According to Gizmodo, Andy Serkis — who famously brought Gollum to life in Peter Jackson's trilogy — has revealed that Viggo Mortensen himself is reportedly thrilled by the decision to cast Jamie Dornan as Aragorn in the new Lord of the Rings film. Coming from the original Strider, that kind of blessing carries serious weight.
Why This Casting Moment Is Bigger Than It Looks
Aragorn isn't just any fantasy hero. He's one of cinema's most beloved characters, a role so thoroughly defined by Viggo Mortensen's brooding intensity and physical commitment that recasting it feels genuinely audacious. Dornan — best known for Belfast, The Tourist, and yes, Fifty Shades of Grey — brings a different kind of magnetism to the table: quieter, more emotionally interior, with a dramatic range that's grown considerably in recent years. The question fans are already wrestling with isn't whether Dornan is talented. It's whether he's Aragorn.
That debate opens up a much bigger conversation about how this new adaptation will reimagine Middle-earth's most iconic figures. With an entirely new Fellowship to cast, who fills out the rest of the roster? That's exactly where myCast fans have been putting in work.
What myCast Fans Have Been Voting For
Across three separate Lord of the Rings fan-cast stories on myCast, the community has been dreaming up their ideal Middle-earth ensembles — and the results reveal some fascinating patterns.
In the most active story, The Lord of the Rings, fans have built out a 30-role cast with 20 votes, and the Aragorn pick is telling: Henry Cavill leads with 4 votes. It's not hard to see the logic — Cavill's work in The Witcher proved he can carry a sword-and-sorcery epic with genuine gravitas, and he has the physical presence fans associate with the role. That same story sees Pierce Brosnan earning a commanding 6 votes for Gandalf — a genuinely interesting choice that leans into the wizard's silver-tongued authority — while Barry Keoghan picks up 3 votes as Frodo and Paul Mescal earns 2 votes for Merry, giving that story a distinctly Irish-inflected Fellowship.