The cast of the Lord of the Rings paid tribute to their late costar, Bernard Hill, at the Liverpool Comic Con event over the weekend. Hill, who was 79 years old, passed away on Sunday.
Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Sean Astin, who played the four Hobbits in the fantasy franchise, spoke about the loss of a family member. Hill, who portrayed the ruler of a horsemen’s kingdom, had planned to attend the Comic Con event but canceled before his death.
Sean Astin, who played Sam, began by remembering their costar, as reported by BBC. “We lost a member of our family this morning, Bernard Hill, who played King Théoden,” Astin said. “So we want to take a moment before we walk off the stage to honor him.”
“We love him,” Astin added. “He was intrepid, he was funny, he was gruff, he was irascible, he was beautiful.”
Billy Boyd, who starred as Pippin, recalled watching the franchise alongside Monaghan and said Hill would be “sorely missed.” The trilogy drew inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels of the same name.
“I don’t think anyone spoke Tolkien’s words as great as Bernard did,” Boyd said at the Comic Con event. “The way he grounded those words in a realism.”
Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry, posted on Instagram on Sunday in Hill’s memory, writing in a caption “The Broken king has passed to the grey havens but he will always be remembered.”
Elijah Wood, who starred as Frodo, posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday, saying, “We will never forget you.”
“For he was a gentle heart and a great king and kept his oaths; and he rose out of the shadows to a last fair morning,” Wood wrote.
Over his seven-decade career, Hill was best known for his roles in Titanic and The Lord of the Rings. He earned his breakout role as Yosser Hughes in Boys From the Blackstuff (1982), for which he earned a Best Actor nomination at the BAFTA TV Awards.
The BAFTAs wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “We’re saddened to hear of the passing of Bernard Hill. Known for his work in TV and film, Bernard starred in Titanic and The Lord of the Rings. He was nominated for two BAFTAs for A Very Social Secretary and his breakout performance in Boys From The Blackstuff, which won the Drama Series BAFTA in 1983.”