Another BIG thank you to Cyloran for sending this in!
Elijah Wood on Good Morning America 12/17/03
GMA: It is the cinematic finale that everybody’s talking about, the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the last installment in the epic trilogy that opens today. Actually, it already has opened in some places. Being talked about as a leading contender for the Best Picture Oscar time, with us this morning is the man, or I should say, the hobbit at the center of it all, Frodo himself is here, Elijah Wood. It is a pleasure to have you here.
EW: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
GMA: This has been quite an adventure! Not only on the screen but what you’ve gone through all this time.
EW: The last four years of our lives have been a complete journey making these movies. It’s wild to see it come to an end.
GMA: Alright, it’s all over. The thing’s done. Who got to keep the Ring?
EW: I did, actually.
GMA: You did?
EW: I have the Ring at home. I have it in a small little box that I’ve got sort of tucked away.
GMA: How many Rings were there?
EW: There were quite a lot. There wasn’t just the single one. Andy Serkis got the Ring as well because he plays Gollum, so the two Ringbearers most appropriately were given the Ring.
GMA: Does it fit?
EW: It does. It does fit. But I don’t put it on. It would be a bad omen.
GMA: I was about to say, that would be a little strange. Are you sad it’s over?
EW: I am. I mean, it’s been such an incredible journey getting to know these people, living in New Zealand, making these films. It’s a bit surreal. I don’t think we all anticipated it coming to an end. It sort of felt like it would just carry on for the rest of our lives.
GMA: I was curious how you end something like this, because you are so close for so long, and I asked Liv Tyler how it all ended yesterday and she said, we had to come back for pickups in June.
EW: That’s right.
GMA: She said that was the last time we all saw each other.
EW: Yes.
GMA: But I understand there was really a very touching way that it all ended after each of you did your last scene.
EW: Yeah. They gave each actor a farewell, a little party, where they showed about two minutes of footage of that particular actor with bloopers and sort of funny music, Peter Jackson gave a speech to everyone about that particular actor, our producer Barry gave a speech, and then we were called on to give a speech, which was very difficult. I mean, it was very difficult to imagine that it had come to an end, so it was incredibly emotional and we were also each given our sword. I was given Sting, which was wonderful, and the last clappers from the last take of the last shot, so it was very emotional, and a very appropriate way to say goodbye to the actors, and very gracious of them.
GMA: A very nice thing for a director to do, tho.
EW: Indeed.
GMA: A very nice way to make it, and that really does, and it becomes sort of family, anyway.
EW: Oh, yeah!
GMA: Now! Was it really the last time? This is so successful . . . now, Tolkien only wrote a trilogy, but could there be a . . . I mean, the world has been saved and Middle Earth is okay and all that, but –
EW: That’s right.
GMA: Could you put it together again?
EW: My God, I would love it. I know that they’re thinking of doing The Hobbit. Frodo doesn’t exist in The Hobbit, so that possibly might happen. But Frodo has gone to the Undying Lands, so Frodo is sort of dead, essentially, at the end of this film.
GMA: It’s so hard to pick a clip because there’s really no moment sort of representative, but let’s take a look. Here’s a moment where Frodo has to make a very difficult decision.
(Show Frodo, Sam, Gollum clip)
GMA: True that a group of you got a tattoo as a commemoration of all of this?
EW: Yes, very true.
GMA: Including Ian McKellan?
EW: That’s right.
GMA: All in the same place?
EW: All in the same place.
GMA: I’m not going to make you show the tattoo, which I know you wouldn’t do anyway.
EW: Thank you very much for respecting that.
GMA: Want to tell me where it is?
EW: I have mine on my waist.
GMA: We can each pick a different body part, can we?
EW: We all kind of, well, that was sort of nice. We all sort of picked different spots which I think made the same tattoo individual to each individual, so that was nice.
GMA: Well it is wonderful. Congratulations. A long four years but well worth the effort, I’m sure. Thanks every so much.
samwise cheesegrater writes: I thought you guys at TORN might like this.
Lord of the rings elves, Liv Tyler and Orlando Bloom talk marriage, sex symbols and liberation with Nui Te Koha in the Herald-Sun.
Liv Tyler: Orlando just ate a cricket lollipop. A lollipop with a cricket inside!
Orlando Bloom: I’ll do anything, man. Im an adrenalin junkie. In New Zealand, they throw themselves off bridges with rope attached. When I saw that, I thought “Fuck it, I’ll give that a go.”
Nui Te Koha: Were you as adventurous when you were in Australia making New Kelly?
OB: did you see Ned Kelly? Did you like it?
Nui Te Koha: Ummm…
OB: (smiling) Oh, you didn’t like it.
LT: I didn’t see it. I love heath ledger.
Nui Te Koha: You can probably pick it up in the specials bin at wal-mart.
LT: really?
Nui Te Koha: How is married life, Liv (to singer royston landon)?
LT: at first, when we got married and moved into our new house that we’ve been rebuilding for two years, I had spent so much time being really excited about it. Then it became a bit overwhelming for me. I had a bit of an identity crisis for a minute, like: ‘I’m grown up. I’m married. I have this huge house and I don’t know what to do’. But we’ve been living there for a few months and I love it. We have a puppy. We feel so lucky.
