Last year Evangeline Lilly (Lost, Real Steel) joined the cast of The Hobbit as Woodland Elf Tauriel, a character not originally in J.R.R Tolkien’s book. Lilly said Peter Jackson and the team decided to add Tauriel to “round out the story” as an adaptation, and to add some much needed female characters (the only other female character is Galadriel played by Cate Blanchett).
In a new interview Evangeline Lilly said Tauriel will be more prominent in the second film, and the role has actually been expanded from when she originally read the scripts.
From EW:
Yes, she is a warrior. She’s actually the head of the Elven guard. She’s the big shot in the army. So she knows how to wield any weapon, but the primary weapons that she uses are a bow and arrow and two daggers. And she’s lethal and deadly. You definitely wouldn’t want to be caught in a dark alley next to Tauriel.
She’s not in the first film very much. She comes into the first film near the end, and has a very small part to play. Her role in the second film is much more involved. Although, I have to say, when I first read the scripts and took the job, she had a lot less going on in the second film. I think the role is becoming a bit more demanding than I had expected it to be. There’s a lot more for me to do now, which is a lot of fun, but it’s a little more pressure.
Lilly continued to say that she’s got around 5 more months of filming left to go, and she’s been on and off set for the past six, so she’ll probably have a decent amount of screentime. Book purists may not like the idea of totally new characters being introduced, but characters such as Tauriel have the potential to add a little extra to the movie.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14th, followed by The Hobbit: There and Back Again on December 13th, 2013.
