--- title: Chef Jamie Oliver Turned Down Hobbit Role description: British chef Jamie Oliver turned down the opportunity to appear as a hobbit in one of Peter Jackson's films due to a scheduling conflict. canonical: https://time.com/3648374/jamie-oliver-hobbit/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-29T13:46:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T03:09:27.805Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Chef Jamie Oliver Turned Down Hobbit Role og:description: British chef Jamie Oliver turned down the opportunity to appear as a hobbit in one of Peter Jackson's films due to a scheduling conflict. og:url: https://time.com/3648374/jamie-oliver-hobbit/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Chef Jamie Oliver Turned Down Hobbit Role twitter:description: British chef Jamie Oliver turned down the opportunity to appear as a hobbit in one of Peter Jackson's films due to a scheduling conflict. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Chef Jamie Oliver Turned Down Hobbit Role by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 29, 2014 1:46 PM UTC by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 29, 2014 1:46 PM UTC British chef Jamie Oliver turned down the opportunity to appear as a hobbit in one of Peter Jackson’s films due to a scheduling conflict. Oliver was offered the role in exchange for cooking the director’s 50th birthday dinner, [according to the BBC](http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30621767). The chef revealed the offer during his new show “Jamie And Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast”. Unfortunately Oliver was working and couldn’t fly out to New Zealand where most of the filming took place. _The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies_ was recently released in theaters. \[[_BBC_](http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30621767)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3648374/jamie-oliver-hobbit/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3648374/jamie-oliver-hobbit/"},"headline":"Chef Jamie Oliver Turned Down Hobbit Role","datePublished":"2014-12-29T13:46:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T03:09:27.805Z","description":"He was offered the role in return for cooking a birthday dinner","url":"https://time.com/3648374/jamie-oliver-hobbit/","keywords":["celebrities","Birthday","chef"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/celebrities/","name":"celebrities"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3648374/jamie-oliver-hobbit/","name":"Chef Jamie Oliver Turned Down Hobbit Role"}}]}] ```