Viggo Mortensen suggests producers spoke to other actors about playing Aragorn in The Hobbit

The Danish-American actor stated he would have been up for revisiting the character

Viggo Mortensen has suggested that other actors were considered to play Aragorn in The Hobbit.

Despite the press formerly reporting that the Danish-American actor - whose new film Captain Fantastic is released today - wouldn't return as the beloved Lord of the Rings character, Mortensen revealed to The Independent that producers knew he would have considered a big-screen return to the world of Tolkien.

"I was asked in the early stages by a producer," he said. "I told him, '[Aragorn]’s not in the book - it’s 60 years before and he would have been an infant.' He goes, 'Yeah, we can take certain liberties' and I said I'd look forward to reading it and that if he’s going to reappear I would love to revisit him.

"I later heard - I don’t know if it's true - that they talked to other actors about playing him. I was waiting to hear but I never heard from anyone so I just assumed they weren’t going to take that liberty."

The first prequel to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy was released in 2012 starring Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. Actors who reprised their roles from the original adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's novels included Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Cate Blanchett (Galadriel).

Despite his lack of appearance in the book version of The Hobbit, character Legolas - played by Orlando Bloom - also returned.

Mortensen also set the record straight over comments he made about Jackson in a 2014 interview.

You can read the full interview here.