Nicholas Hoult is making a habit of playing young versions of famous authors, and now is seems that the English actor is set to portray J.R.R. Tolkien.
Hoult, who stars as a young J.D. Salinger in upcoming biopic Rebel in the Rye, is in early talks to play a young Tolkien in Fox Searchlight and Chernin Entertainment’s Tolkien.
Tolkien was the architect of Middle-earth, having written The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings book series that were later adapted into two Hollywood trilogies from Peter Jackson.
Tolkien, written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, will take place at the outset of WWI and follow the orphaned author as he befriends a group of outsiders at school just in time for the war to threaten to tear them apart. Dome Karukoski is attached to direct.
Hoult will next be seen in Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite and then the Thomas Edison-Nikola Tesla rivalry movie, The Current War. He will also reprise his role as the Beast in Fox’s X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix.
