Stephen Colbert is, quite famously, a huge Lord of the Rings fanboy, with the Late Show host frequently challenging guests (including Lee Pace, Elvenking) to Tolkien trivia battles and even casting himself as Darrylgorn, Aragorn’s slightly sexier older twin brother, in a bit of studio-budget fanfiction.
Now, he can add “show-and-tell with Galadriel herself” to the list. During a socially distanced episode of The Late Show, Colbert video-chatted Cate Blanchett, who proceeded to whip out not one but two shiny prop weapons from the set of The Hobbit.
The host’s reaction says it all:
The weapons in question were the twin fighting knives wielded by Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) as Captain of the Woodland Guard.
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“Pretty cool,” said Blanchett, showing off some moves. “I mean, some people stock toilet paper, but I got these.”
“Wait, you have Tauriel’s fighting blades?” asked Colbert. “Why do you have Tauriel’s fighting blades? Why doesn’t Evangeline Lilly have them?”
“Well, I dunno,” the actor responded, before stopping herself and stashing them out of sight. “Actually, you did not see those. Don’t speak to Evangeline Lilly anytime soon.”
Pivoting very smoothly to distract from the mysterious origins of Tauriel’s fighting blades, Blanchett quickly moved onto another iconic piece of cinematic weaponry, one last seen in the hands of Natalie Portman. “You know how that Thor film was shut down in Australia? It wasn’t anything to do with COVID-19,” she said. “It’s because I got the hammer.”
Blanchett is speaking, of course, of the fourth installment in the Thor series, Thor: Love and Thunder. Although the production is currently on hold, Taika Waititi remains hard at work behind-the-scenes. In an Instagram Live watch-party for Thor: Ragnarok (featuring special guests Tessa Thompson and Mark Ruffalo), the director revealed that the film has gone through five drafts so far and will feature the Starsharks, new armor for Miek, and more Korg (who will not be getting a love interest due to a lost love), but not the Silver Surfer (or the resurrection of Tony Stark). He also said Love and Thunder is so “over-the-top” that it makes Ragnarok “seem like a really run of the mill, very safe film.”
There’s no word yet on a release date, or if Blanchett will reprise her role as Hela. (If she managed to get her hands on Mjolnir, though…)
Watch the full clip here:
