20 years of "The Lord of the Rings"

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“The initial pressure was trying to live up to other people’s imaginations.”  It’s been 20 years since “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy came out. Here’s how Elijah Wood and director Peter Jackson discussed it at the time ...

Transcript

00:00It certainly was the most challenging experience of my life.

00:03I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that we were filming three movies at once

00:07over such a long period of time and, you know, rising at five in the morning, working till

00:11eight at night, six days a week.

00:13It starts to just wear at you and you get kind of lost, but I think what kept our momentum

00:18going, what kept us sort of passionate about what we were doing and kept our focus was

00:23literally, I think, the reliance on each other as well as the fact that we were working on

00:27something that we were very impassioned about, you know, and that we loved so much.

00:51I decided very early on I couldn't make the film for millions of other fans because I'd

00:55never second-guessed what everybody wanted and everybody expected to see, so I made the

00:59film for one fan, which was me, because I'm a fan.

01:03I read the book and I couldn't wait till the film got made when I was 18 and I read the

01:07book for the first time, so I just thought, well, this is the fan I've really got to make

01:11this for and if I like it, then hopefully other people will too.

01:15I'm very happy with it, yeah, I'm very happy with it.

01:19What I'm most proud of is that it doesn't remind me of any other movie.

01:21It feels kind of like its own identity, which I'm pleased about.

01:38Initially one of the main pressure sort of points was the idea that Frodo was steeped

01:46in literature and there was a massive fan base that knew the character, had their own

01:51ideas as to what the character should be, and I'd never really felt that kind of thing

01:55before, so that was the initial pressure, trying to live up to other people's imaginations.

02:01Once I got to New Zealand and had those kind of things hanging over me, once we started

02:06filming, I just kind of let go and gave way to the journey and felt comfortable in the

02:12role.

02:29Bringing Lord of the Rings to the screen is a massive undertaking, assembling a crew

02:33of over 2,000 people in so many far flung locations across New Zealand, from glaciers

02:40to volcanic plains, on rivers and lakes, and getting through 15 months of production

02:49was quite a challenge for all of us.

02:51It's not logical that you'd give me $270 million, it's not logical that you would, you know,

02:57one of the screenwriters, Philippa Boyens, has never written a script before, you know,

03:01that's not a logical thing.

03:02It's not logical you'd say, well we want amazing costumes, we want amazing set design, we want

03:07really great production values and New Zealand is the place to go for that.

03:10That's not a logical thing.

03:12It's not logical that you wouldn't trust the incredibly complicated digital computer effects

03:17with a tiny New Zealand company.

03:20You know, none of this is logical and I kind of love that about the project, it's broken

03:24all the rules.

03:38Now I feel like I've done the best job that I can do and, you know, if people respond

03:42to it and if it's anywhere close to their visions then I've done over and above my job.

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