Amazon’s Lord of the Rings adds more actors and more roles revealed

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Just like many other projects, Amazon’s hugely ambitious Lord of the Rings prequel series was forced to halt production in March 2020 due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. Filming of the first two episodes was reportedly nearing completion in New Zealand, after which the show was scheduled to go on a 4-5 month hiatus, allowing the writing team to map out the already confirmed second season. As Deadline reports, the shutdown is likely to segue into that period with filming to resume after the hiatus.

The bad news being, fans will likely have to brace for a time of relative silence as far as big productions updates are concerned. As for the good news, we can still expect some casting tidbits and other revelations – which may or may not help us to make sense of the bigger picture – to trickle through. Today’s article comes with a few such discoveries we recently made.


We have it on very good authority that Anson Boon has joined the cast of The Lord of The Rings. While his role remains unspecified, the young British actor has a certain ethereal look and we could easily see him as a young elf.

Boon has had roles in various film and television productions such as Crawl, The Alienist and most recently Amazon’s The Feed. He will also appear as a series regular in the upcoming thriller series Shadowplay, alongside Taylor Kitch and Michael C. Hall.

Anson Boon, photo credits: Curtis Brown

Next up is Ben Fransham, a name that may be familiar to die-hard fans of the original The Lord of The Rings trilogy. Sharing a long history with the franchise, the Kiwi actor has played minor parts in Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of The Rings and The Two Towers, appearing as an elven warrior and an Uruk-hai. Years later, he was also involved in The Hobbit trilogy, both as a stunt performer and playing a goblin. We have heard that Fransham was working with J. A. Bayona on an Amazon project. Our assumption is that he will be back for Amazon’s The Lord of The Rings, probably in a similar capacity if his resumé is anything to go by.

UPDATE: Ben Fransham has since reached out to us, stating that he is not involved in the series, rather a different mysterious project he did not reveal.

Ben Fransham, photo credits: Stephen A’Court

While the first season’s main cast has been known for months, Amazon left us in the dark as to the characters they will play. Thanks to reports by Deadline and The Observer a few roles have leaked, but they are widely believed to be codenames, created for the casting process. We now have two more names to add to that list. Keep in mind, that these could easily be codenames too. Yet, both of them have been found on official actor CV’s, which makes us think they might be the final names.

In January, we reported that Spartacus actor Simon Merrells has been cast as a recurring guest star in the first season. Judging from his instagram feed, the actor has been busy getting to know his co-stars and immersing himself in the world of Tolkien. While there are various theories on his part in The Lord of The Rings, with Círdan the Shipright being a popular guess, a new entry from Merell’s agency reveals he will in fact be playing a character called Trevyn.

Simon Merrells

Finally, we can also pin a name to another of the series’ main characters. English actress Megan Richards, who was revealed by Amazon alongside 14 other leads, will be playing May.

Megan Richards, photo credits: Chris Mann

As mentioned above, there is a chance that Trevyn and May are just temporary names… or they could be original characters created for the show.

We will keep an eye on them and all things Lord of The Rings. The wait for the series will be a long one but here’s hoping we can dig up more clues in the months to come. Until then, stay safe! Namárië!

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