Nui Te Koha: You sound maternal.
LT: I feel good. I feel like I’m in a nice calm place in my life because I really went through a moment there where I was like ‘Aaaaargh!!’ I have come out the other side feeling good.
Nui Te Koha: There is a scene in ROTK where you see your future children. Do you see that in real life too?
LT: Not exactly. I have always wanted to be a mother. I was the only child of my mom and dad. I have a lot of half-brother and sisters. From a young age, I always thought I’d like to have a big family because I’m really mothering to everyone.
Nui Te Koha: Orlando, you are a sex symbol now.
OB: All that attention from beautiful women is very flattering, but I’m all about the work man, getting that done. That is what floats my boat at the moment. I trained for three years to be an actor, and got that done. The rest is…I never really signed on for it. Liv always gave me really good advice on how to conduct myself. Listen, we had to fight them off with a stick when we had Liv around. Nobody knew who we were. We were just actors on a film here. Liv Tyler was the hot chick in all the hot movies.
LT: It’s all changed now. Now I’m beating them off with a stick!
Nui Te Koha: What was the best thing about playing an elf?
LT: I found it funny playing an elf. I used to laugh at us all the time.
OB: They are immortal, ageless, angelic spirits. They kick ass! They represent everything that JRR Tolkein thought the world should be. The elves inhabit the world in a way where they don’t take from it. They give back.
Nui Te Koha: Orlando, do you still have to campaign for film roles?
OB: I have auditioned for every role I’ve ever had. I am about to work on a ridley scott film, Kingdom and Heaven, and I was screen tested for that. It was really intense: nine hours. I audition for everything and I feel good about that. It feels like I’ve earned the role.
Nui Te Koha: You’ve just finished Troy with Eric Bana.
OB: He is so brilliant. He is the funniest guy you’ll ever meet and the sweetest as well. He militantly hold on to being a guy doing his job. He is a great family man and a great example.
Nui Te Koha: Liv, are you disappointed your character Arwen, does not have much screentime across the trilogy?
LT: No. peter was saying the original idea of arwen was – its going to sound really bad saying this – a marketing thing to get studios interested. They knew they needed some kind of money: obviously if there was a female character played by a big actress, that would add to it.
Nui Te Koha: Originally, Jackson wrote a bigger part for Arwen?
LT: Yes. When I first came down here, that is what I had seen. I hadn’t read the book yet. I was just starting to get into that whole world and found it very difficult. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I was depressed, I couldn’t find the character. I was doing everything I could to connect with her. that’s all I know how to do. Im not trained. Its an internal thing for me.
Nui Te Koha: Then Jackson scrapped a lot of Arwen’s lines and back story?
LT: From that moment, I was so liberated and excited and fell in love with her and who she was. At times it was hard because it wasn’t a big role any more. I didn’t have that much to do. I mean, how do we connect these two characters (Arwen and Aragorn) who are on the opposite side of the world from each other? How do we make them emotionally invested in their love relationship? I think peter found a very good way of doing that through flashback.
Alison writes: I love your site, and thought you’d like to know that Dominic Monaghan made a surprise appearance before the 11 a.m. show of ROTK at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. He said he’d been planning to go to Amoeba Music (record store next door), but that it didn’t open till 11 a.m. on Sundays, so he wandered over to the theater to check out the displays & then came in to say hi to us all (and received an enthusiastic welcome!).
He warned us not to drink too much lemonade (so we wouldn’t miss any part of the show), and that we might cry towards the end of the movie. He said that when his dad saw it, it made him cry, and that it was only the second time he’d ever seen his father cry.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me, but I saw several people taking photos.
This was my first viewing of ROTK, and Dominic made it extra special!
I love your site, and thought you’d like to know that Dominic Monaghan made a surprise appearance before the 11 a.m. show of ROTK at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. He said he’d been planning to go to Amoeba Music (record store next door), but that it didn’t open till 11 a.m. on Sundays, so he wandered over to the theater to check out the displays & then came in to say hi to us all (and received an enthusiastic welcome!).
He warned us not to drink too much lemonade (so we wouldn’t miss any part of the show), and that we might cry towards the end of the movie. He said that when his dad saw it, it made him cry, and that it was only the second time he’d ever seen his father cry.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me, but I saw several people taking photos.
This was my first viewing of ROTK, and Dominic made it extra special!
Marion writes: There was an interview with Elijah Wood in the latest issue of “Focus” magazine, a German magazine, dated 15th December 2003.
Focus (F): You have just appeared in the German show “Wetten dass…?” for the first time. Did you like the show?
Elijah (E): Yes, it was great fun. My God, what a long show…
F: Does anything like that exist in the US, too?
E: Not that I know of – live, with so many guests and these bets…
F: When you went to New Zealand in 1999, to start with work for “The Lord of the Rings”, you left home only for the second time. Can you name the countries that you’ve been to since then?
E: I could name five or six, it weren’t that many. The promotion tours mainly took us to the most important countries.
