We've got a couple of new photos featuring Evangeline Lilly as the Elf Tauriel in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The director revealed the images during his latest online Hobbit Q&A.
This is a new character that was created just for the movie by Jackson and his co-writers Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and is not based on any of J.R.R. Tolkien's characters. Tauriel is related to Legolas, and I'm sure it's a solid character that will help move the story along.
We’re quite excited about the storyline we have created for Tauriel. As you can see, she’s not an Elf Guard to be messed with.
In a previous interview with Lilly she discussed the character saying,
Yeah! I am very concerned to this day that people will watch the film and I’ll be the black mark on the film. I know how adamant the purists are and I’m one of them! That said, upon reading The Hobbit again, as an adult, I can see why additional characters were needed to round out the story as an adaptation – especially female characters! The Hobbit didn’t include female characters at all and was a very linear story, a book for children, really. What Peter, Fran (Walsh) and Philippa (Boyens) have done is all in perfect keeping with Tolkien’s world, while adding a third dimension to an otherwise very two-dimensional story.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens up in theaters on December 13th, 2013.
