The Actor Behind The Lord Of The Ring's Beloved Elven Queen Wants To Return, But Should They?

The OG "Lord of the Rings" crew has been in the news cycle a lot lately. With Warner Bros. planning new live-action J.R.R. Tolkien film adaptations, everyone is wondering who could show up again after a 20-year hiatus from Middle-earth acting.

You can count Liv Tyler among those ready to jump right back into the action. Tyler is, of course, famous for playing the Elven queen Arwen in Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy. While the character has a minor role in Tolkien's source material, Arwen is busy in the movies. She fills in for the Elf-lord Glorfindel by saving Frodo (Elijah Woods) from the Black Riders and encourages Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) to fulfill his destiny and confront Sauron. She was even filmed in various fight sequences, including the Battle of Helm's Deep (although that was later cut during post-production).

Now, Tyler has gone on record saying she's ready to come back to the fantasy-adventure franchise. In April 2025, she participated in a panel along with other "Lord of the Rings" alumni, including John Rhys-Davies (Gimli), Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee), and Orlando Bloom (Legolas). When asked if they would return, Tyler didn't beat around the bush. Here's what she said (via NME):

"I'd just do anything. I write to [Jackson's writing partners] Fran [Walsh] and Philippa [Boyens] all the time. I'm like, 'Hey, is there any chance we're going to need Arwen back?' It was such a gift to our lives. It's so hard to sum it up in words, but it was such a profound gift. I would do anything to be able to see it again, feel it again, but we live it in our hearts and our minds now."

For those of you wondering, Bloom was also interested in coming back to Middle-earth — although he's made that clear before. Astin and Rhys-Davies, on the other hand, were both more tepid in their response yet appeared up for the challenge under the right circumstances.

The willingness of the cast, and especially Liv Tyler, to return is clear. The question is: Should she come back for future Middle-earth projects? The role of Arwen was already expanded for "The Lord of the Rings." Could she have a meaningful part in any other Middle-earth story?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes. It would definitely be possible to incorporate her back into the mix. In fact, in one adaptation, in particular, it would actually make sense to have even more Arwen face time than the original trilogy. One of the only other areas of Arwen's story that Tolkien writes about in reasonable detail comes right around the time period when Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis' upcoming "The Hunt for Gollum" movie is set. Assuming that project covers the years between "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings," that would be directly over the time when Arwen and Aragorn's pre-"Lord of the Rings" relationship begins and blossoms.

If you'll indulge some uber-nerdy stuff for a minute, let's look at the Middle-earth timeline. Here are a few key dates from the end of the Third Age taken straight from the appendices of the "Return of the King" book:

Year 2941: Bilbo goes on his adventure. (He returns to the Shire the following year.)

Year 2944: Gollum leaves the Misty Mountains in search of his "precious."

Year 2952: Aragorn and Arwen meet at Rivendell. Aragorn heads into the Wild to seek his destiny.

Year 2980: Aragorn and Arwen meet again, this time in Lothlórien, and "plight their troth" to one another.

Year 3009: Aragorn and Gandalf set out in search of Gollum.

Year 3016: Elrond calls Arwen from Lothlórien back to Rivendell, as the lands are getting too dangerous.

Year 3017: Aragorn captures Gollum.

See how well Aragorn and Arwen's story fits within the context of the hunt for Gollum narrative? There's more to the case for an Arwen return, too.

Along with Arwen's primary story overlapping so neatly with "The Hunt for Gollum," there are some potential returns and some not-so-likely ones that make a reprisal for Liv Tyler even more compelling. First, there's the possible return of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. The actor hasn't committed to anything yet, but writer Philippa Boyens has made it clear that it's up to Viggo and she would love to have him back to play Aragorn (who is a central figure in the narrative the new movie is based on).

Along with the Aragorn and Arwen story falling into place perfectly, Tolkien's appendices have both Elrond and Galadriel showing up at this point in the story. Galadriel is involved when Aragorn and Arwen are trothplighted in Lothlórien, while Elrond is repeatedly poking his head into the action. And yet, Hugo Weaving has said he is definitely not interested in returning as Elrond, whereas Cate Blanchett recently went on record saying she intends to give up on acting. (We'll see if it's the truth or not, especially when it comes to her potential return as Galadriel.)

The absence of those two key figures would leave a hole in the plot — one that Arwen could help fill. Remember, Arwen is the daughter of Elrond and the granddaughter of Galadriel. It would be possible to indicate Elrond and Galadriel's off-screen roles indirectly through Arwen, even if Weaving and Blanchett aren't available to reprise their characters. From Tyler's willingness to the obvious overlap in story and the connection point between Aragorn, Elrond, and Galadriel, it's easy to make the case that bringing back Tyler could be a home run for this new adaptation. The question is, will it happen? With "The Hunt for Gollum" having already been pushed back to a late 2027 release date, chances are we won't get a solid answer for quite a while still.