Bumps and Bruises

[Brinniel]

Whether it was embarrassing or just painful, the cast of LOTR have had their share of ouches.

This quote is from Sean Astin, who discusses his most embarrassing moment (and what I call painful).

I had so many embarrassing moments while filming the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. One of the worst is from the third movie. I was sitting in Rivendell, an elf paradise, and an 80-pound wooden prop fell and landed on my head. The crew raced over and picked the thing off my head and I came to. A lump started growing, and the wig that was glued to my head lifted up and started pulling off. I got a CAT scan and luckily, I had no brain damage. The neurologist said I had a very large head, though. I'm proud about that.

This next one is quoted from a magazine about Viggo Mortensen and consequences of surfing.

During production in New Zealand, many of the hobbits, led by Elijah Wood, became surf fanatics who spent their downtime riding waves. Mortensen joined them one weekend, but instead of hanging 10, he banged his head when his board flipped over and hit him. On Monday, Mortensen showed up to shoot the Mines of Moria scenes, but the right side of his face was badly swollen, with his eye shut like a punch-drunk boxer's. When makeup artists couldn't cover the bruising, Jackson was forced to shoot Mortensen only from his left side.

I have also heard that Orlando Bloom broke a rib falling off a horse during filming, and Sean Astin also punctured his foot stepping on a stick.

These actors went through a lot during the filming of LOTR, but I'm sure they didn't regret it once.

[Eruwen]

OMG!!! That is so funny! I know, it is really sad too. But it is somewhat funny. Where did you get that from?

[Raefindel]

Viggo also had a tooth knocked out during a sword fight and he super-glued it so he could finish the scene.

[Eruwen]

HAAAAAAAAA!!!! Oh, sorry. I am just getting a kick out all of these. That is hilarious! He superglued his TOOTH? Ha ha.

[Firondoiel]

Ouch!!! I knew Sean Astin stepped on a tree branch in the river but I didn't know about the set piece falling on his head. Yikes!!!!

[DarkRose]

Ouches! How rough! <P>I imagine that especially Viggo got his plethora of bumps and bruises, since he did not have a stunt double. I think its very admirable how he did all of the sword fighting, etc on his own. <P>I'll have to put on FOTR today to watch the Mines of Moria sectionb closely. I want to see if Aragorn is reall only shown from the left.

[VanimaEdhel]

Orlando Bloom's broken rib didn't surprise me: he is incredibly accident-prone after all (no offense if anyone love him/knows him/is him/thinks they are him/whatever)! He cracked his skull 3 times, broke his back, broke his leg, wrist, toe, finger, wrist, and ankle. And he's only 25! That's a broken bone every 2.5 years! I'm 15 and I've never broken any bones!<P>Originally: I was mad they had Orlando Bloom in a saddle when he was riding Arod, but then I realized: it was probably better for Mr. Bloom's sake that they give him a bit extra to hold on to, especially after he broke that rib (he fell on a rock, then the body double for Gimli fell on him: ouch!). I mean: I ride and I have no problem bareback or anything, but...if he'd never ridden...it could get difficult.

[Eruwen]

VanimaEdhel, do you know what scene that was? Hmm...what a very bad way to break a rib.

[Maikadilwen]

Actually Rae, Viggo <I>wanted</I> to use superglue so they could finish the scene, but they wouldn't let him. Off to the dentist with him...

[Rose Cotton]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Orlando Bloom's broken rib didn't surprise me: he is incredibly accident-prone after all <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Probably cause he likes bungee-jumping and sky diving, and extreme stuff like that.<P>Oh, poor Sean, having that set piece fall on him. I guess Rivendell wasn't very peacefull after that.

[Joy]

