Peter Jackson Cast Lee Pace In The Hobbit Because Of Pushing Daisies Show

Lee Pace revealed that he got his role in The Hobbit trilogy because Peter Jackson liked his work on the TV series Pushing Daisies. The short-lived show, which ran for two seasons after it premiered on ABC in 2007, was created by Hannibal‘s Bryan Fuller. It follows Ned (Pace), a humble piemaker who has the power to reanimate the dead with a single touch, but if he touches them a second time they die permanently. When he reanimates his former childhood crush Chuck (Anna Friel), their romance develops in spite of the fact that they can never touch while he uses his power to solve a variety of colorful murder mysteries. The show also starred Chi McBride, Kristin Chenoweth, Ellen Greene, and Swoozie Kurtz, who can now be seen on the Mayim Bialik sitcom Call Me Kat.

In the years since Pushing Daisies, Lee Pace’s career has taken him to some incredible places. The actor stepped into some major franchises in the early 2010s, including playing Garrett in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, the Elven king Thranduil in Peter Jackon’s Hobbit trilogy, and the villainous Ronan in the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel. His most recent work is playing Brother Day on the 2021 Apple TV+ science fiction series Foundation, which has been renewed for a second season.

While speaking with Vulture, Pace was asked about how he felt about working on Pushing Daisies all these years later. He looked back on the show fondly, saying that he’s a completely different person now than he was then, but “it changed my life in a lot of ways” and that “I… learned how to do my job with those people.” He then shared an anecdote about Peter Jackson telling him that he got his role as Thranduil because of his work on Pushing Daisies. He admits that “how he went from Ned to the Elven king is very bizarre, but I’ll take it.” Read the full quote below:

I had read this Joan Didion quote that I’m about to mess up. But the idea, especially post COVID, means something to me, which is, “I am no longer in touch with the person I used to be.” I think that’s very true of how life has gone. It was 15 years ago. I was 26, 27 years old. I look back at that time very fondly. It changed my life in a lot of ways.

I remember Peter Jackson, when I got cast in The Hobbit, said, “We loved you in Pushing Daisies. That’s why you’re here.” How he went from Ned to the Elven king is very bizarre, but I’ll take it. It was a formative experience in my life; I very much learned how to do my job with those people.

Although Thranduil doesn’t play a major part at the beginning of the Hobbit trilogy, his role increases in importance across the run of the three films. He then becomes a major part of the concluding chapter, leading one of the titular armies in The Battle of the Five Armies. Pace is certainly correct in that the role of Ned wouldn’t seem to prepare him for the role of a regal, immortal elf, but clearly, Jackson saw something in him that worked perfectly for the character.

Although Pushing Daisies didn’t run for very long, it has clearly had an outsized impact on Pace’s life. Although many shows that are canceled after one or two seasons are flops for a good reason, there is a fan canon of “canceled too soon” shows that also includes the likes of Arrested Development (before the Netflix reboot) and Judd Apatow’s Undeclared. The show’s prominent place in that conversation has given it a reach much farther than it ever had in its original run and Pace’s discussion of it and its relationship to The Hobbit trilogy will certainly keep it alive longer.

Source: Vulture

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