Saoirse Ronan has signed on to cast of The Hobbit

saoirse ronan

Yesterday the movie adaptation of The Hobbit was dealt another blow when director Peter Jackson fell suddenly ill and was admitted to hospital.

Though he’s on the road to recovery, it means that filming of his much-beleaguered adap has been slightly delayed.

Good news comes today, though, in the form of Saoirse Ronan, who has signed on to play an as-yet-undisclosed role in the film.

The Hobbit ’s casting director revealed: “Working with Peter Jackson is like working with a family. So they’ll have a great time.

“Saoirse’s family will go too, everyone is very close and very loving on those sorts of jobs. It’s not like typical studio movies at all.”

Ronan’s addition to the cast can only be a good thing. Though her last collaboration with Jackson was the uneven The Lovely Bones , there’s no doubting her abilities as an actress.

We hope that Jackson's illness is the last of the bad luck that will befall The Hobbit - we're not sure how much more we (or he) can take.

The Hobbit: Part 1 opens December 2012.

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.