So I'm a little late to this story, by a few years, but I just read an interview with Uma where she says her biggest regret was turning down the role of Eowyn in LotR. Her reasoning was sound: she'd just given birth to Maya and didn't want to spend a solid year in New Zealand for the filming.

What's the hive mind view on this? Would she have been better than Miranda? I think not. She would have made a great Galadriel but not Eowyn. I'd say Maya would make a better Eowyn. She has the impishness her mother doesn't have.

Interesting, honestly didn't know she was in consideration. I'm good with the decision.

I hadn’t heard of that either.

Miranda Otto did a pretty good job for my money. I know PJ pushed the female representation and she was a memorable character in my view.

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/162...d-of-the-rings

Uma probably would have pulled me out of it. Liv Tyler kinda rode that line, where she almost pulled me out of the film but straddled that line just enough to not be distracting.

Miranda Otto was great in the role.

I’d never seen Liv in anything else so she was perfect for me. I felt similar with Evangeline Lily as Tauriel in The Hobbit trilogy.

You hadn*t seen Armageddon? Weird, I knew Liv Tyler from 11 different movies and an Aerosmith music video before Lord of the Rings even was a thing.

Not a male between the ages of 14 and 25 when Empire Records came out in the mid 90s

Back then, I watched Empire Records with my uncle, his girlfriend and my mother.

Last year I watched it with my wife, she didn't know it.

I thought Miranda did a great job and owned the role. She belonged in that universe. Uma might have been a stretch. I love me some Uma Thurman, but I think it worked out for the better.

On the other hand, Connery as Gandalf is the one I think about whenever I watch those films. Don’t get me wrong Sir Ian lived and breathed the role, but I still wish Sean would have been able to close his career out with one final roar in the LOTR films instead of the whimper that was LOEG.

Interesting. I think he would have been awful.

Yeah Connery is great, but I can't see him as Galdalf at all.

Yeah, Connery would have been awful.

Why? Sean Connery was a good actor.

Because it would have been Sean Connery in a robe and not Gandalf?

I don't think so, if the movie would have been the same, Connery would have been morphed into the role, too. To the mainstream audience Ian McKellen was Magneto and Sean Astin was Rudy, nobody cared. No one did mind Christopher Lee in a robe, either.
Changing the cast after the fact always is strange, but if a cabable actor is doing a good job, the audience sees the character, not the movie star. I'd think Connery movie star aura even could have added to the role, in the eyes of the audience, since everyone would recognize him as special at once.

Go watch the films Sean Connery made with Sidney Lumet. Connery was a great actor and could disappear into roles. You could say the same thing about Tom Cruise because of how similar a lot of his characters are. But then you watch Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, Born on the Fourth of July and you get lost in the movie.