Anya Taylor-Joy is finally reading Lord of the Rings — but her Hunt for Gollum character won't be in the books

Anya Taylor-Joy has been cast in The Hunt for Gollum as Seren, a brand-new elf character created for the film, and she's only now getting around to reading J. R. R. Tolkien's source material. The movie, directed by Andy Serkis, hits theaters on December 17, 2027.

Seren is described as a Sindar Elf of the Woodland Realm and a trusted and lethal agent of King Thranduil, played by Lee Pace. Taylor-Joy told Variety she's particularly attached to that last word. "If my tombstone can say 'Lethal Elf,' I feel like I did a good job on this planet," she said. She also admitted that as a kid she'd convinced herself you had to pick between being a Lord of the Rings fan or a Harry Potter fan — a rule she invented herself — and only watched Peter Jackson's trilogy during the COVID-19 pandemic. She's now planning to read the books ahead of production.

Seren is an original creation, so Taylor-Joy won't find her anywhere in Tolkien's text. That's already drawing comparisons from fans to Tauriel — Evangeline Lilly's character in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy — who was similarly a Woodland Realm elf serving Thranduil and remains one of the more divisive additions to the screen adaptations. The Hunt for Gollum is set during the gap period briefly referenced in The Fellowship of the Ring, covering Gollum's movements before the main story begins, with Gandalf, Aragorn, and Sauron's forces all hunting the Ring of Power. Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen return as Frodo and Gandalf more than 25 years after the 2001 film, and the production is using machine learning and AI to digitally de-age both actors.

A second Lord of the Rings film, Shadows of the Past, co-written by Stephen Colbert, is also in development. With a December 2027 release date locked in, The Hunt for Gollum is shaping up to be one of the bigger cinematic events of that year.