One of the year’s biggest releases may well be The War of the Rohirrim, a Lord of the Rings prequel focusing on Rohan’s battles against Helm Hammerhand and the wildmen. Along with familiar cultural elements and Miranda Otto reprising her role as Éowyn, Saruman also returns, as his influence reaches the land of the horse-lords. But surprisingly, rather than casting a new actor, the voice of Saruman will once again be that of Christopher Lee, who passed away in 2015. Producer and creative lead Philippa Boyens shared how they made this possible: not through AI, but by using archival audio of Lee.
In an interview with TheOneRing YouTube channel, recorded during the recent New York Comic Con, Boyens revealed how they approached the challenge of voicing Saruman in The War of the Rohirrim. With the approval of Lee’s late wife, Birgit Krøncke, the team sourced archival audio based on her belief that Lee would have wanted to participate in the project had he been alive.
“We relied on a line from The Hobbit: ‘Perhaps you are in need of assistance, my lady?’ or something along those lines—a version of it. Then we thought, okay, let’s see how many takes we have of that line! Can we use any of them? Can we reinterpret it? Can we adjust it slightly? And our brilliant team managed it. So what you’ll hear is an authentic slice of Lee’s performance, shaped for this piece of dialogue,” Boyens explained.
The line in question is from The Battle of the Five Armies, where Saruman asks Galadriel this question when he arrives with Elrond at Dol Guldur to aid her and a wounded Gandalf against Sauron and his servants. Boyens noted that the team tried several alternatives, even considering a new actor, but they concluded that Lee’s voice is truly inimitable. Below, you can see images of Saruman, both from the live-action films and the animated adaptation.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will hit theaters on December 12. The director has been working to reassure skeptical fans that they will experience a true Lord of the Rings adventure, even though the film is, in fact, an anime.
