Cate Blanchett joins The Hobbit

Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett is returning to Middle Earth for an appearance in Peter Jackson’s upcoming The Hobbit two-hander.

Blanchett of course appeared in Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings as Galadriel, who Frodo encounters on his quest to destroy the One Ring.

Jackson’s happy, stating: “Cate is one of my favourite actors to work with and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have her reprise the role she so beautifully brought to life in the earlier films.”

Still, Blanchett’s appearance will come as a surprise to Hobbit book fans, as the character of Galadriel doesn’t actually appear in Tolkien’s original tome. She does, however, crop up in other Middle Earth material, which Jackson has reportedly stitched into his Hobbit films.

Alongside Blanchett, a raft of other castings have been confirmed, including Ken Scott as dwarf lord Balin, Sylvester McCoy as wizard Radagast the Brown, Mikael Persbrandt as Beorn, Ryan Gage as Drogo Baggins, and Jed Brophy and William Kircher as dwarfs Nori and Bifur.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.