Boxoffice-November.2001

—
a cameo in the film as one of the titular
alien-possessed teachers. Ed] And one
day he came up to me, and he was like.
"Dude, they're making "Lord of the
Rings' as a feature. You gotta play
Frodo!" And the news was really exciting,
but they weren't casting for it at that
point. It was just kind of in the news. I
first heard about it from him, [but] I
actually wasn't approached to audition
for it
until nearly a year later.
BOXOFFICE: What was the process?
WOOD: My agent called me and
said. "Look, they're casting "Lord of the
Rings'; Peter Jackson is gonna direct it,
and you should go in and put yourself
on tape." IBut] the idea of putting myself
on (ape in a casting office wasn't particularly
attractive to me. mainly because I
wanted to try to convey my passion for
i he project and for the role, and going
into the casting office against a white
background and being put on tape did
not seem at all conducive to what 1
wanted to portray.
So I [decided to do] my own tape,
which I'd never done before, but I figured
that this project deserved mj own
interpretation and my full attention. So
I got a voice coach and worked on my
accent for a little while, and then a few
friends of mine got together and we
went up to the Hollywood Hills after
getting some costumes at Western
Costume, and we shot the scenes like
yon would a film, [with] various angles
and things. And we went that night to
the Miramax offices and borrowed their
As id machine and edited it together, and
the next day ! brought the video into the
casting office and 1 kind of let it go, just
knowing that I'd put my best foot forward
in terms of getting the role, and I
would see what happened. And it all
went from there.
BOXOFFICE: It's Interesting because
you have, it's been remarked, otherworldly,
kind of Elvish features, whereas the
Hobbits are a little more stocky and
ruddy. So how did that all work out?
that. Which is kind of peculiar for a
Ilobbit. because Hobbits tend to not
want to know about what's outside the
Shire, because outside is unknown to
them, and slightly frightening. So Frodo
was always quite different. And, in terms
of my own features, I think [they] played
into that in a physical kind of way.
BOXOFFICE: What's your take on the
character of Frodo and his motivations.
his loyalties and his conflicts?
WOOD: Wow! Well, Frodo. in
terms
of his decision to take the ring and the
journey that he ends up taking—there's
a lot that plays into that. Initially, his
reason for taking the ring is because
[benevolent wizard] Gandalf has explained
to him thai the ring that Bilbo
had had all these years was actually the
Ring of Power, the One Ring, and that it
was intrinsically evil, and that [the dark
lord] Sauron would be willing it back to
him and, if he did end up getting it back.
Middle Earth would be doomed.
So Frodo takes the ring in an effort to
get the ring out of the Shire, so that the
Shire is not a pinpoint for any of the
"Everyone who
filled the roles
that they did
completely
inhabited them..,.
It was as if they
were always
meant to be
those characters.'
minions of Sauron. He then realizes that
he's still
stuck with the ring once he gets
to Rivendell [home of the elT lord
Elrond], at which point he doesn't want
to have anything to do with it, and he
simply wants to go home and live the life
that he once lived. But it's during his
time in Rivendell that he realizes [he
must] take the ring, out of a sort of fate.
The humans and the elves are all starting
to disagree as to what to do with the
ring -they know it can't be destroyed,
WOOD: Well, the thing is that Frodo and there's a quality in humans that, if
actually is differentiated from the other
Hobbits in a lot of ways. He. like his
uncle. Bilbo, quite interested in the
one takes the ring, they themselves will
be destroyed. Frodo realizes that he's the
is only one who can do this, and he's
outside world- the world outside the meant to do this.
Shire and in Elvin lore and the history
of Middle Earth. And he was brought
up by his uncle, hearing stories of his
BOXOFFICE: And of course he has
conflicts as the ring has its sway upon him.
adventures and tales of the elves and
things. So he's always been fascinated by WOOD: Yes, certainly.
BOXOFFICE: That must have been difficult
to portray, because this is a pure spirit,
yet he's not totally free from corruption.
WOOD: No, absolutely. Though
Hobbits can sustain the power of the
ring for longer than most species, it does
BOXOFFICE: It's an interesting opportunity
for you to be able to execute
that are all at once fas all three films ir
the trilogy were shot concurrently f.
WOOD: Absolutely. That was brilliant.
And what was kind of cool about
the entire project was actually the fact
that we were able to stretch out the filming
over 1 5 months.
BOXOFFICE: / Sarcastically/sympathetically:]
Oh. yeah, that's cool!
WOOD: No, in some ways, I think
is, because we were given a chance to
flesh out the story almost in real time.
mean, the journey itself [in the three
books] took place over a year, and
had that same amount of time to film
the movie and the story. So we had that
amount of time to figure our arc out
and to actually take our character to
different places, as opposed to trying to
figure it out in a very short amount of
time, which you normally have for a
film. So it was a privilege, because we
had an extended amount of time to
work things out as we went along.
BOXOFFICE: But how did you survi
WOOD: [laughs] Urn, well, it wa
brilliant experience. I mean, yeah, it
was 15 months, but the thing is, when I
arrived in New Zealand, it immediately
felt like home to me, and I was immedi
ately comfortable. And within the first
couple of weeks, once I'd met everyone
and the Hobbits were all hanging out
together and working together. "Lord
of the Rings" became my life. And it
became everyone's life. The kind of
camaraderie that everyone felt together
working over that period of time was
unlike any I'd ever had before. I mean,
it was a family.
BOXOFFICE: Did you ever all go into
town in your garb and impress the locals?
WOOD: We never did. We weren't
allowed, because we were afraid people
would be taking pictures. We were trying
to be as top secret as possible, although
things leaked quite often.
BOXOFFICE: For certain shots, fourfool
stand-ins were used wearing masks of
the actors. How surreal was that?
WOOD: It was very surreal. I've
never worked with a double that was to
be smaller than me
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