Christopher Lee lived a life that was almost out of legend. He was friends with both JRR Tolkien and Ian Fleming and eventually portrayed iconic characters from their respective worlds. Lee portrayed the dark wizard Saruman in both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises, and despite having passed away in 2015, the actor will reprise his role from beyond the grave in The War of Rohirrim.
Philippa Boyens, a longtime collaborator of Peter Jackson and co-writer of The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, spoke with TheOneRing.net at New York Comic Con and confirmed that Saruman will make an appearance, once again voiced by Lee.
“We went into his [recordings], I got to go back and hear his voice, not just doing his lines, but talking to us as we were recording him,” Boyens said. “We based [his performance on The War of Rohirrim] on a line from The Hobbit, which is ‘Are you in need of assistance my lady?’, a version of that line. We can see how many takes he did of that, can we use it, can we find a new read on it, and change it up a little bit…but it is an authentic bit of a Christopher Lee performance.”