It’s almost officially time to celebrate, everybody! For many of you out there, you’ll have the next couple of weeks to lounge around, spend time with loved ones and just do whatever the hell it is you like doing with your spare time. But as wonderful as the holiday season is supposed to be, there sure is a lot of pressure to be jolly. Being jolly is fine and dandy for those with family, but what about those without. What about those of you who’ll be spending this holiday season alone? It’s damned near impossible to feel jolly when you’re down in the dumps and the holidays arrive just to make you feel worse. Well, we here at Film Threat would like to tell you to buck up! Whatever your situation is, someone always has it worse. In fact, some people have it way worse, so quit feeling sorry for yourself and let’s give a thought to how Stuart Townsend feels right now.
Let’s back up a little bit here. It all begins with the 4-disc DVD release of The Fellowship of the Ring. For those of you that have listened to the commentary and gone through all, or most, of the supplementary material in this massive set, you’ll remember that it’s mentioned several times that another actor was originally cast in the part of Aragorn. After a couple days of shooting, it was decided that this actor wasn’t right for the role and Viggo Mortensen was called to join the production immediately. Interesting story, but it’s never made known who exactly this actor is that got the boot. We respect that Peter Jackson and crew didn’t drag this guy’s name through the mud, but damnit…we wanted to know whom the hell this guy was. Well, now we know. Now where’s that mud?
We’ve recently discovered that Stuart Townsend is the mystery man. Yes, Lestat from Queen of the Damned was all set to play Aragorn until his bags were packed for him and the door hit his a*s on the way out. Now, we’re sure this isn’t the most exclusive news out there as the Internet nerds have probably known about this even before The Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters. But for those of you that have lives away from the computer screen, you probably didn’t know this information and here it is.
So for those of you despairing over your holiday misfortunes this year, take heart, you don’t have it as bad as Stuart Townsend. At least you didn’t get dragged all the way over to New Zealand only to be told a couple days later to go home, just like Stuart Townsend. Yes, we imagine that this is the second holiday season in a row that Stuart Townsend is curled up by the Christmas tree, rocking back and forth in a little ball of depression as the second chapter in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is being unleashed upon the world…and he’s got next year’s film coming as well.
We don’t want you to think us a******s here because we’re ripping on Stuart Townsend’s bad luck. We just want to make the less fortunate Film Threat readers feel a little better this holiday season. We’re sure Stuart Townsend will be fine. Hey, maybe someone will cast poor Stuart Townsend as Lestat in another Vampire Chronicles film. That would make anyone feel better, right?
Happy Holidays everyone…even you, Stuart Townsend.
