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Blame Prime Video's Halbrand twist; we're looking at The Lord of the Rings casting with just a little bit of suspicion these days. Recently, we're putting on our tinfoil hat and turning our attention to a newly announced cast member of The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum - that is, Vladimir star Leo Woodall. Woodall is set to play a character called Halvard... but the things we know about that character don't quite add up.

Our conspiratorial elf ears first perked up after Woodall spoke to Deadline regarding his role in the upcoming Andy Serkis-directed Lord of the Rings movie, which the Tuner star called "a boyhood dream for me," to be a part of. Woodall went on to clarify that he "can’t tease anything" about his role, which under normal circumstances, wouldn't be a remarkable statement. But here's what's interesting - according to what we know about the film, there's a whole lot that Woodall could've spoken to without revealing any new information. The plot, placement in Middle-Earth history, and even activities of the characters are, after all, very well documented. So why stay so tight-lipped?

Let's clarify something here: what we're about to get into is some speculation on our part, and not anything official from Warner Bros.. But keeping that in mind, let's dive into what doesn't quite make sense about Woodall's character.

First of all, we know from the Deadline article above that Woodall's supposed character - a human of Aragorn's Dúnedain heritage - does not appear in any of Tolkien's works. Now that's not too special in itself; Peter Jackson's The Two Towers, for example, worked a character called Haldir into the plot of the film, and even though an elf by the same name does appear in Tolkien's Middle-Earth texts, what the character does in the film is different enough to basically make him an entity apart from his literary counterpart. But what does translate perfectly between those two characters is the name... and that's where Woodall's situation seems a little fishy.

As very well-documented by The One Ring to Rule them all wiki, the name Halvard doesn't just not appear in Tolkien's texts, it's downright wrong. According to the expansive Lord of the Rings fandom resource, Halvard is not a proper name in Sindarin, the elvish language which humans of the Dúnedain line use in their naming customs. So what's going on here? Have the folks who were responsible for nearly 15 years of on-screen elvish suddenly forgotten how to use it? 

Obviously, the absolute simplest answer is that is, 'yes.' Occam's razor tells us that the naming of Halvard was just a slip-up and that Woodall is staying quiet on the character because his contract tells him to. But if all that was the case, then why wouldn't the creators do something like they did with Haldir? These are questions we won't pretend to have the answer to reader, but I will tell you this - if another hot guy fools me into thinking he's a new Tolkien hero instead of an old Tolkien villain, I'll be just a little bit upset.

The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum comes to theaters December 17, 2027. 

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:

• Lord of the Rings reading guide 
• Lord of the Rings watch guide
• The Lord of the Rings reunion panel you can watch 
• The OG Hobbit actors stay in touch every day on a groupchat 
• The true message of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, according to Gimli himself - John Rhys-Davies.