The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim Anime Will Have Christopher Lee's Voice – But Not How You Think

Christopher Lee is one of the integral elements of the cinematic Middle-earth experience. The Saruman actor breaks bad in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and is the central antagonist in "The Two Towers." Lee reprised the role for the "Hobbit" prequel films, too, depicting an earlier version of the White Wizard of Isengard who was harboring ill intent but hadn't yet openly joined Sauron's cause.

While Lee played Saruman across two trilogies, his Middle-earth journey came to an end when the actor died in June 2015 — just half a year after "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" released. Since then, multiple studios have initiated various projects based on Tolkien's world. Prime Video's "The Rings of Power" was able to skirt the issue of recasting Saruman for multiple reasons, including the fact that Saruman isn't in its Second Age story (even if they did technically bend the rules by adding Gandalf into the mix). More importantly, the streaming series is deliberately disconnected from Peter Jackson's adaptations, so matching Saruman's voice to Christopher Lee's wasn't even really an option there.

Warner Bros.' upcoming movie "The War of the Rohirrim" is another matter altogether. The anime adaptation comes from the same studio as the original pair of trilogies and is produced by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. The first trailer for the movie even started with direct footage from "The Two Towers" live-action film before transitioning to animation. It's also known that Saruman will make an appearance in that story (which fits with the canon version), which asks the question: who will voice the White Wizard? Boyens had an answer no one was expecting: Sir Christopher Lee himself.

In an interview with fan site The One Ring, Boyens explained how they were able to use Christopher Lee's own voice for Saruman's part of the movie — and no, we're not talking about AI. Boyens said that after receiving a letter from Lee before he died and talking to his widow, Birgit Kroencke (who herself passed in June of this year), they decided to use an old recording from the archives. 

"[Kroecke agreed that] Sir Christopher would have wanted this," said Boyens. "And so, we went into his records. I got to go back and hear his voice not just doing the lines but talking to us as we were recording them." They found the perfect moment from one of Lee's later performances in "The Hobbit" franchise. Boyens explained:

"We based it on a line from 'The Hobbit,' which is, 'Are you in need of assistance my lady,' or something — a version of that line. And we thought, okay, that's a 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? And our brilliant guys did that. But it is an authentic bit of Christoper Lee performance that it's based on that line."

Boyens also added that they weren't sure if they could find the line and, in the spirit of due diligence, started looking for a potential replacement. In that process, they definitively decided that there was no one who could fill in for the one and only Christopher Lee.

"The War of the Rohirrim" is set to premiere in theaters on December 13th.