Anthony: So, now Los Angeles has a question for Orlando Bloom.
Evangeline: Hi Orlando! I miss you! (laughter) Hi Richard! (more laughter)
Anthony: And here’s our question for Orlando
Fan #4: Ok so this is my question. How does it feel to portray Legolas again after one decade, knowing in this movie he’s actually 60 years younger?
Orlando: Well the first thing I did when I got to New Zealand was, um, try on my old Legolas costume, because I wanted to see if it would still fit (laughter). No but seriously I think 60 years in the life of an Elf is a blink, is a blink of an eye, so , um, actually I was, I was really honoured that Pete had, um, thought that it would be a good idea to bring Leggy into the fray. I was, um…
Anderson: You call him Leggy?
Orlando: Leggy? Yeah I do, oh, sorry… I was, I was thrilled, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to don the blonde wig again and, um, and Pete had, and you know, I was, I was naturally concerned that perhaps, you know, as Legolas isn’t sort of written into the books that maybe there would be, you know, some sort of conflict there with fans, but actually what I sort of, one thing I know about Pete is that Pete has one eye very clearly on the Tolkien world and the world of Tolkien and on also on making a fantastic movie and he’s brilliant at creating moments for the characters and so Leggy comes back and, um, gets to have a few heroic moments and it was a lot of fun, so in truth, um, in answer to that, yeah, it’s just been a riot of a time.
Anderson: Did your costume still fit?
Orlando: My costume still fit (screams and cheers)
Anderson: I know we have a question here in New York for Richard.
Fan #5: Hi Richard
Richard: Hey
Fan #5: Um, my questions is, what was your favourite line from The Hobbit films, either said by you or one of your cast mates?
Richard: Um, God that’s a tough one. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to Tolkien and, so…
Orlando: He didn’t want me in the movie
(laughter)
Richard: (grins) Um, ya, I mean incredible, incredible language to speak and I really felt like a character lived through the lines that Tolkien was given and the incredible script that, um, Pete, Fran and Phil had created. Um, but there were many times when we were asked to improvise and, um, I was often improvising with Graham who played Dwalin and in most situations I would turn to him and say “We’ll just use the toilet and leave” (laughter), but that’s not the line. Um, yeah I think, I don’t think, I think it’s a little bit of a spoiler, but at some point in movie two Thorin says “If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together”. (cheers) So that’s my favourite line at the moment.
Orlando: That’s a sexy line that is. That’s a sexy line. (to crowd) That is a sexy line that is (yells of YES and cheers)
Anderson: Not the kind of thing you want to say on a date though, really, it’s…
Orlando: But it’s got some heat to it! (laughs)
Anderson: Exactly. We’ve got fans, we said following watching this on social media and Twitter and a lot of folks putting in questions under #HobbitFanEvent. We’re gonna take a question now for Luke Evans who is standing by in London. I have the question here, the question is from @ThePoojaDave um, did you become efficient with a bow Luke?
Luke: Did I become efficient with a bow, yes I did, yeah, um, it was, um, a longbow, it’s taller than me, um, which was quite difficult to master, especially when you’re sliding down roof tops and, ah, being chased by a very big dragon and, but, no, it was good and, there’s been a couple of people have actually mentioned that I hold the bow the wrong way round. But, actually, let me tell you, I’m holding it the right way round, because if I hold my hand this way it means I can extend it behind my head and if I hold it this way I can only go that far and the bow is so big that to extend a big arrow I had to use it the opposite way. So everybody, now you know I’m not doing it, I’m not faking it, it’s true that’s how you do it, yeah.
Edith: Such skills, seriously I like it. Lets get a question from our incredible audience here and we have a gentleman here that I can see right there, Phillip, have you got a question for us?
Fan #6: Hi there, since Thranduil is Legolas’ father, did Orlando’s portrayal of Legolas in the original Lord of the Rings films affect your characterisation of Thranduil in terms of the father son relationship and the effect each would have on the other?
Lee: Yeah, yeah, I just copied everything he did. (laughter) Everything Orlando did, I would, um, do the same thing. That’s basically how I got into that character, we started with a little bit of, ah, Elven movement, where we would kind of, you know, work out our movement and then we got into the more advanced stuff like Elvish, right Orlando, you remember this? (Orlando shakes head, to laughter from the audience)
Edith: He’s not responding to you
Lee: He doesn’t want to respond
Edith: He doesn’t want to respond (Orlando and Richard laughing in background)
Orlando: I did, I taught you everything (massive laughter)
Lee: Yeah, yeah, find your quintessential Elf. (hard to tell too much laughter ;D )
Edith: We’ve got a question now for Andy from one of the theatres around the world where fans have gathered to watch this incredible event together. And we’re going to hear from a fan in Mexico City, Which part of Gollums personality has been more difficult to perform and why? Good question.
