ew Zealand-born director Peter Jackson—who’s known for such co-writing and directing films such as 1994’s Heavenly Creatures and 1996’s horror-comedy The Frighteners—enters a posh New York hotel room prepared to be barraged with questions about the making of the first installment of his neo-classic epic, The Lord of the Rings.
Though he's ebullient even in the face of the stress and exhaustion of promoting his film, one can’t help but notice immediately that Jackson doesn’t conform to regular Hollywood style—like the Hobbits he directs in the film, he walks in barefoot, wearing his de rigueur work uniform of a T-shirt and baggy shorts.
That’s not all that’s atypical about this visionary director: Even Jackson agrees that he broke all the rules with The Lord of the Rings.
In what ways did you break all of the stereotypical rules of Hollywood in getting The Lord of the Rings made?
Jackson: Well, if you were entrusting $270 million to someone making three movies, you wouldn’t choose me. You would not choose a little New Zealand digital effects company to do your digital effects, either. And you wouldn’t choose Philippa Boyens, who’s one of our co-writers, to write the screenplay, because she’s never written a script before in her life [laughs]. I like the way that this project has, somehow, against all common sense, gotten itself made.
How did you get the project off the ground?
Jackson: Back in ‘95, after Heavenly Creatures, Miramax was looking to do another movie [with me]. And then [Miramax studio head] Harvey Weinstein pursued the rights [to LOTR] and we developed it with Harvey for a while. But Harvey only wanted to make one movie, because two is too expensive, too much of a risk. We were hoping to make two at that point, and we came to a parting of the ways.
Harvey then said he was going to hire somebody to do the single-film version, so we got him to agree to give us four weeks to try and get two films set up somewhere else. We had a meeting at New Line, after just about every other studio in town had passed, and Bob Shea said, "Why would you want to make two films when it’s three books?" That was the moment I realized that the project had a future.
How closely does the film adhere to the novels?
Jackson: In adapting the screenplay, we were very much aware that we had to make changes to the book. I mean, you have to—there’s no way to avoid it. And so, we have made many changes. In terms of the minutiae of the film, the film is very different [from] the books. We tried to keep the spirit of the story and the plot, but the details are different.
What was your source of inspiration for the artistic look of the film?
Jackson: We did feel very strongly that we wanted to be as accurate as we possibly could to Tolkien’s descriptions of Middle-earth; that no matter what liberties we took with the dialogue and the plot, we did want to give people the feeling that we’d gone to Middle-earth to shoot this film. We took the book as the bible, really, in terms of all the descriptions. And we also [worked with] Alan Lee and John Howe, two wonderful conceptual artists who’d had prior experiences with Tolkien.
Alan had illustrated a 1992 edition of the books with beautiful watercolor pictures that were a huge inspiration to us when we wrote the screenplay. And John Howe had done calendars and book covers. And those two gentlemen, in combination with Grant Major, our New Zealand production designer, did the very best job they could in really turning New Zealand into Middle-earth. We use lots of models, miniatures, matte paintings and CG, obviously, to enhance the landscape.
What was the hardest shot for you to capture on film?
Jackson: The hardest bits of the film to shoot physically were actually the scenes inside the Hobbit hall, inside Bilbo Baggins’ house. We made two scales of the set, two sizes, since Hobbits are 4 feet tall, and normal people are normal height. And so we had Ian Holm and Elijah Wood, who we had to make to look like they were 4 feet tall, and Ian McKellen, who we wanted to look like he was 6 feet tall. We did that in a variety of ways; but because they had so many scenes together inside that house in Bag End, we built [two] versions.
The one for Elijah and Ian Holm was exactly as if we were Hobbits: If we walked into it, the ceiling would be 7 feet, 8 feet high, but we’d be able to walk through the doorways, and it would be like this was our house. Then we had a set where all of Ian McKellen’s shots were done, and it was exactly the same set, but built on a much smaller scale. Everything on the set was duplicated to the smaller scale—all of the books on the bookshelf, the tables, the chairs and all of the furniture was hand-carved and duplicated at two-thirds the original size.
When we shot Ian McKellen’s scenes, the set was that much smaller, and he had to crouch through the doorways, whereas at the same doorways on the other set, Elijah Wood was able to just walk straight through. Those were the most difficult days, because we had a crew of 30 or 40 people inside this tiny little Hobbit hall, and everybody was banging their heads all the time, and the lights were heating it up and it was like being in a sauna. You don’t really know that when you see the movie, but we filmed in there for about a month.
Tell us about the search for the quintessential Frodo Baggins—a search that began with you auditioning actors in London, and ended when you viewed a homemade tape Elijah Wood sent to you.
Jackson: We didn’t have any idea who to cast as Frodo, and he’s a critical character—he’s the audience, in a sense. When I put the tape in, I just saw Frodo. It was honestly that instantaneous, and at that point in time, the casting for Frodo just came to an end, because I thought Elijah was fantastic. What is great about Elijah and why I think he works in the way that he needs to is that you can look into Elijah’s eyes and you can see through into his heart.
The first line of the script—"The world is changed"—has particular resonance today. Is that merely coincidence?
Jackson: Just completely coincidence. It’s one of those famous quotes from the book. We always felt that that was the way to start [the movie]. We see a line like "the world has changed," and we look at it in the context of today. But Tolkien had said in the interviews that he was born 100 years too late, because he felt aggrieved at the way the English countryside had been destroyed by the Industrial Age. Rather than be specific about the dialogue, I think it’s just one of genuinely timeless books where there is a relevance, truly timeless themes about friendship and courage and good and evil and industry destroying nature and all of the things—that sort of timeless.
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