Ian McShane joins Snow White and the Huntsman as the chief dwarf

After all the crap Universal went through trying to secure someone to play the lead in Snow White and the Huntsman, it appears they'll have less trouble rounding up their dwarves. THR reports that Ian McShane(Deadwood, 44 Inch Chest) has joined the film as Caesar, the leader of the dwarves. McShane was most recently seen hamming it up as Blackbeard in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

The Rupert Sanders directed film is a retelling of the classic fairy tale, in which the evil queen(Charlize Theron) sends Eric the Huntsman(Chris Hemsworth) to track down and kill Snow White(Kristen Stewart). Instead he decides to take the girl under his wing and train her to fight back. Caesar is reportedly an enemy of the queen and a friend to Eric. I'll be curious to see if the other dwarven roles are filled by big names like McShane. With shooting set to begin in August we'll probably find out more names in the next few days.

If having a dwarf names Caesar is throwing you off, in this version all of the dwarves are named after Roman leaders. Yep, there's a Nero one. Unfortunately no Caligula dwarf, which might've been a little awkward.

Snow White and the Huntsman is set to open on June 1st 2012.