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When Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim announced that the new anime film would feature legendary actor Brian Cox as Helm of Helm’s Deep fame, we all nodded sagely in agreement. It felt like the perfect casting, but it wasn’t the first time Cox nearly took a trip to Middle Earth. After being passed over for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, The War of the Rohirrim was the moment Brian Cox finally made his Tolkien debut.

When it was finally time to step into Middle Earth, it was a simple process for Brian Cox. As he said during a recent interview, he didn’t even have to audition. “Well, you know, I didn’t audition. I was offered the role, and I’ve flirted with The Lord of the Rings for a few years. But there was at one point a certain director was going to do the one about the dwarves, and they were flirting with me, and then it didn’t work out.”

Which movie is Brian Cox referring to? That is a bit tough to say for sure. We suspect that he is referring to The Hobbit movies, which were originally going to be directed by Guillermo del Toro but were eventually helmed by Peter Jackson and focus more heavily on dwarves than the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Considering that Jackson has been the man behind every live-action Lord of the Rings film since the 1980s, that makes it the obvious answer.

The question of who Cox was set to play in The Hobbit is a big one. Would he play one of the dwarves themselves? Or was he set to take on the role of someone like Beorn who played a minor but important role in Bilbo’s journey? It is a question that we’ll continue to mull over for years to come.

Personally, if we found out we were meant to be in a Lord of the Rings film and missed our chance, we’d have been devastated. Fortunately, Brian Cox doesn’t seem to have taken it personally. “You know, I never dwell on anything. I just move on. And then [The War of the Rohirrim] came up, and they asked me to do it, and I thought, it’s a perfect fit.”

When portraying a figure like Helm, who was so legendary in Lord of the Rings lore that his namesake became the site of one of the coolest battles in the original trilogy, you need someone with the kind of gravitas that Brian Cox can provide. So it is probably a good thing that a handful of missed chances led the actor into his role in The War of the Rohirrim.

Whether you're Shirefolk, Elven, Dwarven, or something else, there's a good reason to love Lord of the Rings. We do! With that in mind, we have a dragon's horde of goodies for you from a Lord of the Rings reading guide, a Lord of the Rings watch guide, details on the upcoming animated film Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim, a full the Lord of the Rings reunion panel you can watch, how the OG Hobbit actors stay in touch every day on a groupchat, and the true message of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, according to Gimli himself - John Rhys-Davies.