Anya Taylor-Joy joins Lord of the Rings film as Seren

Warner Bros. announced on Monday that Anya Taylor-Joy is joining the cast of the next The Lord of the Rings film. She'll play Seren, a brand-new character created for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum — an elf described as "a trusted and lethal agent of King Thranduil." Andy Serkis, who portrayed Gollum in Peter Jackson's trilogy, will direct the film.

Ian McKellen and Elijah Wood were recently confirmed to reprise Gandalf and Frodo Baggins, respectively. Serkis set a new standard for motion-capture work with his Gollum performance and later applied those skills to King Kong (2005) and the Planet of the Apes reboot that began in 2011.

He has also turned his knowledge of CGI toward directing Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The Hunt for Gollum is expected to cover the span between Bilbo's 111th birthday and Gandalf's return to the Shire, material from the opening chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring that was cut from the 2001 film.

anya taylor-joy, seren, andy serkis, gollum, ian mckellen, elijah wood, thranduil, bilbo baggins, motion capture, fellowship