Jamie Dornan is done being Strider. The Northern Irish actor says he finished shooting The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum about three weeks before an interview published on November 10, closing his part of the first new live-action Middle-earth film since 2014.
In the same conversation he admitted that landing the role brought him to tears. “I cried. I actually cried,” Dornan said in the interview, calling the job both a dream and an honor. He described the shoot as incredible and said he hopes audiences welcome the new story into the franchise.
One caveat matters here. Dornan was speaking about his own work. Warner Bros. has not announced a wrap for the whole production, which planned to film from July through October 2026 in Wellington, New Zealand. His timing, which points to mid-October, lines up with that schedule.
The pressure of following Viggo Mortensen
Dornan plays a younger Aragorn, still going by Strider and living as a ranger in the wild. Viggo Mortensen owned that role across Peter Jackson’s trilogy, and Dornan has not pretended otherwise. “Aragorn will always be just Viggo,” he said in an earlier magazine interview, adding that he only hopes to carry some of the energy Mortensen brought to the part.
Director Andy Serkis has framed the character the same way. At this point in the story, Serkis has said, Strider “wouldn’t think of himself as Aragorn… He’s living in the wilderness. He’s a doomed lone ranger.”
What the film is
Serkis directs and returns as Gollum through motion capture, and the story is told from Gollum’s point of view. It sits between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies and overlaps with The Fellowship of the Ring, as Gandalf sends Strider out to track the creature before the Fellowship reaches Moria.
The cast mixes returning faces and new ones:
- Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey
- Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins
- Lee Pace as Thranduil, back from The Hobbit
- Kate Winslet as Marigol
- Leo Woodall as Halvard, a ranger who rides with Strider
- Anya Taylor-Joy as Seren, a Woodland Realm elf
Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou wrote the script, and Jackson, Walsh and Boyens produce. The production is using Wētā FX’s newer motion capture and digital de-aging for returning actors, mixed with miniatures and prosthetics.
From announcement to opening night
Laid end to end, the project has moved fast for a Middle-earth film. Warner Bros. announced new Lord of the Rings films in February 2023. Serkis was approached that October and named director in May 2024. Pre-production began in Wellington in September 2025, Dornan was confirmed at CinemaCon in April 2026, and cameras rolled in July.
If Dornan wrapped in mid-October, the film now has roughly 14 months of post-production before release. That is a long runway, but a film built on motion capture and digital effects tends to need it. The original Fellowship of the Ring opened in December 2001, so this return lands about 26 years later, in the same pre-Christmas slot.
Fans of the franchise can catch up on Badiyaa’s look at Liv Tyler, the trilogy’s Arwen, reuniting with Alicia Silverstone at the Hollywood Bowl, and the story of a 1937 Hobbit first edition found in a Bristol house clearance.
Warner Bros. has The Hunt for Gollum dated for December 17, 2027.
Further reading
Image: katmtan, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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