he Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is not the usual second film in a trilogy. For one, the critically lauded feature has already lorded over its predecessor at the box office—generating over 33 percent more revenue during its opening weekend than did last year's The Fellowship of the Ring. For another, the story—as captured on film by director Peter Jackson and performed by the trilogy's international ensemble—is even more riveting than the first.
This time, we jump right into the action, and it never stops as our heroes move along three initially diverging, yet ultimately converging, paths in their epic quest. What follows are some thoughts from the actors.
Elijah Wood, Frodo Baggins
How much did you rely on the books to form your characterization of Frodo?
Wood: Well, surprisingly, I didn't use the books that much. I started reading them when I got there—and an interesting thing happened. Not a lot of the actors felt this way, because a lot of the actors used the books constantly. Everybody had their own perspective on how they were going to work, and how they would achieve their character.
For me, getting to the books and starting to read the books felt kind of redundant, because I was so involved in the world every day, and experiencing in real time the emotions that Frodo was going through, that then to consult the book and read the book, it was almost too much—especially since the book was actually much more dense than what we were actually trying to accomplish.
The world is talking about going to war, at the same time that this movie is talking about going to war. It's sort of remarkable that the release of this trilogy parallels what's going on in the world.
Wood: There's a real timeliness—or timelessness—quality to the books. They've always been relevant, since their release in the 1950s. They were also embraced during the 1960s during the Vietnam War, because of the pro-peace themes in the book. I think it will always be relevant. It happens to be a time in our history that we're having some incredibly difficult social and political situations that are affecting the entire world. But I think that if that weren't happening now, there would be something else that would seem relevant. Though I do think it's kind of strange, and we certainly didn't plan on it.
Do you think this film has more resonance as a parable to our modern-day travails than The Fellowship of the Ring did?
Wood: Oddly enough, I think this movie resonates even more than the first one did—particularly the speech that Sam gives in the end. There's always some good in this world, and that's worth fighting for—people will take that home with them. I think that's a beautiful message, and it's what this movie is about. This movie is about there being so much darkness descending on the world, and these characters feeling like they're at the end of their rope and ready to give up when there seems to be no hope—and it's that realization that no matter how dark things are, there's always good, there's always something worth fighting for; you're never at a complete loss. And that's beautiful; it should be applied to life in any kind of way. I'd rather not draw those comparisons to what's going on, because it takes away from the message.
What was the most difficult scene for you?
Wood: I always think that those moments where the Ring is starting to take hold have to manifest themselves physically and, more challenging, how is that done time and time again, and how does that progress, because it can't be the same thing every time. You have to see a progression. That's the real challenge in playing a character like this: You have to see Frodo's progression through the course of these movies, and how he descends.
John Rhys-Davies, Gimli and the voice of Treebeard
What were the physical demands of shooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy?
Rhys-Davies: Well, 14 months on Lord of the Rings is, of course, a very different experience. The only discomforting thing was that I developed a reaction to the prosthetics, so every time I put the makeup on, I'd lose all of the skin around my eyes. It was literally a skin peel, and my eyes would swell, and cracks would appear in my skin. You know you look bad when your then—girlfriend says, "Sweetheart, you look so awful, I think I have to go back to L.A." [Laughs boisterously.]
How did you end up doing the voice of Treebeard?
Rhys-Davies: P.J. just came up to me one day and said, "Phillipa, Fran and I, we just wondered whether you would want to do the voice of Treebeard as well." And, like a fool, I said yes. [Laughs.] I actually had more trouble finding Treebeard than I did Gimli. You read the book, and you see Gimli, and you know that's what you have to be. You can't play Treebeard the way it's written in the book. Treebeard, in the book, is the oldest living thing; he's also one of the slowest beings of the time. [In a booming, exaggeratedly elongated voice, Rhys-Davies demonstrates] Aaaaannnnnddddd nooooowwwww [beat] yooouuunnng [beat] hoooobbbbbiiiiiittttt.... [Laughs again.] It goes on like that—and reads wonderfully, but you can't do it [on film].
Sean Astin, Samwise Gamgee
What do you think about the relationship between Frodo and Sam?
Astin: I think it's a very powerful love bond between two men, where there's a distinct absence of eros, or sexuality. They can profess their love for one another, they can hold hands, they can embrace, but I don't think there's a sexual component—and to introduce one would distract from the ultimate power of the importance of the relationship as Tolkien originally envisioned it.
The first film is very much about Frodo and Sam forging their friendship. Now, Gollum is part of that equation as well. How did that affect the dynamic between Frodo and Sam in this film?
Astin: I think by the time Gollum was introduced, and we started really getting into the scenes with Gollum, we were ready for some adjustment; we were used to the Frodo and Sam trekking across Middle-earth shots. So it was the first time I really got to sink my teeth into dialogue, and emotional and intellectual complexity. Those were really fun scenes to rehearse and stage and shoot. There was more talking about the relationship with the three before shooting the scenes than there was talking in advance about shooting other scenes.
