{"id":81590,"date":"2013-10-31T12:18:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T17:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=81590"},"modified":"2013-10-31T12:20:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T17:20:44","slug":"evangeline-lilly-explains-the-challenges-of-playing-tauriel-in-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2013\/10\/31\/81590-evangeline-lilly-explains-the-challenges-of-playing-tauriel-in-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangeline Lilly explains the challenges of playing Tauriel in Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part one of this spotlight on Evangeline Lilly and her character Tauriel was published yesterday. Click here to read it.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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\"(Evangeline<\/a>
(Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>In the first part of this story<\/a>, Evangeline Lilly discussed her childhood love for “The Hobbit,” and her decision-making process that led her to move her family to New Zealand and work with director Peter Jackson as a character not found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s 75-year-old classic. She plays an elf in the forest kingdom of Thranduil where his son Legolas also lives.<\/em><\/p>\n

How does an actor differentiate her character in a set of films stuffed full with grand, immortal elves?<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody asked me, \u2018Did you study a lot of the other elves? The performances of the elves from Rings to do this role?\u2019 I said distinctly \u2018no.\u2019 I intentionally didn\u2019t re-watch the movies because I was afraid of trying to copy someone\u2019s performance and I wanted it to be original.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bg_jFUFB\"<\/a>\u201cAll the other elves you\u2019ve ever seen in these movies are at least twice my age, at least twice Tauriel\u2019s age, so they are very wise and they\u2019re very well established in their power and their understanding of the world. I\u2019ve intentionally tried to demonstrate that she\u2019s not there yet. She\u2019s young, she\u2019s only 600 years old and in elven terms, that is so young. She\u2019s just a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lilly is even playing some layers of the role in a way she wants those diehard fans to understand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the idea of playing with a young elf, how would they behave? How would they be different from the aged elves? And I hope that it doesn\u2019t come across as wrong, you know what I mean? I hope it doesn\u2019t come across to people who really know the world as she\u2019s not quite got it down. Because that\u2019s my goal, to not quite have it. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe wants to be as wise, she wants to be as much of a presence as all of her elders but she\u2019s not. She\u2019s a kid and there\u2019s a part of her that is always a little too excited about things or maybe a little too engaged in the world, the way kids can get. And I think that was something I wanted to tell the really diehard fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want them to know that she is young so that when they look at the performance and they look at the character they understand the context.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a viewer sits down in theaters in December and watches the lethal Tauriel come to life, some may think Hollywood (or Wellywood) technicians manufactured the finished elf on screen. Bloom\u2019s Legolas, with his signature style-point kills in the LOTR trilogy, likely also suffers the assumptions of the viewer that tend to write things off as CGI these days.<\/p>\n

But from the on-set vantage, it took some pretty high-level training, athleticism and execution from Lilly and her team. And, admittedly, as a viewer and an interviewer, at some point I became compromised. It became pretty impossible not to root for Lilly to win over audiences despite my efforts to remain neutral.<\/p>\n

\"Evangeline<\/a>
Evangeline Lilly<\/figcaption><\/figure>Somewhere in the process of studying the work on these pieces of film, and then interviewing Lilly formally combined with chatter in subsequent on-set encounters, I lost my objectivity. I liked talking with her. I admired her and liked her and her baby and Norman. Watching the stunt team, including coaches and coordinators, work with actors and Jackson to give everything cohesion, and appreciating the energy and focus exhibited by everybody, definitely including Lilly, I was ruined as an objective observer.<\/p>\n

I really like Evangeline Lilly, the person.<\/p>\n

Thing is, you would too. You would.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean the \u201cworship the beautiful movie star\u201d way either, I mean in the way that you respect any person who works hard, seeks excellence and has values that I identify with and stays grounded in reality.<\/p>\n

Partly because of Lilly, one action sequence I enjoyed during filming is something I am looking forward to on screen. But who knows if the sequence will even make the cut? I don\u2019t, but one flash of it definitely appears in the latest trailer. I feel as if I have it all memorized from every angle so it will be a fascinating experience to see how Jackson and Weta Digital deliver the final version. With a few more interviews I would have a chapter in a book on that sequence alone. But Tauriel isn\u2019t all action.<\/p>\n

She has an emotional center and honor that are hinted at in the film\u2019s latest trailers. Despite as much experience playing an action-oriented, strong woman as any actor you care to name, this role was different.<\/p>\n

(Just in case you haven’t had a chance to view it, the official movie trailer is below. We also have a frame-by-frame analysis with staff comments<\/a> for those interested in such things.)<\/p>\n