Billy Connolly Is Final Cast Member Of ‘The Hobbit’

Billy Connolly is the final cast member of a rather enormous  ensemble that Peter Jackson is wielding down in New Zealand.

Slashfilm:

Jackson has just added the man who will seemingly be the last on the roster: Scottish actor and comedian  Billy Connolly. He’ll play Dain Ironfoot, a Dwarf warrior.

THR  reports the casting, but doesn’t say if Connolly will appear in  An Unexpected Journey, which hits theaters on December 14 of this year, or only in  There and Back Again.

The character has only a small part in the novel  The Hobbit. He’s the second cousin of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the Dwarf who assembles the adventuring company that recruits Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) for a quest to reclaim his family’s ancient treasure from the winged worm Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). Ironfoot plays a part in the climactic Battle of Five Armies at the end of  The Hobbit, and so it is possible that he’ll only show up in the second of the two films.

Jackson told the trade,

We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the staunchest and toughest of Dwarves, than Billy Connelly, the Big Yin himself. With Billy stepping into this role, the cast of The Hobbit is now complete. We can’t wait to see him on the Battlefield!

Cool enough? Thoughts?