Andy: Oh golly, erm, which part, I mean, it’s very diff… you know, they’re both, I don’t know, it’s a really difficult question, they were both, I suppose, um, playing, um, trying to find Smeagol before he became really fully Gollum, that was quite difficult. But, I, they both, I think the fact of the matter is when we did the Riddles in the Dark passage,um, what was tricky going back to it was of course, I’m ten years older, so crawling around as Gollum was pretty physically hard work, for both characters actually, um, but what was amazing was being able to play opposite Martin, cause Martin is just a brilliant actor he really is. (loud cheers) And we had a ball doing it and, er, and the great thing about working with Pete on that scene was that we got to play that scene out in it’s entirety and it was a, it was, it was kind of like doing a piece of theatre really, so, so, I don’t know, I can’t really think, either of those were, either sides of the personality were any more difficult than the other really, sorry.
Edith: Don’t apologise you answered the question. Right now we’ve got a question for Peter Jackson from Twitter, we found the following using #HobbitFanEvent, and now before we join Peter and Jed, I wanted to thank Luke, Lee and Andy Serkis, as well as this incredible audience we have here today, you’ve been brilliant (lots of cheers and can’t make out what Edith says with all the cheering) So Peter here is your question from Twitter from @EllenCase47 What was it like when you finished the last shot for The Hobbit production? What will you miss the most?
(Jed points at himself and mouths “Me”!)
Peter: Um,I don’t know, it’s hard to answer that without falling into terrible cliche, you know, bittersweet, you know, end of an era, I mean, that type of thing which is really boring. Um, I mean I keep myself busy on the last day because I did the live blog thing which I was doing. I sort of woke up that morning, about 4 o’clock that morning or something and thought well, you know, this is the last day, I thought, oh well, I’m gonna write about it on the internet. So that kind of, you know, kept me busy, in fact I think sometimes I was slowing the shoot down because I was busy doing the blog. Sorry, can’t be on the set just yet, sorry I’m doing my blog. But, um, it was, you know, the last day is always, um, emotional, because you’re dealing with farewells. Um, you’re saying good-bye to friends in the crew and the cast, um, and you know, obviously in this particular instance it was essentially after six movies, it was, ok is this gonna be it, yeah, probably, it is gonna be it. Um, so that was kind of strange, but there is also, underneath all that there is a sense of relief, what I mean by relief is the sense that you, I, I, could now, finishing the shoot meant that I could now start doing the editing and post-production on the Desolation of Smaug, so you know I was, yeah, the ten weeks of shooting was intensely busy but then I was able to start a whole new type of experience which was putting the second movie together, which is exciting. So, I was looking forward to that too, um, you know, it was, ah, yeah, it’s, ah, I don’t know, it’s strange I was certainly the last days with the actors, and they obviously everybody doesn’t finish on the same day, I mean we said good-bye to Ian and Martin and Orlando and Evangeline and Luke and Lee and we said good-bye to people at different times and so, um, there’s never really, there’s a lot of farewells during, um, those last few weeks of shooting, a lot of farewells and they’re all quite emotional and yeah, you know, yeah.
Jed: We were very emotional too, the actors were very, it was quite hard for us I have to say, it’s been, um, an amazing journey for everyone, it was very hard to say good-bye to everyone.
Peter: Must have been a sense of that moment that you’re never going to have to have all that stuff glued on your face.
Jed: I’d do it all again tomorrow
Peter: Oh well, there you go. You’re probably the only Dwarf that ever says that Jed.
Jed: I don’t know, I think we all really enjoyed it actually. (applause from the crowd) We, um, we have another very well dressed gentleman here who’s going to ask you another probing question.
Fan #7: Hello
Peter: Hello
Fan #7: Good to see you here. I just wanted to say first of all, thank you for putting this on for the fans, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Director of a movie get this much fan involvement before the movie comes out, so thank you from everybody here I think. (loud applause) The question I had was and it’s sort of been answered already by the blog you’ve just put on, um, when the extended dvd boxed set/blu ray now comes out with it’s six movies, all of them are we going to see a really long extended blooper reel finally for the Lord of the Rings?
Peter: Um, yeah, I mean I hope so, we have been, we, I can’t even remember why, but there was a decision made back in the Lord of the Rings days, cause we did a lot of those behind the scenes, um, all those behind the scenes documentaries not to have bloopers on them and I can’t even remember the reason why, wasn’t for any particular moral reason. Um, but they are very very funny, I mean, you know, they are very very funny and there are a lot of them, um, because, we sort of, there were the bloopers which you imagine happen where people make mistakes and , um, some people are funnier when they make mistakes than other people, but you know. Um, Ian McKellen in particularly, tends to, he doesn’t find it funny when he makes mistakes, but everyone else does, which is kind of, and there’s a lot of that on these clips, but, um, it, there’s also pranks. I mean, the other thing with bloopers is that we do a lot of pranks where the cameras are rolling and do stuff, with that, people are expecting it. Practical jokes and things. So yeah, there’s a, there is a point where there will be a boxed set and, um, hopefully, that will, certainly I would love the bloopers to be on that boxed set. And we’ve got a lot of bloopers from this movie too, cool. Oh yes, oh yes, we have.
