James Corden reveals he auditioned for a role in Lord of the Rings (Picture: Getty)

James Corden has revealed that he auditioned for a part in the Lord of the Rings movie franchise before getting his big acting breakthrough.

The 44-year-old says he auditioned for the part of Samwise Gamgee, who was famously played by Sean Astin in the trilogy.

The Late Late Show host, who says the audition was ‘not good’, opened up on the experience as he spoke to Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast.

Josh asked: ‘Is it true that one of your first auditions was for Lord of the Rings? How’d that go, James?’

‘Not good,’ James replied. ‘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,’ he added before calling for Frodo is Samwise’s iconic accent.

James auditioned for the part of Samwise Gamgee (Picture: New Line Cinema)

The part was eventually given to Sean Astin (Picture: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

‘Two of my other friends went in,’ James continued. ‘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.’

Josh asked: ‘Are you able to watch the films to this day? Is there PTSD?’

‘No, I very much enjoyed those,’ James replied, heaping praise on the franchise.

But fans of the movies – which starred Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins and Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf – announced their relief that James didn’t land the role.

One wrote on Instagram: ‘Thank the film gods he never got cast. This would have spoiled it all!’

James says his audition was ‘not good’ (Picture: Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

A second added: ‘I’m glad he didn’t get it.’

While a third wrote: ‘I don’t even watch that trilogy and I’m still glad he never got casted.’

James has faced backlash in recent months after he was accused of ‘stealing’ jokes from other comedians – including Ricky Gervais.

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Ricky has since revealed that James was ‘horrified’ after telling an identical joke to one told by the After Life star in 2018.

When asked if James had contacted him over the mishap, Ricky told the Headliners podcast earlier this month: ‘He did. I said “Don’t worry about it”, I said “if your writers were in the back of the room when I was warming up and you got it out there before I did it on Netflix…”, but whatever you think of James Corden there is no way he knowingly ripped off my joke and thought he’d get away with it.’

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And fans are happy about it.