The Role: Aragorn Cast Instead: Stuart Townsend/Viggo Mortensen In the same interview with MTV that he announced his almost attachment to the Matrix franchise, Cage also let on that he had been "offered" the role of Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings, but that he couldn't commit to the timescale of those movies, or the global trek involved:
"Both are great movies. But they both shot in New Zealand for great quantities of time... I mean years. Well, Australia was The Matrix, New Zealand was The Lord of the Rings. But I had family obligations, so I'm glad I stayed and I had those experiences with my family."
Ultimately, Stuart Townsend was cast in the role, before rather unceremoniously being fired after two months of training because he "looked too young," and being replaced by Viggo Mortensen, whose performance is arguably the finest of the entire franchise, alongside those of Elijah Wood and Sir Ian McKellen. Why He Would Have Ruined It... There is no way Cage could have maintained the almost ethereal regality that Mortensen brought to the role. He was made for that performance, bristling under the surface with power and energy, like a lone wolf stalking in the night. Cage would probably have drawn the same inspirations that led to his performance in The Season Of The Witch, since the two sort of share a genre: and that would have been ample reason for dismay. By the time The Lord Of The Rings came out, Cage was also probably too well-known: the success of the key roles in the film, especially the Fellowship, was down to their not being too tainted by former performances (aside from Sean Bean, who was great, but ever so slightly distracting)
