Haha, declined the offer to play the Hobbit in 'The Lord of the Rings'... gave it up to film Running Man

On the SBS variety show ″Running Man,″ Haha revealed that he was offered a role in the Hollywood movie ″The Lord of the Rings″ but declined due to the filming schedule of ″Running Man.″ In the episode aired on the 23rd, a ″Manager Kang″ race was held to present a gift to camera director Kang Chan-hee, who has been with the show since the first episode. On that day, the members participated in various games, including group missions and dart competitions. In the opening, Yoo Jae-suk brought up the story that Haha had been cast in a major Hollywood film. Haha hesitated before revealing that the project that reached out to him was ″The Lord of the Rings.″ When the members expressed surprise, Haha explained, ″I was one of twelve friends and received the offer as the representative of Asia.″ He added, ″I even completed the profile shoot and was asked to clear my schedule for about a month, but since the ’Running Man’ filming was scheduled first, I declined the role.″ When Ji Suk-jin asked if it was a project featuring the original ″The Lord of the Rings″ actors, Haha replied, ″They are all gathering.″ The members expressed regret, saying, ″Haha, why didn’t you do it?″ and Haha defended himself by saying, ″I was going to.″ Yoo Jae-suk and Ji Suk-jin joked, asking, ″Could it be a spin-off or another project?″ Instead of taking the opportunity to appear in ″The Lord of the Rings,″ Haha chose ″Running Man″ and personally spent 500,000 won to buy wild ginseng as a gift for director Kang Chan-hee. Director Kang received a director’s chair and the wild ginseng as gifts.