The year 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of The Fellowship of the Ring movie. And although The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) series completely changed the fantasy genre forever, those involved were just trying to catch a breath.
And for Elijah Wood, who played Frodo Baggins, his life completely changed forever thanks to the trilogy based on J.R.R Tolkien’s book series.
Elijah Wood’s best Lord of the Rings memories
In a recent interview, Wood spoke out about what he remembers most of his time filming the movies. And it seems that it was the “ordinary” things he treasures the most.
“Meeting for brunch on weekends. The time in between setups—we’d have a couple hours where we’d take naps in each other’s trailers, or bring rented DVDs or VHS tapes from the local video store and watch them in one of our trailers,” he said.
“It’s stuff like that I sort of treasure the most, because these movies are so massive and the scale of them is so extraordinary, and they really are the culmination of thousands of people’s work and artistry.”
The actor felt overwhelmed
When it came to the premiere night of the film, the actor was “totally overwhelmed” by seeing him and his co-stars on screen.
“I didn’t know what to feel, to be totally honest with you. I knew I loved it, but I couldn’t process it. I remember all of us walking away kind of in a daze, sort of bowled over and overwhelmed and in love with it, but couldn’t make heads or tails until we saw it again.”
Wood added that once he separated his personal experience with the film, it was “amazing”.
“And I think that was just the enormity of it all and separating our personal experience from what it is, seeing it for what it is, an amazing experience. I certainly haven’t had that since,” Wood commented.
Tolkien’s character will be with Elijah Wood forever…even if he hasn’t read the books yet
Wood is the first to admit that he will always be associated with The Lord of the Rings, but he’s okay with that.
“These characters that we played will be with us forever,” he said. “And in many ways, they will probably be the first thing that people think about when they think about us, which I never really had an issue with.”
He further elaborated on how Tolkien’s story is an inspiration and how everybody can relate to it.
“But I also think that there’s a lot of heart in those films. I think that’s Tolkien. It’s the great power of those stories. There’s sort of something in it for everybody. At the core of it, it’s the story about literally the smallest person in the world being capable of changing, of affecting real change, and I think that message is universal. Everybody can relate to that on some level.”
And while gushing about the author, Wood lets it slip that he’s actually never finished reading any of The Lord of the Rings books.
“The book is dense and verbose and incredible and literary and beautiful, but heavy,” he said. “I found it taxing to read the book with all the work in tandem I was doing on my character. I sort of pivoted my focus to just live in the world of the character as written in the scripts and trust the process.”
But Frodo Baggins is well aware of the disgrace he has brought upon the LOTR fandom and sees it as his “cross to bear”.
“I still haven’t read it, 20 years later. It’s ridiculous that I haven’t. It is my cross to bear. It’s so dumb. Everybody else has read it.”