Fans of The Lord of the Rings are only just realising a lead character had a completely different actor.

Viggo Mortensen may now be hailed as the face of Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkein trilogy, but another actor had been preparing for the role. They even showed up to set for the first day of filming, at which point they were fired.

The wild story of casting, hiring and flying the actor off to New Zealand to begin filming has been recalled by fans of the film who were left stunned the star made it so far into the casting process.

But re-casting the role opened up a whole new set of problems as Mortensen – who would later accept the role and portray one of the lead characters in The Lord of the Rings before being “fired”.

Other casting woes were shared by members of the movie-loving r/movies Reddit forum. One user wrote: “Vigo Mortensen as Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings.

“Stuart Townsend was cast, hired and flown out to New Zealand. on the first day of filming Jackson fired him. Then he reached out to Vigo, who only accepted after his young kid (like 10 or younger) begged him to.”

Another replied: “This is the standard answer to this question.” A third has since compared the casting of Mortensen to that of Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. The role was originally written with Eric Stoltz in mind, but the actor dropped out months into filming.

One user wrote: “I suppose it depends on your generation. Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future came to my mind immediately.”

Others have since praised Mortensen’s performance in the Lord of the Rings – with many relieved by the casting call.

One user wrote: “And then Viggo came in and absolutely nailed the sword fighting and already had a survivalist background that suited the ranger well. Viggo’s first day of filming was the sword fight with the Nazgul at weathertop and it looks like he’s been swinging a sword for years.”

Another shared quotes from director Peter Jackson, who said the last-minute change in the cast caused a disturbance with New Line Cinema. A fan wrote: “New Line Cinema took a big risk greenlighting three Lord of the Rings films at once. Jackson said the studio was rightfully breathing down his neck over the recasting.”

Jackson said: “New Line were understandably nervous, not because of Viggo but because this drama had happened. We didn’t have anybody and then we had Viggo. So we were under strict orders that the seconde the first day’s filming with Viggo was over, we had to dispatch the rushes to America.

“They were withholding the permission to decide whether we got the right guy or not. Luckily it was fire, wraiths, flames and it blew them away.”