have been only three years older than Elijah Wood when he was cast in the role.
Ultimately, the movie went with Sean Astin, who really knocked the role out of the park. I guess it also helped that the audience kind of grew up with Astin from his role in Goonies, and watching him in Lord of the Rings, there is a kind of innocence to the character that reaches audiences in a meta level.
Who knows, maybe Corden could land a part in Amazon’s LOTR: The Rings of Power, but I’m thinking he’s too famous to play some unknown harfoot.
For an LOTR fix, you can check out Rings of Power now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