HEre are some memorés(sp?) of some to the cast and crew.<P>NOTE: I got these from another site. There were some cussing in them, but I hope that the filter catches it, if not, I am truly sorry. Let me know and I will fix it. They are just too long to edit right now.<P>THE BEGINNG:<P>Summoning descriptive powers worthy of Tolkien himself, director Peter Jackson takes a shot at describing each of his main The Lord of the Rings cast members in a word or two: <P>Ian McKellen (Gandalf). "Naughty" <P>Elijah Wood (Frodo). "Wonderful" <P>Sean Astin (Sam). "Joker" <P>Dominic Monaghan (Merry). "More naughty" <P>Billy Boyd (Pippin). "Even naughtier" <P>Ian Holm (Bilbo). "A pleasure" <P>Liv Tyler (Arwen). "Beautiful" <P>Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn). "Brave" <P>Cate Blanchett (Galadriel). "Serene" <P>Sean Bean (Boromir). "A gentleman" <P>John-Rhys Davies (Gimli). "An experience" <P>Christopher Lee (Saruman). "Great fun" <P>Orlando Bloom (Legolas). "Passionate"<P>memories of LOTR actors(funny and real) <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>Sean Bean and I made fun of the elves, and they made fun of us. They said we were dirty and smelly and less intelligent and graceful, all of which is probably true. We commented on their vanity: 'Well, when you are done with your nails, we are being attacked.' <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>We were doing this scene with 30 horses lined up. We had to shoot, like, five takes. We had to ride up over this mound and down into a gully; and then there were rocks and a sheer drop. Well, horses are pack animals, man. And when that many horses get going, they're really going. On the last take, the director said, 'Now imagine the Orcs [ogre-like monsters] coming up from behind.' So I had my bow up, but the horses just weren't going to stop. Gimli fell, he landed on top of me, and I landed on a rock. I cracked a rib and Vig cracked his tooth. <P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>I did Pete Jackson, Orlando, Elijah, Viggo, Billy, Ian McKellen. But the best one I did is Karin Shah, Elijah's size double. I impersonated his voice and called the producers pretending to be him, and Pete loved it. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>One night, me and Gimli stayed up all night. We'd been working till about 11pm, and we wanted to get the red dawn in the morning. So we stayed up. We brought our trailers around in a circle, like covered wagons, and lit a campfire in the middle, where we cooked sausages. And we stayed up the whole next day. <P>Billy Boyd<BR>I loved The Goonies, and The Ice Storm for Elijah. One time coming back to New Zealand from England, I was in a hotel and jet-lagged and forgot I'd asked Sean to get me a copy of Rudy because I never saw it. And I was in tears at 4 in the morning! I called him Rudy for months after that.<P>John Rhys-Davies<BR>That piece of yak tail had a life of its own each day. After six months of it, I developed what is gleefully described as topical eczema. I sort of looked like a panda. It was red, raw and also swelled up. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>That was an idea that we had early on, but a few of the fellowship members were reluctant to do it at first because they felt like, "What if this isn't a good thing? We don't know enough about how the production's gonna go now to determine whether getting a tattoo is a great decision." So we took a wait-and-see attitude. During the last month of filming, we brought the idea up again and everyone chimed and said, "This is something that we need to do." We actually had one of the guys from Weta [the special-effects shop] design various scripts in elvish. He gave us pages and pages of ways to write the number '9.' We finally decided on one. And then we all went to this one guy in Wellington, kind of an older guy, who has this parlor. He opened on a Sunday for us. And the fellowship entered and we stood by each other as we all got branded. I have mine just below the waist. <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>The crew was amazing. Some of them were still walking around with the Lord of the Rings books in their hands, even near the end of the shoot, when everyone was exhausted. Even on a regular-length shoot you don't often get a crew that's as into or and involved with the story, as the director, the cast and the writers. It made for good teamwork. People definitely had to supress their egos. They had to get over themselves a little bit. There really wasn't much room to be fussy on this project. <P>Sean Bean<BR>We spent about five weeks rehearsing the swordplay and getting used to the weapons. So, by the time we started, we all had our distinctive styles. Viggo and I had these big, heavy swords, real chopping blades. Occasionally, someone missed a move, and people got bruises and stuff. But if you imagine the amount of battle scenes that we were doing, there's always going to be somebody who gets a clunk. <P>Ian McKellen<BR>As Gandalf, the Gray Wizard, I had this fight with Saruman, the White Wizard. Christopher Lee, who plays Saruman, points his staff at me, and I twist around on my shoulder with my legs in the air, on the ground. That was me. I achieved that with my legs in the air and a magnet keeping my shoulder on the ground. But just off the view of the camera was a chiropractor, an osteopath and a masseur. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>Vig used to call me 'Elf boy', and I'd call him 'filthy human'. As an Elf, I never got a scratch on me, never got dirty. And Vig would come out with blood and sweat all over him. And he'd say to me, 'Oh, go manicure your nails.' <P>Peter Jackson<BR>It is late 1999 in Queenstown, New Zealand, two days after record rainfall caused the worst flooding in the history of the district. We have suffered some setbacks; the weather has stuffed the schedule. Two of the actors, Sean Bean and Orlando Bloom, have been caught between two landslides and are now trapped in a tiny town in the middle of the South Island. They have been taken in by a kindly woman who has offered them food and a bed. They were last reported to be cooking spaghetti and cracking into a bottle of red wine. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>Yeah! Every morning, I start with about two and a half hours of makeup, which means some very early mornings. We're usually picked up around 5 a.m. I come to the set, and I get into my feet, which takes about an hour. They actually are very comfortable, thank God, but it does take a while to put them on. Initially, that was so exciting. Got the feet, got the wig and the ears. And then it was like, Ooooo-kay...I could do without this in the morning! Then I put on my wig--it's the first time I've worn a wig in a film, so that's exciting--and the [prosthetic] ears, which fit on very well, so it's cool. You feel like a hobbit. We really transform in the morning, which is neat. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>I took a car trip down towards the South Island with Sean Bean. We were filming down there, but Sean's not into flying. And as we were driving, torrential rain started pouring down. You've never seen so much rain. I was videoing it and thinking, 'This is insane.' It didn't stop for, like, 12 hours. And after nine hours of heavy rain, the roads just started to wash away. Then we saw a massive landslide coming right towards us. We spun the car around, but we ran straight into another one, further up the road. So we pulled into this petrol station where there was already a queue of people. And we managed to find a little cottage, where they let us stay. They had to carry us out in a helicopter, in all this torrential rain, which was kind of hairy. Sean was gutted. He'd done this whole drive just to avoid the flight. <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>As difficult and exhausting as this project was for everyone, there was an element of play, like kids in a game. But I wasn't seven years old in my backyard with a wooden sword pretending I'm in a deep, misty forest with monsters coming at me. I was actually there. I was wet and tired, and there were a hundred guys coming at me full blast. If I didn't remember the choreography, I knew I was really going to get whacked. But I loved it. <P>Peter Jackson<BR>There is something inherently comic about spending all day in the company of people wearing false noses, flowing hair and ridiculously long beards. It was not uncommon to see as many as four Gandalfs in wizard regalia roaming around the studio at any one time; Gandalf stunt double, Gandalf stunt rider, Big Gandalf (a seven-foot-plus actor who was used to make our hobbits look three-and-a-half feet tall) and even -- on occasion -- Ian McKellen himself. This is not taking into account the Gandalf digital double, who took on tasks in the Mines of Moria that mere humans could not expect to survive. Ian was not the only actor to find himself with a virtual "other." All the main cast had their faces scanned and body movements captured by Weta Digital, our New Zealand-based special-effects company, which grew from a staff of 30 to more than 250 during the course of production. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>We referred to each other as "the hobbits". Within the first month, we were those characters,' Wood explains. 