Will Poulter Sets The Record Straight On Why He Departed From Amazon’s ‘Lord Of The Rings’ TV Series

Netflix’s Bandersnatch made waves for multiple reasons, including how it overwhelmed viewers with an alleged trillion permutations in a choose-your-own-adventure format. The fallout from the movie’s popularity also led star Will Poulter to quit social media (“in the interest of my mental health”), and some speculated that he wished to shut down online abuse regarding his “ugly” costuming to play a 1980s computer programmer.

Months later, Poulter unexpectedly departed from Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV show. Variety initially reported that “scheduling conflicts” were involved, which seems logical and straightforward enough, but of course, people speculated some more because the Internet’s gonna Internet. Well, Poulter spoke to NME after it was announced that he’s doing another interactive project (The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope), and he clarified that, yes, he really did have scheduling issues:

“Unfortunately, there’s no particularly interesting story, other than the fact that there was a last-minute change to the schedule, which meant that there was a clash for me and I was unable to do it.”

There you have it. Poulter didn’t leave an epic saga because of Twitter or because Amazon allegedly locked writers in a room to prevent spoilers. Poulter further told NME that he maintains the “utmost respect for everyone involved in that project,” and he can’t wait to watch the final product. Still, the NME piece did begin this quote: “I’ll always pick the option to run away and hide, to avoid confrontation.” Those words hold a completely different context, but the speculators might continue to read into that one.