One behind-the-scenes facts post to rule them all.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the greatest film trilogy of all time.
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Note the period on the end of that sentence. It’s a statement, not a question.
And, since we’re in the midst of celebrating 20 years since the films were released*, we thought it’d be fun to revisit some of the coolest behind-the-scenes facts about the making of the film!
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*The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001, The Two Towers came out in 2002, and The Return of the King came out in 2003! I’m very old!
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“I remember auditioning for The Lord of the Rings and going in and not being told that I needed a British accent,” Jake said. “I really do remember [the director] Peter Jackson saying to me, ‘You know that you have to do this in a British accent?’ We heard back that it was literally one of the worst auditions.”
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Nic turned down the role, citing “family obligations,” i.e, not wanting to have to move to New Zealand for a couple of years. Meanwhile, Daniel actually turned down the role several separate times — much to the dismay of director Peter Jackson.
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Then, Stuart Townsend won the role of Aragorn, but was replaced by Viggo Mortensen immediately before filming started.
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“I was there rehearsing and training for two months, then was fired the day before filming began,” Stuart said. “I have no good feelings for those people in charge, I really don’t. The director wanted me, and then apparently thought better of it because he really wanted someone 20 years older than me and completely different.”
4.
And Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf because he “didn’t understand the script” — even though his contract would’ve included an absurdly good deal.
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5.
Alternatively, Christopher Lee (who played Saruman) was a huge fan of the source material and the only cast member to have ever met author J.R.R. Tolkien. He wanted a role in the film so badly that he campaigned for it.
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He was so obsessed with landing the role that — in the ’90s — he began purposely auditioning for wizard-adjacent roles, eventually landing the role of Olwyn in The New Adventures of Robin Hood. “The only reason I did that was to show anyone who was watching that I could play a wizard, and that I would be ideal casting for The Lord of the Rings,” Christopher said, admitting he even sent pictures of himself as a wizard to director Peter Jackson as casting began. “I sent him a picture of myself all made-up in the wizard’s role, but it was more in the nature of a joke, really. ‘This is what I look like as a wizard, don’t forget this when you cast the movie.'”
6.
In the late ’60s, the Beatles (yes, the Beatles) wanted to make their own movie adaptation with Stanley Kubrick directing, but Tolkien himself was basically like, “LOL, no.”
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“Ultimately, [the Beatles] couldn’t get the rights from Tolkien, because he didn’t like the idea of a pop group doing his story. So it got nixed by him,” Peter said. “They tried to do it. There’s no doubt about it. For a moment in time, they were seriously contemplating doing that at the beginning of 1968.”
7.
Despite being two of the chief characters, Ian McKellen (who played Gandalf) and Elijah Wood (who played Frodo) never actually filmed a scene together in person.
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Due to the use of stunt doubles and stand-ins for the hobbits throughout filming to create the illusion of massive size differences, Ian’s Gandalf never actually shared the same space as Elijah’s Frodo. “I never worked with Elijah Wood,” Ian said. “He was the main part in The Lord of the Rings, but he’s smaller than me, so we could never be together.”
8.
Andy Serkis was under the impression he was only being asked to do voiceover work for three weeks in New Zealand when he was cast as Gollum. However, when he auditioned in person, Peter was so blown away that he decided to use performance-capture technology so that Andy could play the character on set.
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The character was originally going to be created using solely CGI, with Andy providing just his voice for the role.
10.
In The Two Towers, the Battle of Helm’s Deep alone took three and a half months to shoot.
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The iconic battle scene was shot entirely at night and in the rain, using a blue backlight to help emulate the natural light of the moon.
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The extras portraying the Orcs in the weapon-making scenes were members of the WETA staff, who were responsible for many of the props and weapons.
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Many beloved little moments from the films were unscripted and/or outright improvised. This included when Gandalf hit his head on the entryway in Bilbo’s home.
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Ian accidentally smacked his noggin for real on a beam in the house, due to not being used to the small size of the space. Peter liked the moment so much that he kept it in the final cut of the film.
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And when Aragorn whacked Lurtz’s thrown knife away with his sword, like he was swinging a baseball bat.
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The actor playing Lurtz was meant to throw the very real metal knife away from Viggo, and special effects would be used later to show it hitting a tree. However, due to the heavy prosthetics, the actor got turned around, resulting in them throwing the — again, very real — knife directly at Viggo, who whacked it away. “He did it [on the] first take,” Peter said. “That was a real knife that was being thrown, and he literally did bat it away with his sword for real: there wasn’t anything fake about it.”