'We called ourselves the hobbits because we adopted the relationships that were important to those characters. We were always together. We were on set together, we went out for meals together, we loved being around each other. <P>Sean Astin<BR>This big beast comes up out of the water and grabs him by the leg and starts whipping him around in the air. But Elijah was just like a cat that couldn't get hurt. He'd fall down, and then he'd just pop right back up again. <P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>We all had such a great time together, and we wanted something to remember the experience. At first, we talked about a ring, and then we got on to the tattoo. It became a group project. We rang up this guy who had a tattoo parlor that was closed on Sunday--our only day off--so we convinced him to open up for us, and we had a real party, taking photos of each other and everything <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>It really became my home. It was amazing, like the most beautiful parts of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales all put together on one tiny island; mountains, plains, rolling fields and **** -loads of sheep. And when you're thrown together on such a project, you have no choice but to make friends for life.<P>Peter Jackson<BR>It became a sort of dark expectation that whenever we turned up on a new location the weather would turn bad -- and sure enough, the locals would announce: "Hasn't rained like this in 16 years!" <P>Elijah Wood<BR>The first day I put on the feet, it was amazing. People were gluing stuff to my feet, and they looked really cool. But that wore off so bloody fast. Once we started filming, I wanted to have nothing to do with them, because putting them on meant losing an hour and a half of sleep. I had the sweatiest feet of all the Hobbits, so the glue was constantly melting, and we had to reapply them. It was just a mess. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>They glued the Elf ears on, but they never got all the glue off. So, we would be picking glue out of our ears constantly. I went home to New York, and a week later, I still had all this sticky stuff. I was at a party, picking my ears and going, 'Ooh, sorry.' <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>One time, a cop stopped me in Wellington, because I was walking out of my apartment building with the sword, and I got in the car with it. I guess it would be an alarming sight to anyone at 5:00 am seeing me walking around with a sword. But, once I told the cop what it was for, he let me go. But, I did keep the sword with me all the time. I just felt that it was part of the job description. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>It was quite amusing to see the cast on a night off in Wellington. The Hobbits would be picking their feet, and the Elves would be picking their ears. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>I think we lived very Hobbit lifestyles. We were always going to the pub and having a bit of a drink and a meal. Hobbits love to eat, so Hobbits love to drink. We, in some ways, embodied the things that are Hobbity initially, and I think we just became more Hobbity as the project wore on. The Hobbits tended to spend their free time together, so the the closest friends that I had on the movie were Billy and Dom and Sean. And Orlando the Elf, who happened to join us as well, much to our dismay. No, he's a good guy. The Hobbits went to Australia...we went to Sydney and checked out the Star Wars set. The Elf joined us. We went on surfing trips a lot. It was a close union of boys. <P>Sean Bean<BR>Wherever we went, there would always be somebody's parents, because the young guys had their parents over. It was sort of a thriving sort of social life. We were all together, very much as a group, living very close to each other for a year and a half. I'll always remember it, because I made some great friends over there, and it's a great country. That's a great way to spend your life, isn't it? I mean, it was for me, and every day you'd be thinking, This is brilliant. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>I love them all, all my costars. We would hang out mostly in the hair-and-makeup trailer, and after work at dinner. We would eat all the time and drink wine and laugh. I was always like, 'Let's go get dinner!' We all lived in houses, some of us in apartments. Orlando and I lived right around the corner from where Peter lives on this beautiful bay, up on these cliffs, and we had just the sea in front of us. You wake up to rainbows and dolphins. So, we had each other and work and some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen<P>Billy Boyd<BR>The rain came through so you were walking around in puddles of cold water. I remember doing one night shoot when my feet have never felt so uncomfortable. I was almost in tears. It was quite a relief when they called a wrap. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>Peter had up to 10 units going at one time, it was ridiculous. You could have done a shot for the third movie in the morning and a shot for the first movie in the afternoon. Keeping on top of everything was like juggling balls, it was like a nightmare in terms of keeping it all in your head. And multiply that by a hundred for Peter <P>Sean Bean<BR>We all got together one night near the end of the shoot. We'd had a few drinks and decided we needed to get something to celebrate this, something so that the experience would live for ever in our memories. I was the last to get it. Orlando dragged me to get it done in New York recently. I think everyone thought I'd chicken out but I've completed the circle now. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>I had to train pretty extensively to get fluidity and the kind of grace and ease of movement that distinguishes an Elf. Training with the bow and arrow was a great way to find my character. I got pretty good. At the end, my archery instructor would throw a paper plate into the air, and I could nail it with an arrow. <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>We did one battle for the second movie that we shot over 3 months straight, at night. It was really a long haul and a lot of friendships were formed during that. The stunt team, I look at them all like my brothers and sisters. They were really incredible. Really remarkable what they put themselves through. I couldn't imagine a European or an American stunt team having the kind of spirit that those guys did. I've never seen anything like what they did. And that does form an important part of all 3 movies, especially the second and third one. We had to really be in synch and really trust each other. <P>Miranda Rivers (casting director)<BR>What was most interesting for me was that each character started to take on personality traits. People who were cast as hobbits were chatterboxes. You put 100 people who you've cast as hobbits together and getting them to be quiet is a major feat. You put a bunch of elves together and you find no one's eating and there's a lot of whinging [complaining] and there's a lot of hair and makeup required. It became a running joke with us. The people who played Uruk-hai, which are the mean 6-foot fighting machines—they actually had this rivalry on set with the elves. They'd call them cupcakes. Because I can guarantee you, if you put the Uruk-hai out there, they'll last all night with no complaining. You put the elves out there and within a couple of hours they'll be going, "I'm too tired! And I need more makeup!" Hobbits were cast by large round eyes and big rosy cheeks. Our favorite adjective became roundy. "Are they roundy?" Round tummies, round cheeks, round eyes.<P>Orlando Bloom<BR>One day, I did the highest bungeejump in New Zealand. Five times in the space of half an hour! I knew the producers wouldn''t be too pleased about it so I only told them afterwards." <P>Elijah Wood<BR>We had six weeks of prep before the film, so we really got very close very quickly, which is just wonderful. And I've made friends for life, truly beautiful people, and they're perfectly cast. The first month, we were just doing Hobbit material, so it kinda felt like the Hobbit movie for a while! We were the four Hobbits, always together. But now they're breaking us up, and we're doing different parts of the film, so it's a bit weird, you know, because we spent so much time together initially. <P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>We're brothers, you know, I was thinking about this a few days ago. I was having a shave and I was thinking about the boys. I'm kind of a believer in reincarnation and that stuff, and I feel i cannot have made these friendships by chance. I feel we've met each other before and it was our destiny to come together, like it's destiny of the characters to come together. I have a brother, and these guys are close to me as any brother could be. We laughed and we cried and we went through hell together. But, we also had some incredibly fun times. Hobbits are very positive people, and that's how we behaved on set. We tried to bring people up and make them feel good, because that's what hobbits are like. It was an incredible experience. It just changed all of us. It was like being in The Beatles, you know. <P>Sean Bean<BR>We spent a whole year of our lives together. We learned to socialise and accept other people from different backgrounds, as we do in the Fellowship in the film. We all used to go out together, and then the hobbits would break off and play pool. If I wasn't hanging out with all the guys in the Fellowship, I'd hang out with Viggo Mortensen. You could say he was my best friend on the film. <P>Miranda Rivers<BR>I think the logistics of trying to shoot with so many [camera] crews. Also New Zealand's weather is really up and down. We had all kinds of extremes. I remember one day we were in Queenstown and we were sunburned from the day before because it had been sunny and we'd all been in hats and sunscreen. And then the next day it started snowing. We were sunburned and it was snowing! <P>Sean Astin<BR>I had so many embarrassing moments while filming the Lord of the Rings trilogy. One of the worst is from the third movie. I was sitting in Rivendell, an elf paradise, and an 80-pound wooden prop fell and landed on my head. The crew raced over and picked the thing off my head and I came to. A lump started growing, and the wig that was glued to my head lifted up and started pulling off. I got a CAT scan and luckily, I had no brain damage. The neurologist said I had a very large brain, though. I'm proud about that. <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>The honest truth is that I would have regretted not doing it. I had to decide immediately and get on the plane, and I knew that I would regret it if I hadn't done it. But what I didn't count on was how strong the bond would be with the cast and crew. Everybody was really wonderful. It's a lasting thing. That was an unexpected gift. