By More Hobbit casting news! We recently learned that Luke Evans was cast to play a spoony Bard and that Benedict Cuuummmmberbatchhhh will be playing the voice of the dreaded dragon Smaug. Well now it’s official that Evangeline Lilly has been cast to play a wood elf (surprise, surprise) and Australian comedian Barry Humphries is going to play Gorkin the Goblin King.
The elf Lilly is going to play, named Tauriel, is a completely new character being written into the movies. Peter Jackson mentioned that “there is no romantic connection to Legolas.” How unfortunate! Jackson also said that the Goblin King character is apparently going to be created “much the way Andy Serkis created Gollum,” so we can expect motion capture for His Goblin Kinglyness. Strangely enough, the Goblin King character is also one being created for the movies based off of a character from the Lord of the Rings video game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II.
[Via Indiewire]