What was it like working with Elijah Wood?
Astin: He carries himself with such ease and sophistication that I, and I'm 10 years older than him, I really learned a lot from him. I genuinely learned a lot from watching him and his genuine confidence. He has a unique capacity for grace.
Your last scene was very moving.
Astin: That speech was written this summer, and we filmed it this summer. So it was written as an echo, or direct response, to current global political current events. The scene in the Osgiliath ruins was written as its own piece, and when it cuts away to the montage and there's a minute of dialogue that continues over the voiceover, that was written in September. I flew to Vancouver and recorded that. They were on the scoring stage in London when they came up with the idea of how to finally tie together all of the different narratives in that way.
Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, hobbits Merry and Pippin, respectively
You and Billy have a great chemistry onscreen and off. How did that work for you on the film?
Monaghan: Probably the best way that Billy and I work together is bouncing ideas off of each other and interacting on a fast conversational basis, and trying to make things flow and make them slick. The majority of the time I can second-guess what Billy's going to say, and once we start running with something, we know exactly where it's going to end up. So I can pick up the ball and give it to Billy, and then he'll give it to me, and it will just keep going.
For each of you, what was your pivotal scene in Two Towers?
Boyd: For me, the pivotal scene for Merry and Pippin is when Pippin says, "Why don't we go back to the Shire, there's nothing we can do." And Merry makes it clear to him that there wouldn't be a Shire if they don't succeed, that Saruman and Sauron will take over the whole of Middle-earth, and the Shire will be burnt to the ground. That's the moment when the penny drops for Pippin: He'd never thought of that. And I think Pippin ages about five years in that moment.
Monaghan: I think probably the scene where Merry appeals to Treebeard to do something, where he says to the Ents, "How can that be your decision, how can you walk away? This is the world you live in as well as us, and if you leave it, you'll be destroyed with the rest of us." You see the frustrated hero, a little bit, in Merry's eyes, and when Treebeard says they're not going to do [anything], like Billy's character, he just dies a little bit, because he's helpless and he's a hobbit, and he can't physically do it himself.
Andy Serkis, Gollum/Sméagol
Did you have any concerns, getting involved with a film that required such a huge time commitment, even though you wouldn't be seen onscreen?
Serkis: Once I met Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh in London, I was completely bowled over by their vision and their passion. I completely trust them. I felt it instantly, that this would be a great life experience. And everybody has; talk to anybody who's worked on the film, and they sense that as well. Peter is all about process, and trusting that process. I think Gollum does work; we were all scared, at first, with it being CG, because he's one of the most memorable characters, and a lot of people's favorite characters, so that was a big risk. But it was really a testament to Peter's understanding of process, and how we would all make it work.
How did you approach playing Gollum and Sméagol in those scenes where you go back and forth between the two?
Serkis: That schizophrenic scene—obviously we shot it from different angles, but I played it as a single scene, where I would jump between the two characters. That just became second nature, really. Sméagol has a lighter, more nasal sound than Gollum. Smeagol is almost like an abused child that's been crushed, that part of his personality has been beaten down by the survivor/predator/more vicious Gollum side—until he meets Frodo. Frodo brings that childlike side out again, and he sees that chink of light and soul.
Where did the voice come from?
Serkis: The voice came about by trying to locate where his pain is, really. Obviously, he's called Gollum because of the way he sounds; he was Sméagol, and then people called him Gollum because he started getting this thing in his throat. I wanted to find a physicalization of the psychology behind that constriction, and I figured it was kind of like Tourette's [Syndrome], sort of an involuntary muscle spasm that tightens up around him about the guilt he felt for killing his cousin Deagol and stealing the Ring, and then the Ring sort of infecting him. And then I thought of the animalistic side of him; we had cats at that time, and [I borrowed] the idea of how cats, when they get a furball in the back of their throats, they go into a sort of spasm thing. I thought this was good, since it was an involuntary spasm.
How did your body movements become the body movements of Gollum?
Serkis: Peter wanted an actor to drive Gollum; he wanted him to be psychologically, emotionally and physically driven by an actor. The process evolved over the last two and a half years, but it started off with shooting every single scene conventionally—I wore a skin-tight suit, and whereas the other guys wore costumes, and we were three actors working on scenes. Pete directed us, and we worked out the drama of each scene, the beats of each scene, and we shot it conventionally. The difference would be that we would shoot two versions: we'd shoot the version with me in, and then we'd shoot the version with me slipping out and doing the voice offscreen.
If Peter was happy with a particular performance I gave on-set, he would ask the animators to paint over, frame by frame, every single move. That was particularly useful for closeups or interactive stuff, like the fight scene, or where I grab Frodo's coat. The majority of stuff was done using motion capture, which I've been doing all this year. [The motion capture animations were then combined with the footage shot without Serkis in the scene.]
Also in this issue:
Ben Browder.
