The ever-vigilant Tiggy happened to record TVOne’s Susan Wood interviewing Craig Parker, who’s playing Haldir in LOTR. It’s a bit incoherent, as real conversations often are, and it’s clear he was avoiding saying too much. Another source tells me that in the movie Haldir accompanies Arwen wherever she goes,so the role isn’t as small as all that.
Thursday 17/8 (last week.)
SUSAN So you’re a tall elf, a six foot elf ?
CRAIG Yes, I’m probably five eleven or five ten probably if I’m honest…
I stand on blocks. The elves are about six (foot).
SUSAN Are the blocks attached to your shoes?
CRAIG We tried that on the first day of shooting for a big wide shot and I taped
polystyrene to my feet but that didn’t work – I fell over. It’s magic – it’s all done with smoke and mirrors.
SUSAN You see the likes of Tom Cruise out of Hollywood and you know he’s little.
CRAIG Yes …
SUSAN Nicole towers over him. So how do you do it?
CRAIG We’ve all sworn a blood oath to secrecy honest, but there’s a lot of very complicated scale doubling and some fantastic actors who are about this size (indicates short) who they used in some shots – all magic stuff…sometimes the shots are forced, sometimes not.
SUSAN So it’s all trickery!
CRAIG Confuses the hell out of me!
SUSAN All trickery and confusion!
CRAIG All trickery and confusion, yeah !
SUSAN What sort of explosion[sic] did it give you ?
CRAIG I think the film is going to be fantastic. I have a smallish part in it that goes for ……cool stuff…….but I’m not moving to Hollywood or anything like that but it’s great fun. I think in NZ we get to work on a lot of interesting things and for me the joy in it for me is just being there and doing it
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Bruce wrote in to say: “This may be old news, but the mp3lit site has a Tolkien freebie at MP3Lit.com.
There are two passages. The first is the familiar selection of Tolkien reading the “cooking conies” passage from The Two Towers. The second is new to me, but perhaps it’s old news to others. Tolkien is recorded reciting the poem that is Galadriel’s farewell song to the Fellowship as they leave Lorien.”
This is really worth following up if you’ve never heard Tolkien read his own work before. Though my personal fave is him reading the ‘Ride of the Rohirrim’ bits….
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Amargosaur’s spotted something I just can’t see, but we’ll let you be the judge. (more)
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Amargasaur and I have been arguing about whether this picture is or is not proof that ‘The Scouring of the Shire’ takes place in the movies. A. argues that if this is Sam greeting his daughter Elanor on his return home, the only reason there would be tree stumps in the background is if we saw ‘Sharkey’s people’ cutting down trees at some point. I can’t see any stumps, just farm junk. He’s convinced though.
Amargasaur insists: “…but after adjusting the lighting in the pic they are much clearer. The location of them is perhaps hard to say exactly, but in the first picture, there are two tree stumps, small ones, half way up on the left side of the picture. You might mistake them for barrels of some sort, or something like a black paint can, but at the bottom of them they widen and seem to be set asoundly in the grass. So…look on the left side of the picture, half way up, right against the side of the pic.
Hope that helps!”
Well, my screen isn’t good enough to show all that. Still, this is one of a number of encouraging signs that the Scouring is in (like the burning of the mill on the Hobbiton set, for instance.)
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Then you might want to buy one of the ‘History of Middle-earth’ volumes. Matt sent us an update on what’s available, if you want to shop
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Well, I have gotten an overwhelming response that the Tolkien fun section is too hard! Thank you all for responding to my query! Read on, for a milder, gentler version of the Tolkien Fun Section.
Hello all! Time for another rousing edition of the Tolkien fun section! Our last winner was no one! The questions were too hard! Here are the questions for today:
1) “According to Tolkien, Who invented the game of golf?”
2) “rnetsokaen” (Scrambled tolkien person, place or thing….try searching in “The Hobbit”)
3) “This is worse than Mordor!” (Who said this? “The Return of the King” holds this quote)
As always, Mail me with your answers, the 1st person to send all 3 correct answers in one mailing will be posted here next time! Good luck………Gamgee
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