(Photo: Getty Images)

James Corden has revealed that he auditioned for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even got a couple of call-backs.

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the British actor-presenter-comedian told host Josh Horowitz that he was in the running to portray Samwise Gamgee, the heroic hobbit eventually played by Sean Astin.

Asked about how he felt the audition went, Corden replied:  "Not good. Every single person in London auditioned for Lord of the Rings. Everybody! I auditioned for Samwise and I was sort of, I was doing it, Josh! I was doing the accent and everything."

Clarifying how far into the casting process he lasted, Corden continued: “Two of my other friends went in. And then we all got called back the next day, and then we got called back the next day, and then none of us got called back after that."

Happily, Corden also said that missing out on Samwise didn't spoil the trilogy for him. "I very much enjoyed those [movies]," he added.

As fans will know, Corden's career really took off a few years after Lord of the Rings when he co-created and starred in the hit British sitcom Gavin & Stacey. His co-creator Ruth Jones recently said that the show isn't coming back, even though its most recent episode, a 2019 Christmas Special, ended on a major cliffhanger.

Can you imagine James Corden as Gamgee?