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>Women go nuts over Viggo, but he's the kind of guy who never looks at himself. On the set, we each had a station with a big mirror. His was covered by pictures of his son and a photo collage of the crew. There wasn't one little speck left for him to look.<P>Elijah Wood<BR>I hadn't met Sean before. I met him about four or five days before I flew to New Zealand for the first time. He was getting his wig fitted, as I needed to get mine fitted. I went to this hotel, and we kind of crossed paths in the lobby. Obviously we both knew who [the] other was. And we kind of stopped and looked at each other, and we just ran and gave each other a massive hug—and that was the first time I ever met him. It was this instant connection because we knew what we were about to embark on together. <P>Miranda Rivers<BR>You used the New Zealand army at some points? Yes. We used them for a whole lot of battle scenes. The army are another kettle of fish altogether because they are trained to kill. They were trying to kill each other with our fake rubber props. But you ask those guys to march, and they know how to march. By the end, we were just these casting machines. It also became a gag for us. We had no personal lives anymore. We would walk down the street, and people were not people, they were types: I'd be going, 'Hobbit!' 'Elf!' 'Uruk-hai!' 'Rohan!' I got a lot of elves off the street <P>Sean Bean<BR>Lord of the Rings was just so much enjoyment. It was over about the space of a year that I was filming. It's one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done...so emotional. Peter Jackson is an incredible director. He's very on top of things and thoroughly researched...and he knew exactly what he wanted and what was happening at any particular time on any set. He had a little bicycle so that he could peddle to the next set.... <P>Liv Tyler<BR>One of my most vivid memories is doing this horse chase in the beginning of film one. The Black Riders are chasing me—I think it's in the trailer. I was shooting a lot of stuff without anybody else there [just a blue screen so the special effects could be put in later]. I was so embarrassed, and I was having such a hard time imagining everything, and I was all crumbling inside. And when I was finished I went over to another stage and the boys were all doing something even more embarrassing [laughs]. There was some kind of explosion and they were all jumping. It put me at ease. It helped me get over myself and not be so uptight. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>Oh, I love it! It's just so beautiful, so laidback and relaxed. People are so friendly. They don't have any airs about them. There's a bit of a bohemian lifestyle in Wellington that I really dug.The locals became very used to us and brought us right into their culture. They loved us. It was great -- we had our local haunts where we went to all the time. People probably assume that the locals were bothering us all the time, but not at all. Initially they may have been in awe, but the novelty wore off. Eventually they were just like, "Oh, Lord of the Rings? Cool. How's it going?" <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>I was very sad to leave. In fact, I stayed on a little while afterward. I can't imagine that I would ever grow tired of the place or the people. I don't know. I can't describe it. And no matter where we were or how [difficult the shooting schedule was] we had a sense that we were all on an epic journey. That was palpable on a daily basis. You don't get that feeling very often on a movie set—and you certainly don't get it every day for a year and a half. <P>Sean Bean<BR>I'm not a very good flier, though I'm getting better. It's the turbulence which really gets me. Orlando andI decided to drive and take the ferry instead. The only problem was Orlando's propensity for shopping. He had to stop at every shop to get Christmas presents. It was pouring with rain, so I was saying: 'Look, we've got to get going or there's going to be a landslide'. And sure enough, there was. We turned back to find another one so we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. They sent a chopper to airlift us out - even worse than a Dakota! It was still raining and we were flying through mountain passes and the windscreen wipers were going like mad. I said: 'Can't you just drop us there in that field?', but they wouldn't. I was gripping Orlando's kneecap so hard I must have nearly broken it. He was saying: 'It's OK' but he still takes the **** out of me for that.<P>Sean Astin<BR>When I agreed to do fifteen months making LOTR, I don't think I really understood what an awesome commitment of time it was. While we were making the movie, I read 40 books and Elijah Wood and I probably played 4000 hours of Sony Playstation. It was two birthdays for my daughter. The only way to describe the experience is how close people become, I imagine, when they're in the military overseas together -- that's how it felt for us. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>When I arrived, the boys had all been there for a month so it was weird. Well, it wasn't weird, but they had already established this really intense bond and I was immediately invited into that and treated with extra nice boy treatment. But you know, just by the nature of who their characters are, all being part of the fellowship, it was important that they all had that bond together. <P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>Well we're just brothers you know. I have one real brother, but I have nine people who I would call my brothers. We spent about 15 hours a day seven days a week with each other. We fought and we laughed and we cried we went through every single level of emotion. You are doing things that we will never do with anyone ever again. We flew into storms in planes and having to land in airports at three in the morning and going up in helicopters, flying over whales and dolphins, and bungee jumping and surfing. It was life experiences. We all just became very close and relied on each other for support. It's strange because if you imagined that you were working with these people six days a week you would have thought that on your one day off you would say I'll see you tomorrow, go home and watch movies, but we wouldn't. We'd all go for breakfast together we would all go out. Even since finishing - it's been a year - I speak to one of the guys at least every other day. I know where they all are and where they are working so that in itself was a reason to do the movie. <P>Sean Bean<BR>"We were travelling down by road from the top of the south island, from Wellington to Queenstown, and it's about a 10 hour journey, and it just happened that we had a lot of water...a lot of rainfall...and the road we were on was only a two lane road, and banks collapsed behind us and in front of us...and we were sort of stuck in this little place for a couple of days...me and Orlando Bloom.... We were on the phone a lot...wondering when a helicopter was going to come and take us out." <P>Viggo Mortensen <BR>I mean, occasionally we had some days off. But toward the end of filming, it was six days a week and rarely less than 14 hours a day—for me, anyway. There was one gigantic battle sequence that some of us worked on all night every night for three months straight, which is insane. It was dark and wet. That was a real tough one for the cast and crew and it forged strong friendships. People made an effort to enjoy themselves and spend time with each other because we became part of each other’s lives one way or another. On a shoot that long, people get together, people come apart, marriages falter, people get ill, people get pregnant, people get injured. It’s just like a giant traveling circus. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>It was amazing. And it was so much more amazing than it was difficult. But the truth of the matter is that it was one of the most difficult experiences of anyone’s life. I’ve never felt so tired in my life, and the things that were asked of us—physically, mentally, emotionally, constantly—were really extreme. But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter because we were so passionate about what we were a part of. <P>Ian McKellen<BR>Pete wears the shorts! And he only owns two shirts. They're both pink. You can never be certain which one he's got on. But there's a lot of energy under there and willpower and ambition. