Peter jackson shares insight into the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the cast of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The Academy Award-winning director has recorded fan introductions for each film prior to the theatrical re-release of the iconic films.
In a clip obtained by Entertainment weeklyPeter remembered how to change an important battle scene Community of the Ring because Viggo Mortensen showed up with a black eye.
“The problem with these films, of course, is that we shot all three at the same time, and in a mixed way,” he explained. “So one day we were going to shoot a bit from The Fellowship, and that would be on Monday. On Tuesday we were going to shoot a scene from [second film] The Two Towers return to Fellowship on Wednesday, and again on Thursday [final film] The return of the king. So it was really just one movie for us.”
“So also in the mines of the Moria scene, which I remember, we all showed up to shoot that scene. And Viggo had been out with the Hobbits this weekend, and he was surfing, and he had gotten an injury surfing, like the board had flipped up in the air and hit him in the face,” Peter remembers.
He continued, “So he comes in, and his eye is bulging, black eye, closed, like a swollen boxer, and he says, ‘I’m sorry, Peter. I’m sorry.’ And I said, ‘Oh God.’ So you’ll see that I could only shoot him from the side. I couldn’t shoot [head on].”
The cheerful and simple-minded hobbits in the Lord of the rings trilogy was played by actors Elijah Wood (Frodo), Sean Astin (Sam), Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry). In addition to Viggo as Aragorn, the main cast included Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Liv Tyler (Arwen), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel), Christopher Lee (Saruman), Hugo Weaving (Elrond), Sean Bean (Boromir), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) and Andy Serkis (Gollum).
