Billy Connolly Joins Cast of The Hobbit

You know, I’d assumed that the cast of The Hobbit movies was just about solid, but I suppose I’d reckoned without the movie’s overwhelming need to find weathered older men to play approximately five billion dwarves.

Am I complaining? Nope.

Billy Connolly will always have a place in my heart for his brief but memorable role as Billy Bones in Muppet Treasure Island, and among lots and lots of character acting work is also on our radar for his role as King Fergus, father of Merida, in Brave.

Oh, but we were talking about The Hobbit, weren’t we? Connolly has been brought alongside such talent as Ian McKellen, Steven Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Christopher Lee… you know, half of England’s acting guilds… to play the role of Dain Ironfoot, cousin of Richard Armitage‘s Thorin Oakenshield. On request from his cousin, Dain rallies a massive dwarven army to oppose the armies of elves and men who demand a share of dragon traesure that is their blood debt from attacks of Smaug that were motivated by the actions of Thorin and Co.

Dain doesn’t come into the story until quite close to the end, just before the beginning of the Battle of Five Armies. As of last month, Evangeline Lilly established that the battle hadn’t been put to film yet, so Connolly’s casting seems like confirmation that it may happen soon.

(via /Film.)