Young Australian actress Markella Kavenagh has been cast as a series regular on Amazon Studios’ high-profile The Lord of the Rings TV series, sources confirm to Deadline.
The series hails from writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay and director Juan Antonio (J.A.) Bayona. Set in Middle-earth, it will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.
Amazon has cast a wide net in its talent search for the big-budget project, reading actors around the world with casting directors in the US, UK and Australia. Like everything else about the series, details about Kavenagh’s character are not being revealed. Reps for Amazon and Kavenagh did not respond to requests for comment.
The Lord of the Rings series is written by feature scribes Payne and McKay. They lead a writers room, which is believed to include Breaking Bad alumna Gennifer Hutchison and Game of Thrones veteran Bryan Cogman, among others.
The Lord of the Rings series, which has a multi-season commitment in a blockbuster nine-figure rights deal with the Tolkien estate, is produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line Cinema, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which produced the 2000s Peter Jackson trilogy.
Kavenagh is known for the 2018 Australian series Romper Stomper and received the Rising Stars Award at the 2018 Casting Guild of Australia Awards. The actress, whose LOTR casting was first reported by Variety, is repped by Shanahan Management in Australia, Silver Lining Entertainment and Lev Ginsburg.
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