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>We never knew. About a month into the production, it became very obvious that we could not rely on the schedule. It was constantly changing. I've never seen a schedule change so much. Weather was a huge factor. Sometimes actors weren't available yet because they were coming from overseas. The script was constantly changing—and that's a positive thing. Normally when people mention that a script had to be rewritten constantly I think people tend to assume that that's a negative, or that something was wrong. And that wasn't the case with this film. It was just trying to find the right balance with Tolkien and a filmic kind of perspective—trying to include as much Tolkien as possible without making it too obscure.<P>Ian McKellen<BR>If I had been familiar with some of those movies I think I might have been less keen to join the band. But I think that making "Lord of the Rings" was an act of faith for a lot of people. The minute I got there I knew it was going to be all right. Ian Holm [who plays Bilbo Baggins] arrived he said, "What's it like? Is it going to be all right?" And I said, "You won't want to leave." And a month later he said, "I don't want to leave! I want to stay!" <P>Liv Tyler<BR>Peter never seem stressed making three movies at once which I found amazing because we were all stressed out and he wasn't. He was very calm and very in love with what he was doing. Very dedicated and completely committed ... I was floored, too, by the fact that we weren't ever bothered by the studio. There was so much space given and I suppose that Peter demanded that. I've worked on films before where I've watched the directors get really bombarded by producers and studios and it really stifles your ability to make the film that you want, and it's very imposing and it's sad to watch. That did not happen on this in any way. They gave Peter a lot of freedom. <P>Miranda Rivers<BR>You have no idea what I've seen. People knew they had a very short time to impress, so I had the guy in the green tights playing the bag pipes. I had the man with the scroll talking to me only in elfish when I only wanted to know his name. I had the guy who sat at the piano playing me all this music and wouldn't leave. I had the gothic with the black hair and the full body piercing trying to be just involved somehow. I said, "Would you be willing to take out your piercing?" And they took offense at that. They wanted to know, "Why?! What's wrong with it? Why can't I be who I am?!" I'm like, "This is Middle-earth." I saw all types<P>Sean Bean<BR>The 42-year-old Brit met director Peter Jackson for the first time in a hotel in London. "The room was incredibly small, and I was reading a scene from the script where I try to steal the ring from Frodo. And I sat there in the chair in the hotel room and tried to enact the role, but it was such a physical scene and hard to do in there... so when I later left the room I felt like '**** , I could have done that a lot better'. But I obviously did something right, since I got the part." <P>Elijah Wood<BR>We were all like little dealmakers. We were constantly walking around trying to figure out if they we’re going to show the feet or not. Most of the time we knew—we knew—they weren’t going to use them, and they would not admit it because they wanted to cover their *** . So constantly we’d come to them and say, “Look, they’re not going to be seen so can you just say they’re not going to be seen, so we can have an extra hour of sleep tomorrow?” And they’re like, “No, Peter doesn’t know what he’s gonna see in the shot.” Nine times out of 10 they wouldn’t agree with us, and we’d have to suck it up and put our feet on—and we would be right. <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>We had long battle sequences, I got a tooth knocked out, broken toes, and lots of cuts and sprains and pulled muscles. Everybody had something. When my tooth got knocked out, it was lunch time, so I went to the dentist, came back and we continued the scene after lunch. The action was pretty intense. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>I think that a lot of that was the friendships that we made with each other and the fact that we all needed each other. It was vital that we all had each other to survive and to be able to laugh. Everybody had a really good sense of humor, thank God. We'd be constantly making jokes and decorating the trailer with ridiculous things and being rude and that was our sort of little bubble of escape in our makeup trailer. <P>Sean Bean<BR>They sucked so much power out of you, physically as well as mentally. Mostly physically. We fought with snow and ice cold water in the winter, and heat in the summer, always wearing heavy equiptment, carrying sword and shield during long battle scenes. You fed off the adrenaline. <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>We'd have Sunday afternoon to do laundry and have a beer, and then before you knew it you were back on the battlefield. <P>Barry Osbourne<BR>He's incredibly dedicated. He's the kind of actor who one day had his tooth knocked out by a sword and actually asked if they could superglue it back on so he could finish the scene. He became Aragorn. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>I’ve never seen anybody in my whole life work as hard as Viggo Mortensen. The guy did not complain once. He never got a massage. He never took a day off. He just worked every second. Even on the days off, he’d go horseback riding or do something that was related. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>That was kind of weird. You have a Frodo running around with a mask on, but early on, they had faces that didn't move. So, it was just Frodo with this blank look, and I was like, 'Oh man!' I remember that we were on top of [a] mountain, and they had a box of the faces. I opened the box and there were these hobbit faces just looking up at me, sort of dead. It was bizarre. <P>Miranda Rivers<BR>The stress was huge. It was absolutely huge. Especially when you’re doing night shoots and they completely change what kind of characters are due and you’ve got all these people lined up and you’ve got six hours to find another hundred people ... We had a huge filing systems of people who were interested. We had A-list people who we’d ring first off and then B-list and then C-list and D-list and E-list—and by then it was like, “So, have you got a cousin? Have you got a friend? Have you got anyone?” By the end, we had a sign on the door that I liked: IF YOU’RE BREATHING, YOU’RE BOOKED. I don’t know how we did it, but we always pulled it off.<P>Orlando Bloom, in his first major movie role, said there was a friendly off-the-set rivalry between the younger stars and American actor Mortensen. They would play practical jokes on each other. Mortensen, who plays the human Aragorn, got his son to cover Bloom's trailer in duct tape. In revenge, rotten fish "and a pile of fake **** " were left in Mortensen's trailer, Bloom said. <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>Pete counted on all the actors and the crew really bringing as much as they could to it. Rather than being somebody who was nervous over the budget and was like, 'Just do it. Just stand here,' Pete didn't do that. He was always looking for detail. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>"I bow down to Viggo. He came in and saved the day. A lot of things would happen on this film where a certain amount of trouble would arise, and then something would come along where it would not only solve it, but would seem like fate, like it was meant to be. And Viggo was one of those cases. …Someone just mentioned his name, they called him, he came and it was perfect. He was meant to play Aragorn, he is Aragorn." <P>Viggo Mortensen<BR>It was tough. All of a sudden somebosy was over in the corner crying. Somebody [else] would go over and put their arm around them or take them for a walk. There was interaction between cast and crew. It was a complete team. It was, in a sense, a fellowship of thousands of people who traveled from place to place. I didn't always feel safe, in the sense that you'd just be diving into a scene where you're thinking, 'I don't know how we're going to pull this off right now. Here come the clouds. We get one crack at it.' At the end of the day, though, I always felt that there was a certain safety in the family we were a part of, in isolation from the rest of the world. I thought it was good that we shot, not in Europe, not in North America, but in this place that was different. <P>Sean Bean<BR>We were shooting a lot at night, and the scene where we fight the serpent in the water, that was really hard. That was tough because it was really cold in New Zealand at the time - it was winter and the water wasn't heated and we were in our costumes for a night shoot that went 12 or 14 hours. That was tough. That was really tough. I thought I was going to be required the following evening and I was like 'Oh God, I've got to do it again in that f**king cold.' But then I got a call saying, 'Hey Sean, it looks like we might not need you tonight. We're going to do this digitally. 'I thought, 'Oh, that's great.' But I think just the sheer excitement and thrill of being involved in such a thing just carried you through the days when you're tired. It's only afterwards, when I was finished and had gone home to England, that it just hit me and I felt exhausted. