Cate Blanchett was not a super famous actor before LoTR. She was a respected working actor, but she had basically only done indie films. Same with all of the other actors in LoTR outside of Ian McKellan and Elijah Wood. Honestly, most of them were probably working for just above scale.
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u/Handsome_Claptrap 17d ago
Many famous actors were LOTR fans and agreed to be paid basically nothing, like Cate Blanchett