Lord of the Rings TV show actor drops out after filming multiple episodes

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"Amazon has decided to go in another direction with the character I was portraying..."

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(Image credit: New Line Cinema)

An actor in the Lord of the Rings TV show has dropped out of the Amazon Prime series, despite already filming multiple episodes. Tom Budge was cast in the show in early 2020, although the secrecy surrounding the project means it was never confirmed what character he was playing.

"It is with great sadness that I am writing to tell you I have departed Amazon's Lord Of The Rings television series," Budge wrote on Instagram. "After recently seeing the first episodes shot over the last year Amazon has decided to go in another direction with the character I was portraying...  

"I must thank the creative team for their encouragement towards trying something that I believed was new, exciting and beautiful. And I sincerely thank the extraordinary cast and crew for their love, support and friendship over what has been a very difficult and unusual experience. Alas, some things just cannot be."

The series will take place in Middle-earth’s fabled Second Age of history, thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's books. Amazon Studios confirmed that the series will begin in a time of relative peace and follow an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar (some of the residents of Middle-earth have very different lifespans to humans, after all) and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to their world. 

Who these familiar faces may be has yet to be announced, but Morfydd Clark will reportedly be back as Galadriel and Elrond is expected to play a part in the story, too. Played by Hugo Weaving in the movies, there’s no word who has been cast to play him in the series.

There's no release date for the Lord of the Rings TV show to arrive on the streamer, but in the meantime you can check out our list of the best shows on Amazon Prime to watch right now.

Emily Garbutt
Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.