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>It was good, but hard. I brought my girlfriend with me to be my assistant, so I spent a lot of time at home with her, hanging out when I couldn't take the boys anymore. Orlando Bloom lived next door and he took me around because I was afraid to drive on the left-hand side of the road. We all had houses. It was great. We really got to know each other. Our makeup trailer became the center of things. It was given a really bad name that I cannot repeat. There were pranks, most of them also too dirty to tell. <P>Sean Bean<BR>I left the set three months before the others, which felt strange. I wanted to be with them in the fantasy world, not stuck in traffic in England. It was quite an anticlimax.<P>Peter Jackson told the story of how Bloom and some of the hobbit actors had lured non-surfer Viggo Mortensen into action. Mortensen had shown up for work ready for shooting in the mines of Moria with "a huge swollen face, his right eye closed like a boxer", after a knock from his surf board. "For the scene we had to always shoot from the left-hand side," Jackson said. "We had no choice." <P>Elijah Wood<BR>Obviously, they were injuries here and there. We were constantly getting cuts. But Sean Astin had multiple stitches in his foot after a branch got stuck in it. Viggo went surfing with us once and the surf board hit him in the face, so the next day he went to Peter with this big black eye. He also got his tooth knocked out as well. <P>Orlando Bloom, who makes his feature film debut as the elf Legolas, was a victim of an all-out assault. "They broke into his hotel room in the middle of the night," Monaghan chuckled. "They carried him downstairs. Billy and I sat on Orlando's knees and Sean Bean pulled his arms back. Viggo pulled up Orlando's shirt and slapped the hell out of his belly. "He was nearly crying, the poor baby." Bloom interjected: "It's all very affectionate. We were all in it together. "If we got bored, tired or grumpy somebody would slap you around the head and say "get a grip'." <P>During the New Zealand-based production, a group of wax-head hobbits, led by Elijah Wood, became surf fanatics who spent their downtime shooting the curl off the rugged coastline. Mortensen, who plays the sword-wielding Aragorn, joined them one weekend—but instead of clocking time in the green room he wound up banging his head after his board flipped up and hit him in the face. The following Monday, Mortensen showed up to shoot the Mines of Moria scenes with the right side of his face badly swollen and his right eye shut like a punch-drunk boxer's. When make-up artists couldn't cover the bruising, Jackson was forced to shoot Mortensen only from his left side. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>I lived in Willington. We all had our own places. I had my own house. Dom (Dominic Monaghan) had an apartment. Viggo, (Mortensen) I think end up having a house. Billy (Boyo) had one of my favorites because he lived in town just up a hill that overlooked the town. It had an amazing view of the city. Orlando (Bloom) had a place right on the ocean. <P>Liv Tyler<BR>Recreating scenes in a sound stage, it wasn't so easy. I had to reproduce the same emotions and expressions as on a set. Creating and imagining the scenario in my head with the river, the sound of the water, the forest, was quite challenging. There were no real set built around me. <P>Peter Jackson<BR>I think everybody, when they read a book they really like, imagines the perfect cast for the film. We got to do that for real. It fell into two categories, really. There were the actors we imagined from the very beginning--Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Sean Bean. Then there's the roles where we wanted an unknown and found someone like Orlando Bloom, who plays Legolas. And then there's someone like Elijah Wood. We thought Frodo would be an unknown English actor. But he sent us an audition tape where he dressed up in this really cheesy hobbit costume and hired a dialect coach for the accent. When I saw the tape, I knew instantaneously I had found Frodo. <P><BR>Dominic Monaghan<BR>I won't miss having to stand for two hours at 4:30 a.m. and having freezing cold glue applied to my feet. I won't miss two-hour drives to work or long, long, long, days sitting in my trailer waiting... waiting... waiting. I won't miss glue in my ears. But I would do it all again tomorrow. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>The fellowship became a reality. We made some of the best friends of our lives. We went through ups and downs together as a single unit. I learned how to surf -- we all learned how to surf. We took vacations together. It was so special and profound.<P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>Queenstown's flooded, which means that the river scenes may never be shot. Viggo rang this morning and asked if I wanted to go fishing. I said, "Why don't you just throw your rod out the window?". The water is about three feet high outside the reception area. Drove to Arrowtown with Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood and played cops and robbers in the forest. Also, Billy Boyd and I went round to six vineyards in a day. Not a good idea. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>Orlando was shooting a tricky scene where he had another actor on the back of his horse with him and they were riding down a gully. "He was holding on to me for dear life and I could feel the weight of him on my back," recalls Orlando. "I kept saying, 'Lean back, lean back,' because he was pushing me right forward and the horse as well. On the fifth time, the horse was over-excited and I was tired and couldn't pull up. We just bailed off the side and landed on a rock. He landed on top of me and I broke my rib. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>It was very difficult. You know, we'd been working on the film for so long that in some ways, it seemed like it would never end. It was our life. The idea of it ending was very strange to everyone. And it ended very abruptly. We filmed in a very intense way for, like, a month before we were done, and then, you know, there was the last day of filming. We finished the movie. We had our wrap party that night, and then everyone flew home the next day. So in some ways we didn't have enough time to fully react to the fact that we'd finished. So it was hard. It was really hard. I think that we all, in the back of our minds, knew that we'd be back, that we'd be coming back to New Zealand, and we'd see each other again, but there was this horrible sense that the journey had ended. It actually came at a good time. We finished the movie, we left each other, and we all went home for Christmas. So we kind of went from an intensely difficult, sad situation to the comfort of family and friends during Christmastime, but it was hard. It was very difficult, and kind of a shock to everyone. <P>Sean Astin<BR>It was between me, who had just run the L.A. Marathon at a trim 160 pounds, and a heavy set actor in England whom they also liked for the part. So I convinced them I was capable of transforming into a bigger version of the myself. I committed to it and I did it. But I must say that the hardest part of being involved with the trilogy was putting that weight on, and living with this extra blubber for a year and a half. I became this big, bulky, stocky, heavyset guy, and it was hard. It was hard on my back, my knees, and my heart, I'm sure. I got back to about 168 by the time we went to Cannes, and then I've crept back up to 180. It's a hard thing on the human body to vacillate with weight. It's really unhealthy. I'm trying now to design a lifestyle that will have me at a good weight that I can sustain over the long haul. But I became Sam! <P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>I kept a diary and there are so many moments. I remember one day when I was in the hotel and I got a call saying, 'Mr Monaghan, your helicopter is here to pick you up.' That was quite nice. We tried to get in a helicopter to fly to another set, but it was so windy that the pilot had to meet us at the bottom of the hill. Got back, did block-through for a scene, but the weather closed in and we wrapped for the day. Went home and tried to make a cake, but the oven broke so I ate raw cake mix, watched TV, felt sick and went to Billy's. Victoria Sullivan from production came round. We drank wine and laughed at my cake-making skills. <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>I felt that we needed to do something outside the movie just to keep us all sane. So I was like, 'Let's get motorbikes!' and the guys were like no, they weren't into that. Eventually I said, 'Let's buy surf boards.' I hadn't surfed before. We just walked to the beach with these brand new, sparkling boards and in our new little wetsuits. The other surfers were looking at us like we were idiots. And the water was freezing. But we ended up being quite good at it. <P>Sean Astin<BR>Life imitated art, completely. I ended up taking on the role of Elijah's protector - even though he didn't really need it! I kept wanting to take him under my wing, and he kept dragging me into different adventures. He's an amazing young man. He's genuinely filled with energy. I'm 10 years older than he is, and I had a lot of energy when I was his age, but he's like a cat. He's undaunted. They would tie him up and whip him around off these cherrypickers, and he was just game. He would go for it. And I was this Nervous Nelly of an old granny. I was like, "Is that safe? Have you gotten something to eat?" I was like the grandma - or the big brother is really how it felt. We became very, very close. It's hard to put into words. I don't see him as a friend or a colleague. I see him as a brother. We did everything - bungee jumping, surfing, motorcycle riding, we did it all. Sightseeing, taking in the America's Cup regatta - we were the Fellowship around town in New Zealand.