F: Let’s do a small test. Where’s the Matterhorn?
E: Hang on, that’s in Switzerland, isn’t it?
F: Yes. But I meant a different Matterhorn…
E: Oh yes, you meant the bar with that name in Wellington. It was our second home, we always drank and partied there, just now again, after the world premier of Return of the King.
F: In the end titles of Return of the King it says, in large print, “The End”. Have you already finished the Lord of the Rings Experience?
E: I am more like in the middle of it still. We are still on tour with the film and after that there’ll be the DVDs. There are still some things that we have to do for that. But the experience of being together for such a long time, that gives us the feeling that we never really have to say goodbye, that it’s only for a certain amount of time.
F: So you don’t have to worry about a christmas time depression?
E: No, honestly not. The people, as well as in New Zealand as the actors, they’ve become such an important part of my life, it’s really a sort of family.
F: You’ve grown up without a father. Has Peter Jackson become a sort of replacement for that?
E: Rather some kind of uncle, a crazy, good mooded chum, who has led us through this insanity.
F: But with authority?
E: Yes, everyone accepted him as a leader,without him having to somehow stress that. We all believed in him and we all did what he demanded of us. But all of that happens in a warmhearted, friendly atmosphere. Everyone, from the team to the actors, always felt involved in everything.
F: And your three co-hobbits, did they become a sort of brothers to you.
E: Totally, we did a lot together, and we still meet to this day. We were the youngest on set, so we found together immediately. Working on Lord of the Rings started with us from day one.
F: You haven’t done many other films in those four and a half years?
E: There have been a few, yeah. But with all the pickups, the sound work and the promotion tours there wasn’t much time left.
F: One film that you did was Try Seventeen. Did that actually ever make it to the screens?
E: Oh, let’s rather not talk about that. That was re-named to “All I Want” and went directly to video sales.
F: Franka Potente was in that film, too. You were given the original ring from The Lord of the Rings, and you keep it in some box at your appartment. But on your right hand you wear another one.
E: Yes, that’s Franka’s ring. She gave it to me.
F: Are you still in touch?
E: Yes, of course, we spent some time together in LA this summer. She’s a wonderful, beautiful and very sweet woman. We wanted to meet again, but she’s in London right now.
F: Aren’t you a bit jealous that Orlando Bloom has landed another box office hit with “Pirates of the Carribbean”?
E: Not at all, we are very proud of him.
F: In the Return of the King he’s got a very daring stunt scene, in which he surfs down a battle elephant. It looks like an Hommage to “Pirates”…
E: Yes, that’s really funny, that’s what many people have said. But that scene was in there before Pirates.
F: Right at the beginning, you have done a video in costume, hopping around the woods, just to get the part of Frodo Baggins. Weren’t you scared to look ridiculous?
E: Not really. Normally, with screenings, you sit in front of a white wall and say your text. I wanted to show my passion for the part and the film, I really wanted to be part of that, and at the start they said that they wanted to cast the hobbits with British actors only.
F: Is this video tape on the DVDs?
E: Not yet, but it has been asked for. I think they want to use it for the Trilogy-DVD, which is planned to come out in a year and half.
F: You are one of the child actors who has made it to adult age without having had a breakdown, going to prison or sue his mother. Are you the nice American Boy from Next Door?
E: it seems so. I am just me. I was just lucky to get to where I am. I do feel that it’s a blessing.
F: But it is very difficult to imagine that it’s possible to enact such a long sequence of this hard, depressing path of suffering to Mount Doom without having made the experience of depression, horrors or other sorts of human disasters?
E: Well, nonetheless I can’t say that I’ve had these experiences. I don’t think that you have to experience all that you are portraying.
F: But there have to be some emotions that you can relate to?
E: Yes, but it’s enough if you can just relate to and understand the temptation, this addiction, with which Frodo is confronted.
F: During the Promo-Tour for the second film it was feared that The Two Towers might be seen as propaganda for the war in Iraq.
E: Well, that was put forward by the journalists mainly, because there were certain parallels. We were a bit scared that you might see a message supporting the war in it, but that fear disappeared after the start of the film. The film just treats universal themes, and ironically the story was looked at as a message of peace by the Hippie-culture. The heart of the story beats for nature, environment and peace.
F: You’ve lived in Los Angeles until recently, but you’ve kept your distance to the showbiz…
E: I never really meant to do that, but it has to do with the fact that most of my friends aren’t stars.
F: But you starred in “The Ice Storm” with Tobey Maguire. Hasn’t he introduced you to the famous-infamous clique with Leonardo die Caprio and others?
E: He was just around 20 at that time, and I was a teenager. And as you know, at that age, you don’t really want to have anything to do with younger ones. Apart from that I don’t really do the hangouts and clubs in LA. I prefer a good, well cooled bear in some bar.
F: So you’re doing better in your new hometown of New York City?
E: Absolutely, the bar culture there is just wonderful. Alone all these little English and Irish pubs in my part of town, along with the jukeboxes and pool-billiards are great. In this atmosphere I feel a thousand times more relaxed comfortable than in the exlusive in-bars of LA.
