Amazon Prime’s Lord Of The Rings To Introduce The Earliest Tribes Of Hobbits
Sir Lenny Henry, a British comedian, discussed playing a Harfoot, one of earliest Hobbits tribe, in Amazon Prime’s Lord of the Rings series.
Amazon Prime’s upcoming series, The Lord of the Rings, will introduce a new tribe of Hobbits, Harfoot. This new race of Hobbits was mentioned by J.R.R. Tolkein in the original book. Sir Lenny Henry, a British comedian will appear in the series as a Harfoot; a multi-ethnic tribe that was included in the original Tolkein books but didn’t show up in the film trilogy.
Henry’s comment on playing a Harfoot
This is what Sir Henry said about playing a “black Hobbit” on-screen; “For the last two years I’ve been working on Lord of the Rings and it’s an extraordinary thing, it’s the biggest television show that’s ever been made, in terms of money and headcount. Literally, a hundred people on set glaring at you and trying to work out what you’ll look like four feet tall. I’m a Harfoot, because J.R.R. Tolkien, who was also from Birmingham, suddenly there were black Hobbits, I’m a black hobbit, it’s brilliant, and what’s notable about this run of the books, it’s a prequel to the age that we’ve seen in the films, it’s about the early days of the Shire and Tolkien’s environment, so we’re an indigenous population of Harfoots, we’re Hobbits but we’re called Harfoots, we’re multi-cultural, we’re a tribe, not a race, so we’re black, Asian and brown, even Maori types within it.”
Henry also noted that there is a huge diversity in the cast of Amazon Prime’s Lord of the Rings. And apart from this huge diversity, there is also a great female presence in the series.
With that said the Amazon Prime series began filming in Feb 2020 but paused due to the global pandemic. However, the makers managed to resume it in September 2020 with an official announcement of its release along with the aim for a five-season run.
Developed by Patrick McKay and JD Payne, The Lord of the Rings will premiere on September 2nd, 2022.
Source: BBC Radio 4