<P>Christopher Lee<BR>I was making this television film for the BBC, I knew they were going to make the Lord of the Rings, I knew Peter Jackson's work because I had seen some of it, and then I got this message saying will I go and meet him, in a church, in the back of a church, and would I mind being videotaped reading a scene. And I did. I went like this except I didn't have a beard. And I went from the studios to this church, which was in Tottenham Court Road, and Peter Jackson was there with his wife Fran and with the two casting people. And he said 'A lot of people have refused to come here and do this; they won't be videotaped for a film here. They want an offer then they'll come and read. So I am very grateful for you coming but may I ask why you came?' And I said 'Because I want to be in the film.' I mean I know the books backwards, I read them every year. And I proved him so, he started asking me questions about the books and I answered all of them. And then he said 'Would you mind reading this?' And it was a scene between Gandalf and I think Frodo. It was either Frodo or Bilbo, I can't remember. So I wondered 'Will he ask me to play Gandalf? ' Which I've always dreamed of doing, but I thought 'No he won't offer me Gandalf because I'm too old, physically, to do it..' And… although the fight you saw in the film between me and Ian McKellen, we did a lot of that ourselves, we did… and I still have a lot of bruises and marks. So I thought he won't offer me Gandalf but certainly I would read for him and so the man behind the camera read Frodo and I read Gandalf. And then he showed me a bit of pictures and photographs of locations in New Zealand, and he showed me what Gollum would look like, and he showed me what the other characters would look like, some of the sketches, some of the pictures… I thought this is incredible, this is wonderful and it'll be fantastic if they make it. But he didn't ask me if I would play Saruman. He never mentioned it. I found out that he always wanted me to play Saruman but he didn't tell me. So I left, went on with my work, a few days later, well, maybe a week or two I can't remember, my agent received a message saying they were sending me the script of the first film and they want me to play Saruman, simple as that. <P>Sean Astin<BR>For the audition, I worked very hard. Then, when I got the part and we went down to New Zealand six weeks in advance for filming, there were two dialect coaches, Andrew Jack and Roisin Carty. They put us through our paces and we went through a couple hours a day, everyday for six weeks, where we learned not just how to do the dialect, but we got a crash course in the palate, the tongue, the lips - how to speak. It felt like the golden age of Hollywood. The dialect was really hard for me. It wasn't just a straight Cockney accent. It became a West County-inspired hybrid of working class and rural English. It was hard. Roisin and Andrew were there for every shot, and I leaned on them a lot. They set the bar high, and most of the time I barely made it over the top. A couple times I came crashing right back down on the side! <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>I had this great house right on the beach and my family agreed to fly out to join me. Everyone loved it. We had a great time driving around New Zealand. We did a big tour around the North Island. Oh, and I have family, cousins and stuff there, in Gisborne. <P>Elijah Wood<BR>Yeah, over the last bit of—I went to New Zealand last year, for sort of pick-ups and ADR and things for film one and during the last set of pick-ups, before I left for the airport to go home, I went and visited Peter and Fran in the editing room while they were putting the final touches on editing the movie and they presented me with a gift. And inside they gave me a box, this beautiful wooden box. I opened it up and there was a pouch inside with the One Ring on the chain. So, yeah, I do. I have the One Ring, which is wonderful. But I plan to have more tokens from the movie. <P>Sean Astin<BR>It became like a suit that you just put on everyday. It was two and a half hours every day. You show up and it's dark out, and you transmogrify into this different character by having cold, wet, sticky uncomfortable glue put all over your skin. Actually, the feet were quite comfortable - except when we were running on the shale of Mount Doom, an active volcano (called Ngauruhoe) we filmed on for six weeks. Everybody ended up with cut feet. After a while, I started to take for granted the mastery, the real artistry that was involved in creating the feet. Each day, each pair of feet was its own work of art that these artists would hand-paint. The guy who put mine on - his name was Sean Foot! You got very close with your Weta prosthetics folks and makeup folks. It was like a traveling circus. I'll never forget when they took the mold of my head. I get claustrophobic, and the idea that they were going to put this compound all over my face, plug up my ears and eyes, and almost my nose and mouth, so I can just barely breathe, and then not remove it until it's completely hardened - I was just thinking, "What if there's an earthquake or a power failure, and they all run for the hills?" Right before he put the stuff on me, Howard at KMB gave me this nice little bit of psychology. He put his hand in the gloop and said, "You know, some people tell me this can be quite a soothing experience," and he put it right on my face. So the whole time it was on, I was like, "OK somebody thinks this is soothing." I just kept telling myself, "Don't worry - it's a soothing experience." That turned out to be a great metaphor for the whole year and half. At times when you were ready to go mad, you'd realize, "Wait a minute - why not give myself over to this process and enjoy it?" <P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>Hungover...very funny: at lunch we were all wearing black and sunglasses. Rang Mum and Liv when I got in. Viggo left a long message on my machine. He leaves these kind of stream-of-consciousness messages on your machine like "Yeah, this is Viggo, I'm eating chicken, I'm wearing blue trousers, the sun is shining..." I always save the messages. <P>Sean Astin<BR>My whole experience of the trilogy was through the prism of preparing for the role of Sam. The first I ever heard of J.R.R. Tolkien, or of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was when my agent called to tell me there was a part in the new Peter Jackson film. She said, "It's The Lord of the Rings! You know - they're the sequels to The Hobbit!" Somewhere in the back of my consciousness, I knew the word Hobbit, but I couldn't tell you what a hobbit was. I could have guessed it was a short-ish Smurf or dwarf or something, but I didn't even know that for sure. But somehow I knew it was something I wanted to do. She said, "Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy for New Line." I heard, "Peter Jackson," "trilogy," and "New Line." I knew they were feature films and they were filming all three of them at once. I new it was going to be a huge, epic adventure. I just instantly got it. I didn't need to have it explained to me. There's a phrase, "There's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come," and that's how I felt. It was like someone turned on the light and I was already standing in the room. There are very few times in life when things are laid out for you like that. So I turned my car around and went to Barnes and Noble, and I said, "Do you guys know who J.R.R. Tolkien is?" And they were like, "Aisle Four." I went to Aisle Four and all of Aisle Four was J.R.R. Tolkien. So before even looking at the specific Tolkien titles, I looked around the rest of the bookstore - trying to figure out what else I didn't know about! Because clearly I was in the dark. I purchased a copy of the trilogy illustrated by Alan Lee, powered through 175 pages of The Fellowship of the Ring and hired a dialect coach to prepare for my audition. Honestly, I didn't enjoy it at first. I got how powerful a piece of literature it was, and I was impressed by the poetry, and I was trying to glean everything I could from the character, but it was almost like a biblical student would go to the Bible: this is the source material, so what do I need to figure it out? <P>Dominic Monaghan<BR>We are so close and connected, especially the four Hobbits. We still meet up when we can. We all went through this weird experience together that I think will always tie us together. There are only eight other people in the world that know what I got up to in those 18 months. <P>Sean Astin<BR>The most fun part of The Lord of the Rings experience is probably all the helicopter rides! On any given day, there were five helicopters ferrying us to the tops of these mountains. The most rewarding thing was gaining a whole new family, the family of actors and crew. Everybody was so close, and then we'd get sick of each other after four months of working together, and we'd go away for two weeks, and then we'd come back and it was this huge happy reunion, with hugs and a whole new battery of "let's-go-to-dinner-after-work." Then four more months would go by and we're sick of each other again - it's like a family! <P>Orlando Bloom<BR>The camaraderie involves quite a lot of good-natured ribbing, particularly between Aragorn and Legolas. We have these digs at each other, Viggo will go on about Elves and how they're always doing their nails and brushing their long, blonde hair, and being all prissy. And I just say: Well, at least I'm going to live forever! Got that? LIVE FOREVER!"

