Liv Tyler joins cast of 'Rings'

The Peter Jackson adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings trilogy has signed up its first female star.

American actress Liv Tyler, who starred in Armageddon, That Thing You Do and Stealing Beauty, and is the daughter of Aerosmith singer Steve Tyler, will play elf queen Arwen.

She joins a cast consisting so far of Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Ian Holm (Bilbo Bag-gins) Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Christopher Lee (Saruman) and British unknowns Stuart Townsend (Aragorn) and Billy Boyd (Pippin).

Tyler apparently signed on for the role after the film-makers agreed to allow her to leave the nine-month New Zealand shoot, which starts in October, to work on the next Robert Altman film, Dr T and the Women, for three weeks in Texas.