Cate Blanchett had better start brushing up on her Elvish. The Australian actress has signed on to the cast of director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic The Hobbit, reprising the role of the ethereal elf Galadriel that she played in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The announcement of Blanchett’s casting comes as something of a surprise, since the character of Galadriel doesn’t actually appear in Tolkien’s novel. Then again, there are virtually no female characters in the book whatsoever, so Jackson is clearly looking to balance out the two-part film somewhat in terms of gender.