[Neferchoirwen]

Whoa, that was so long, I didn't have much time readin it, but the one-word descriptions were nice to read <P>I've been in love with the idea of being in a set of a huge movie project, behind the scenes or not. The experience behind the scenes, theater or cinema is so extraordinary, and is worth even just 3 months of your life.<P>But I agree with what some said in here that none of the cast (or crew) had any regrets in spite of all the wierd stuff going on the set.<P>And as for Aragorn's left side...I'll be watching out for that and laugh to myself.<BR>

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Joy, what a treat, thank you!<P>-Maril

[elengil]

"I laughed, I cried. It moved me, Bob."<P><BR>That was one of the best hours I've ever spent on the internet. Those were GREAT. Thank you SO MUCH for posting them!!!

[Brinniel]

Wow, Joy, that was long! Thank you, though. The quotes are very informative. It was definately worth my time to read them.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Joy, thank you so much for those interview quotes - very enjoyable reading, almost like seeing and hearing them talk!

[Kettle of fish]

They gave Liv Tyler an unmentionable nickname?

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

They gave the make-up trailer an unmentionable nick-name. Elijah spilled the beans on that one during the Rolling Stone interview. Begins with 'c', four letters, rude name for female anatomy. Just barely above bathroom humor, I think they were getting a bit tired with they came up with that one.

[Evenstar1]

Joy - that was completely awesome! Thank you so much!!! <P>**sighs contentedly**

[Aramacil]

Whoa Joy, that was quite a bit of text, i'm sorry that I don't have time to read it all, but the part that I did read was great, tanx <p>[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Aramacil ]

[Kettle of fish]

Thanks Maril - my eyes were just playing tricks on me while I went through a burst of insanity.<P>That's a great list - it really brings out the whole 'brotherhood' idea.

[Eruwen]

Oh wow. How long that was. But it was worth it. Dang. All of that sounded like so much fun to do. I could only dream of actually staring in a movie this cool with characters that close to each other. Thanks Joy! It was a great way to end a very boring day.

[Brinniel]

Take a close look at this:

Elijah Wood
The first day I put on the feet, it was amazing. People were gluing stuff to my feet, and they looked really cool. But that wore off so bloody fast. Once we started filming, I wanted to have nothing to do with them, because putting them on meant losing an hour and a half of sleep. I had the sweatiest feet of all the Hobbits, so the glue was constantly melting, and we had to reapply them. It was just a mess.

Elijah Wood said "bloody?!" Last time I checked, he was from Iowa!

One time I said I was bloody cold.

[elengil]

I'm American and I say "bloody" all the time... I might have actually picked that up from my 8th grade teacher though.. LOL<P><BR>Anyway, I've got british in my blood. I love British humor, authors, actors, accents... i'm 3/4 scotish and tend to use british swear/slang words like crazy. LOL<P>Anyway, seeing as Elijah was around so many british actors for a year and a half, the idea of him picking up some of the more common slangs is less surprising that if he hadnt picked up any!<p>[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: elengil ]

[Neferchoirwen]

Probably because of the people around him. Ian's English, and that may have influence Elijah's expression.<P>I saw an interview of Elj on the Late Show, and he sounded fresh from Britain.