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Gregory writes: I went to the New Starcon IV in the Netherlands today (newstarcon.com). At this convention celebrities appeared like Erika Eleniak (Baywatch – and her first convention ever!), Robert Englund (Freddy), Adrian Paul (Highlander), Carl Weathers (Predator, Rocky,…), Brian Thompson (X-files, Cobra,…), John Breck (Jeepers Creepers), and quite a few other names from movies and television series. But my main goals of course, were the two LOTR guests attending. Since John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) cancelled at the last minute, only Jed Brophy (Snaga, Sharku, Ringwraith) and Sala Baker (Sauron) were present.

For reasons I don’t know – maybe the nice weather or something like that – there weren’t a lot of visitors attending at all. Therefore there was practically no queue, so I had quite a few moments to chat with Jed and Sala. Especially Jed is a very nice guy to talk to. Since I am a LOTR autograph-collector I was mainly interested in who played the other Ringwraiths, cause I am always on the look out to find out new people to contact. I already am aware of the fact that Paul Shapcott played a burning Ringwraith on Weathertop, that Shane Rangi was on the Felbeast hovering the Dead Marshes, and that Jono Manks played a Wraith used in close-ups.

Well, there were definitely more than nine Wraiths! For the scenes that were filmed with the Wraiths mounted on horses, they trained a team of 14 horsemen during a period of 3 months. After some time, a few stuntmen even quit the job, because the physical part was just too demanding, Jed told me. They all had to wear boots that were locked in the horses’ stirrups, so it was quite dangerous too. Well, Jed continued the training and filming and can now be seen in FOTR when chasing Arwen and Frodo. Afterwards Jed even bought one of the Rohirrim horses used for close-up scenes at the Battle of the Pelennor in ROTK. He has been riding since he was eleven years old, so you could say they did the right thing by hiring Jed to play one of the Wraiths…

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