How Old Is Aragorn In The Hunt For Gollum? The Lord Of The Rings Recasting Explained

Aragorn will officially have a new face in Peter Jackson's cinematic Middle-earth canon. "The Hunt for Gollum" has finally cast its young Aragorn, and Jamie Dornan ("Fifty Shades Of Grey," "Belfast") will be donning the mantle of Strider. Dornan is 43 years old as of this writing. Viggo Mortensen was right around the same age when principal photography for "The Lord of the Rings" took place back in the late '90s (he's in his late 60s now), so on the surface, Dornan is a good pick as far as consistency goes.

But the age question surrounding the actors does raise a question: How old is Aragorn supposed to be in the "Hunt for Gollum" story? The short answer, according to author J.R.R. Tolkien's source material: He's around 70 years old when the story starts, and will be around 78 when the main story plays out. If that seems old, remember that Aragorn is in his late 80s during "The Lord of the Rings" (making him one of the older members of the Fellowship of the Ring).

It's not too hard to connect the dots here. In the story, Aragorn always looks younger than his age. Originally, Mortensen fit that bill easily enough, and Dornan is in a similarly appropriate time of life. The challenge would have been bringing Mortensen back over a quarter of a century after filming the original trilogy. Almost certainly, it would have involved some sort of de-aging technology — and based on how fans reacted to Orlando Bloom's "Hunt For Gollum" tease about AI de-aging, that would have been a very risky roll of the dice.

Aragorn may be younger in "The Hunt for Gollum" than he is in "The Lord of the Rings," but at a certain point, the numbers shouldn't matter, right? If a dude is 70 or 80, he should still look pretty old. Why depict the Ranger as a man in his 40s?

Because the exiled king is no mere mortal. If you go back far enough, Aragorn's family tree includes Elves and even an angel. One of his mortal ancestors lived to be 500 years old. The guy has special blood running through his veins, which means once he reaches full age and maturity, he kind of just continues at the prime of his life for a while.

How long? Try over two centuries. After "The Lord of the Rings" ends, Aragorn remains king in the reunited kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor for over 120 years. He's 210 when he finally lays down his life (leading to Arwen's tragic ending, too). Even then, while he's aged, he still has much of his youthful vigor thanks to his unique family tree.

This agelessness makes Aragorn a tricky character to cast for a visual adaptation. Ironically, while "The Hunt for Gollum" is a prequel, Aragorn shouldn't actually look younger in it. He's in the prime of life at that point just as much as in "The Lord of the Rings." Ironically, it's Viggo Mortensen's current age that is more of the problem, opening the door for a 40-something Jamie Dornan to fill that vacuum — not because he looks more youthful, but because he's actually the same age Mortensen was back in the day.