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When Empire was interviewing actor Christopher Lee last week, they probably expected to hear about how he loved working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If they were really lucky, perhaps they hoped to get him to talk about his disgust at being cut out of Return of the King, something he was pretty vocal about before. However, what they got sounds like it could be far more exciting a prospect than that old news!

According to them, Lee still has a great love for the series, and would adore to return to his somewhat twisted character’s shoes in the upcoming Hobbit adaptation, if Guillermo Del Toro and Peter Jackson would have him. Indeed, it seems that he even has an idea of how his character would manage to slip into the storyline.

“I’ve read the books time and again … When it all started, Saruman was the noblest, the finest, the bravest … he was number one. But somewhere, somehow, and it was never actually explained, he turns and it’s probably the Palantír (the wizard’s crystal ball thingy) that makes Saruman realise that if Sauron can do this, why can’t I do it and Saruman wants to become The Lord Of The Rings himself.

Is it just me, or does that sound like it’d be a pretty good side storyline for the second part of The Hobbit? After all, the second movie is due to fill in the time line between the happenings of “The Hobbit”, and the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring, and Saruman is one of the murkiest characters going. As Lee says himself, he was once a pillar of good, even Gandalf looked to him for guidance, yet when we meet him he is twisted and lost to “the dark side”. The stories around Bilbo, Frodo and the other hobbits may form the bulk of the film, but surely space can be saved for a wizard with such a great opportunity for a character arc. If they bring back Gimli and Legolas, but don’t deal with Saruman, I’ll be writing a strongly worded letter. Del Toro and Jackson had better keep THAT in mind.

Sound Off: Hobbit fans, should Saruman make an appearance in one or both of the two films?