‘The Lord of the Rings’ Cast Honors Bernard Hill: ‘We Lost a Member of Our Family’

Late actor starred as King Theoden in The Lord of the Rings franchise, and captain Edward Smith in the Titanic

Lord of the Rings cast members paid tribute to late costar Bernard Hill at the Liverpool Comic Con event over the weekend. Hill died at age 79 Sunday.

Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Sean Astin, who played the four Hobbits in the fantasy franchise, said they had lost a member of their family. Hill, who starred as the ruler of a horsemen’s kingdom, planned to attend the Comic Con event but pulled out before his death.

Astin, who played Sam, began by taking a moment to remember their costar, as BBC reported.

“So we lost a member of our family this morning, Bernard Hill passed, King Théoden,” Hill said. “So we want to take a moment before we walk off the stage to honour him.”

“We love him,” Astin added. “He was intrepid, he was funny, he was gruff, he was irascible, he was beautiful.”

Boyd, who starred as Pippin, remembered watching the franchise alongside Monaghan, and said the actor would be “sorely missed.” The trilogy drew inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels of the same name.

“I don’t think anyone spoke Tolkien’s words as great as Bernard did,” Boyd said at the Comic Con event. “The way he grounded those words in a realism.”

Monaghan, who played Merry, made a post on Instagram Sunday in Hill’s memory, writing in a caption “The Broken king has passed to the grey havens but he will always be remembered.”

Wood, who starred as Frodo, said, “We will never forget you,” in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.

“For he was a gentle heart and a great king and kept his oaths; and he rose out of the shadows to a last fair morning,” Wood wrote.

Over his seven-decade career, Hill was best known for starring as captain Edward Smith in the Titanic and King Theoden in both Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). Hill earned his breakout role as Yosser Hughes in Boys From the Blackstuff (1982), for which he earned a Best Actor nomination at the BAFTA TV Awards.

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“We’re saddened to hear of the passing of Bernard Hill,” the BAFTAs wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Known for his work in TV and film, Bernard starred in Titanic and The Lord of the Rings. He was nominated for two BAFTAs for A Very Social Secretary and his breakout performance in Boys From The Blackstuff, which won the Drama Series BAFTA in 1983.”