Lord of the Rings actors Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan have paid an emotional tribute to Bernard Hill who died on Sunday aged 79.
Hill played King Theoden in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Speaking at Liverpool Comic Con, the four actors who played Hobbits in the Sir Peter Jackson films told the crowd they wanted to "honour him".
Hill had been scheduled to attend the same event, but had pulled out just hours before, telling organisers his partner was "very ill". He died shortly after.
"So we lost a member of our family this morning," Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee, said.
"Bernard passed, like King Theoden did. So we want to take a moment before we go off the stage to honour him. He was supposed to be here yesterday. We love him. He was intrepid, he was funny, he was gruff, he was irascible, he was beautiful."
"We were watching and talking about the movies and I said to Dom, I don't think anyone spoke Tolkien's words as great as Bernard did. The way he grounded those words, he would break my heart on screen. 'He was a wonderful man and he will be solely missed," Pippin actor Billy Boyd told the crowd.
Hill was known for his role in Lord of the Rings and also as the captain in James Cameron's Titanic.
But in the UK where he was born, Hill embodied a nation's frustration during the 1980s with his role as Yosser Hughes in TV drama Boys from the Blackstuff.
The five-part series from writer Alan Bleasdale centres on a group of men who are made redundant during Tory leader Margaret Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister.
Hill became famous for his line "gizza job" as his character was looking for work on the series.
Hill will be seen in one of his last roles on Sunday night (UK time) appearing in the second series of Martin Freeman-led police drama The Responder on the BBC.
