he Lord of the Rings comes to life in full, living, majestic color in director Peter Jackson's sweeping adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's novels. The first installment of the trilogy—of which one film is due to be released each Christmas for the next three years—is The Fellowship of the Ring, and its accomplished ensemble cast agrees that this is one film whose achievement is rivaled only by the uniqueness of the experience itself.
Science Fiction Weekly speaks with four actors—Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Sean Bean and John Rhys-Davies—who tell in their own words what it was like to become one with The Lord of the Rings.
Elijah Wood, did you ever have moments where you'd get a sense of the magnitude of the project—and the impact that The Lord of the Rings trilogy might have on cinema—as you were filming in New Zealand?
Wood: It's in seeing some footage and being absolutely blown away, suddenly realizing that, my God, I'm working on Lord of the Rings. Or, in traveling up to the top of a mountain and filming some beautiful scene. There were always these kinds of moments that were bringing us back to keep us focused on what we were doing.
Were you at all concerned that, after doing a film like this, you might forever be known as Frodo?
Wood: Any negative impact? I don't know; it wasn't really something I thought about when I went to New Zealand. I was just so overwhelmed with the idea of taking this journey with these people. I didn't really think about what the repercussions could be later.
I don't think there are going to be any negative repercussions; I think it can only bring about good. It's three years of press, and of Lord of the Rings being everywhere. But now, I've got the freedom to do other things, which is my perspective—to do movies that are completely different that can come out in between and mix it up a little bit, so I'm not completely being known as Frodo for the next three years of my life.
Ian McKellen, did you read Tolkien's novels when they first came out some 50 years ago?
McKellen: I had the read The Hobbit, which started Tolkien off on this great adventure writing about Middle-earth. I didn't know about Lord of the Rings, though. Lord of the Rings didn't impinge upon me at all. I was aware of it, but I didn't at all know the impact it had on people to the extent like Christopher Lee, who reads the novels every year. They passed me by; I was too busy acting.
Have you since read the books?
McKellen: Oh, yes. They even became our bible. There was even a pocket in Gandalf's costume to carry it. I went through the book and underlined everything that was said about Gandalf, by Tolkien or by the other characters or by himself—and tried to incorporate as much of that as was appropriate. I got a lot of correspondence through my Web site from fans, and one of them said, "Would you make sure that Gandalf wears boots? I don't want to see him in any pointed shoes." They must have been referring to some illustration from one of the book illustrations. So I took that idea to the designer, and so Gandalf got to wear boots.
What made you decide to do all of these action roles?
McKellen: I see no distinction between a stand-up comic and the guy who plays Hamlet. Of late, I've been offered wonderful parts in movies, and I'm very pleased about it. Here I am, on Broadway in a 100-year-old Strindberg [Dance of Death] and I'm opening in The Lord of the Rings. But it's the same person. Acting is the same whatever the material is. What connects everything I do is that I only do good scripts.
How long did it take for you to understand the nuances of how to play Gandalf?
McKellen: Over three or four sessions in the mirror, gradually Gandalf came to life. Once I'd seen his image and believed it, I found it easy to walk like him, talk like him and even to think like him.
To what degree were you involved in the fight sequences with Christopher Lee's Saruman the White?
McKellen: Well, Christopher and I are of a certain age where we're a little bit worried as to how involved we were expected to be. And of course, we had very athletic doubles, stunt people, who helped us out. But when you see Gandalf spinning around on his shoulder, that actually was me. And just off camera there was a chiropractor waiting [laughs].
Sean Bean, without giving away what happens, can you comment on the transformation your character Boromir undergoes?
Bean: It was the only option open to him then. I think the guilt and the shame is so appallingly to him that the only way he can atone for that is to throw himself into battle.
Did you know the journey that Boromir would take?
Bean: Yes. I think he learns a hell of a lot during the course of the film. He's a much wiser man. He understands the complexities of Middle-earth and its different cultures much more clearly than when he first sets off from Gondor to Rivendell to plead his case. He seems to have found his spirituality, his soul. Even though he's been ripped apart, he's not going to let the ring defeat him.
Did you have much direction on how to portray Boromir?
Bean: No. I feel as though we were allowed to find the characters ourselves, and we were just guided now and then, led by [Peter Jackson]. It was like he was living the characters sometimes, though.
John Rhys-Davies, did you have a sense of the scale of Lord of the Rings while you were working on it?
Rhys-Davies: It does not remind me of any film I've seen before. I'll lay my shirt on the line—this is going to be bigger than Star Wars. And in 20 years' time, when you look back on your list of favorite films, Lord of the Rings is going to be in that selection.
What did you have to endure in order to transform into Gimli?
Rhys-Davies: It's all a synthetic face. It is actually flexible, but it is quite hard to work [to wear], if you know what I mean. I think we started out taking about six or seven hours putting it on, and got it down to about three and a half hours by the end. But then it would take an hour to take it off. A touchup—which you'd normally do just before a take and usually takes 25 seconds to a couple of minutes, tops—would be 20 minutes, 25 minutes sometimes, and you'd keep the entire unit waiting as my brilliant makeup artists did their work.
How would you characterize the experience of working with your castmates on this project?
Rhys-Davies: Lovely people to work with. Very gifted, young actors. Wonderful older actors. The whole experience is unique on the big scale of things: Unique in terms of its quality and intensity. And I have worked on a few big things, like War and Remembrance, Shogun and the Raiders of the Lost Ark films. So I have some idea of the scale of big pictures and big things, and this is just phenomenal.
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