14.
And when the flag tore off and dramatically flew away while Éowyn looked over Edoras.
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Peter maintains that the flag tearing off of the post and flying away — as well as the befuddled looks on both Viggo and Miranda Otto (who played Éowyn) — were all real and unscripted.
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AND, of course, when Aragorn infamously improvised kicking an Orc helmet, which resulted in his breaking two of his own toes.
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And I do mean infamous in the truest sense of the word, as this “fun fact” has now become a meme of epic proportions within the fandom.
16.
Speaking of injuries, the filming of this massive franchise had quite a few of them behind-the-scenes. Some of which included: Viggo chipping a tooth during a fight scene after being hit in the face with a sword.
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He, quite literally, went to the dentist during his lunch break, and then started shooting again the same day.
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And Orlando Bloom (who played Legolas) cracking a rib after falling off a horse.
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Orlando fell off the horse, and then Gimli’s stunt double fell on top of him, resulting in the broken rib. Orlando was oddly proud of being the first cast member to be harmed, and was often teased by his castmates about how much he “whinged.”
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And Sean Astin (who played Sam) stepping on a giant shard of glass during the climactic final scene of The Fellowship of the Ring when he chases Frodo into the water.
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The shard impaled his foot — through his prosthetic hobbit foot and real foot — while he was running into the lake. They were able to remove the shard on set, but the wound bled so much that he had to be helicoptered to a hospital.
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But, in happier news, not one of the 300 horses used were harmed during the making of all three films!
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Yay! Or should I say…Neigh! (No? OK.)
20.
Moving past injuries and into more cautious territory, Sean Bean (who played Boromir) was so afraid of flying that he opted to hike up the side of the mountain they were filming at in full costume, rather than take a helicopter.
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In a moment very relatable to me, the person writing this post who is also terrified of flying, Sean was so genuinely horrified of it that he refused to join the rest of the cast in the helicopter up to the top of the mountains for filming. Instead, he hiked two hours, every day, in full costume up to the set.
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Plus, a lot of thought and care were put into tiny details you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for them, like the leaves falling during the Council of Elrond scene.
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To keep up the sense of autumn, six crew members remained above the set to keep leaves blowing down on the scene in consistent intervals. This also meant that the crew had to gather up all of these leaves to have them ready during shooting. And — when the leaves started to wither — they painted them individually.
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And how the filmmakers used a special light for close-ups of Galadriel’s (played by Cate Blanchett) eyes, so it appeared there were stars in them.
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Apparently, the unique lighting rig was made using Christmas lights! Which is festive! Since she’s an elf! (Wocka Wocka!)
24.
Many of the Riders of Rohan in The Two Towers and The Return of the King were women horseback riders donning fake beards.
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“There are some very good women riders in New Zealand,” Viggo said of the extras. “And it’d be silly not to take advantage of them. Some of the women rode better than any of the men.”
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Jane Abbott — the stunt double for Arwen (played by Liv Tyler) — loved riding Arwen’s horse so much that Viggo bought the horse for her so she could keep it at the end of production.
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26.
Helm’s Deep from The Two Towers and Minas Tirith from The Return of the King were both built on the same site.
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The Helm’s Deep scenes were shot first, and Minas Tirith was built on top of it once those scenes were done, with parts of the Helm’s Deep set remaining — though altered — beneath it.
27.
Peter snuck himself into the films, with one cameo per movie.
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He was a drunk gentlemen holding a carrot outside the Inn of the Prancing Pony in The Fellowship of the Ring, a chainmail-clad Rohirrim soldier during the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers, and a pirate aboard one of the Black Ships in The Return of the King.
28.
The studio wanted to cut Galadriel’s iconic opening monologue in The Fellowship of the Ring down to two minutes because they thought it was confusing.
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The filmmakers fought for the monologue to stay, as it provided a lot of much-needed backstory quickly, and the studio eventually gave in. The final version clocks in at seven and a half minutes (and, if you want to test how well you remember it, you better believe I made a quiz for it a little while back!)
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And finally, the last day of filming on the trilogy took place after The Return of the King was already released — yes, you read that correctly.
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Several scenes that took place in the Paths of the Dead continued to be shot for the Extended Editions after a theatrical cut of the film had already been released in theaters, and a month after the film broke records winning Oscars. Peter was noted as finding it “funny” that he was still shooting scenes for the movie, despite already winning all of the Oscars possible.
Well, there you have it! Which facts did we miss that you love? Who’s your favorite character?! Share all of your LOTR thoughts and feelings in the comments below!