Fan #7: Certainly looking forward to them.
Peter: So, yeah, the answer to your question is basically that, that I certainly hope so. I mean, you see, the tricky thing with the Lord of the Rings and it’s actually, um, is that they were shot on 35mm film, so all of the bloopers were shot on film and that negative is about 7 million feet of it, is in some vault in Arizona somewhere, like it’s the actual negative, the image. So the bloopers really exist on vhs tapes and things which ten years ago was how things were done and the picture quality of the bloopers isn’t going to be that great unfortunately.
Fan #7: We don’t mind
Peter: You don’t mind (laughter from crowd) No, it’s really the audio that counts, it’s the audio that’s really the thing and that’s fine.
Jed: It’s all in my fridge actually Peter. I’ve got it all at home. Um, you were going to introduce the next little extended edition of the blu-ray.
Peter: Um, yeah, talking about documentaries and the blu-rays, is it tomorrow the Extended Edition of The Hobbit comes out, um, or very soon anyway, I get confused about these things, I’m so busy I’m on a completely different movie at the moment. Um, so, at the, and there is, um, we just thought it would be fun to put up on the big screen one of the clips from the first Hobbit movie extended cut and ah, it’s a scene that was always supposed to be in the theatrical, I mean, these, these, extended cut scenes are never ever shot because we’re gonna put them into an extended cut. I mean, that never ever happens. You’re literally, everything is designed for the movie and I particularly wanted to, um, feature the, Dwarves attitude and disrespect for the Elves, because having, you know, having been to Rivendell once before ten years ago, I wanted to somehow put these group of Dwarves into Rivendell and you know, do they respect the Elves? No. Do they like the Elves? No. Do they really care? No. So, so I wanted that attitude to kind of come through more so than just kind of an aggressive kind of, you know, stand off. So, um, we devised a sequence that features Jimmy, that features Bofur and he’s singing a song and, um, and it ended up coming out of the movie really purely just because of pace, purely because it, that was, we just didn’t really feel that, um, that in the theatrical, the pacing, you really just try and focus on. But the wonderful thing with extended editions is that all this stuff can be put back into the movie. I know a lot of people regard these as being the definitive version of the movie. And um, just to give you a bit of background to this song, it’s a song that Bofur sings at Rivendell, we wanted the words to be from Tolkien and the best words, we wanted some sort of a pub song and the best words we could think of is, um, The Man in the Moon,which is a song that is sung by Frodo is it in the Fellowship of the Ring, I think? Um, who knows? Somebody here must know? Surely, the whole room must knows. Yeah, and the, um, and so we still used those lyrics because they sort of seemed right, they still seemed to fit in this context. But in terms of the tune, um, Jimmy has a wonderful voice and he’s something of a musician, sort of, he’s got a lovely kind of a musical quality about him. So we invited him around to our house on a Sunday, before we shot it and, um, Fran and Jimmy kind of talked about the song. And we just basically said to Jimmy, look why don’t you come up with the tune, why don’t you come up with the actual, not the words, but put the words to some sort kind of a catchy tune. And, um, Jimmy took that on and this the results. Shall we have a look at it?
Jed: Indeed
Peter: Great
Extended Edition scene plays
Anderson: We’re going to go back to Wellington, because Peter has some more surprises for everybody. But I gotta say I’m very inspired by the fact that Peter Jackson is not wearing any shoes, so I’m just going to take off my shoes, cause I feel like I should, I don’t know, honour that. So, Peter thanks very much I appreciate it. Keep going, I don’t (lots of laughter which covers some comment) , you’re not ready for the paleness believe me. Yeah, it’s like the solar eclipse you have to hid your eyes, special glasses are needed. Um, so before we wrap this up, we do have a couple of surprises, Peter has a couple of surprises for fans participating around the world. Again I just want to thank everybody who’s gathered in Los Angeles, I hope you’ve had a great time there in Los Angeles and in London as well, we’ve got an awesome time there and also in New Zealand and here in New York, are you having a good time so far? (audience cheers madly) We are, ah, the #HobbitFanEvent is trending here in the United States on Twitter. Ah, um, I thought Orlando was about to take of his shoes, I thought I saw.
Orlando: I was going to take off the rest of my clothes
Anderson: Oh ok (laughs) We’re going to go back to Peter in Wellington, Peter.
Jed: Thanks Anderson. Um, I”m not taking my shoes off cause these socks are two days old. Um, but, Peter you do have ah, some other surprises for us, don’t you?
Peter: Well, I mean, first of all I’d just like to thank everybody who has been tuning in online, because we’re just about to say good-bye to the online folk and thanks very much to Evangeline, Richard, Orlando, Lee, Luke, Andy and Jed for, um, for participating in this event, um, and I think we’re just going to say good-by to our online people?
Jed: We are, good-bye
Peter: Bye!
Jed: Thanks for joining us
Online coverage ends and Sneak Peak starts
