Willie Nelson’s Gandalf Audition Reel Is Priceless [Video]

Willie Nelson would make a good Gandalf understudy, should anything every happen to Sir Ian McKellen.

In a Team Coco Interweb Exclusive, Nelson is decked out in Middle Earth attire and angling for a spot in the next Hobbit film, due out next year. What part would he like to play? That of Gandalf the Grey, of course. Well, “Gondolf.”

“Hey, Peter Jackson. My name’s Willie Nelson, and I want to audition for the role of Gondolf [and?] the wizard in that upcoming movie you got going called The Hobbit,” Nelson nonchalantly says.

The clip then cuts to Nelson’s audition reel, in which he wears a t-shirt under a felt cape and a wide-brimmed wizard’s hat. He’s also brandishing something resembling a wizard’s staff.

In costume, beset against the American flag itself, Nelson recites typical “Gondolf” lines like “Hey look at that dragon!” and “You shall not pass … an un-lit joint, man. That’s just not cool.”

He wraps up with probably the best argument as to why anyone should cast Willie Nelson in a film, ever.

“So that’s it, Peter. You can hire me and fire that Ian McKellen guy. He’s a good actor, but, hell, I’m Willie Nelson.”

The bad news? The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in a new trilogy of Tolkien films, came out last year. In it, the role of Gandalf is already filled once again by Sir Ian McKellen. The good news? The clip is hilarious either way.

By the way, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug comes out on December 13 of this year while The Hobbit: There and Back Again comes out on December 17, 2013.

Check out Willie Nelson’s Gandalf audition reel below, via Team Coco:

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