Anthony Daniels

From Tolkien Gateway
Anthony Daniels
LifetimeFebruary 21, 1946
PortrayedLegolas in:
 The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
IMDbProfile

Anthony Kingsley Daniels (1946) is an English stage, radio and screen actor. Born in Salisbury, he attended drama and mime school, and received the prestigious Carlton Hobbs BBC Radio Award in 1974. This granted him a place among the core cast of the BBC Drama Repertory Company. In 1977, Daniels got the role of the protocol droid C-3PO in the space opera Star Wars. Because it was a minor role, and his voice was originally planned to be edited out and dubbed by another actor, he continued to work for the Drama Repertory Company.

When Ralph Bakshi came to record voices for his new adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, he casted several of the BBC's voice actors - Michael Graham Cox, Peter Woodthorpe - and Daniels landed the role of Legolas. After the success of the second Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, Daniels left the Drama Repertory Company. He did therefore not reprise his role in the radio series of The Lord of the Rings.

Quotes[edit | edit source]

"I played Legolas - Prince of the Elves and if I am honest it was a rather odd experience in several ways. The whole cast were in the same studio but we all had to leave a two second gap between the lines which made for rather stilted dialogue and sadly, a rather stilted movie."
― Anthony Daniels, Official website
"I was delighted that his performance clearly echoed many of the artistic nuances that so inflected my own. Orlando has clearly learned most of his craft from following my work and I think he may have a career as an actor of some kind. His interesting decision, in the role of Legolas, was not to play it as a brunette, as did I, but as a blond. I have never played a blond, even in a cartoon. Now, of course, I play a grey."
― Anthony Daniels on Orlando Bloom's version of Legolas, Official website

External links[edit | edit source]