The League of Austen Artists: Elijah Wood on Returning as 'Frodo' in The Hobbit and Whether The Lord of the Rings Will Go 3-DPosted 11.26.11

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Elijah Wood on Returning as 'Frodo' in The Hobbit and Whether The Lord of the Rings Will Go 3-DPosted 11.26.11

Elijah Wood on Returning as 'Frodo' in The Hobbit and Whether The Lord of the Rings Will Go 3-DPosted 11.26.11 by BrentJS

Co-writer and director Peter Jackson will be in New Zealand filming the two-part prequel to The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy, The Hobbit, for quite some time, but Elijah Wood's time there is already at an end. The 30-year-old actor spent a month filming "a little cameo" in The Hobbit as Frodo Baggins, his character from LOTR, who is believed to appear in book-end scenes either reading the story of The Hobbit from the fictional "Red Book of Westmarch" or having it read to him. Now in the U.K. and stumping for his new movie, Happy Feet Two, Wood spoke candidly with DenOfGeek about what it was like to put on Frodo's furry feet once again and whether or not we might see LOTR on the big screen in eye-popping 3-D at some point.

Wood admitted that he shot "very little" as Frodo, "mainly because Frodo’s not alive at the time of The Hobbit," and that he needed a little refresher on how to speak as a Hobbit after a decade away from the character.

Before we started, I watched Fellowship [of the Ring] again, just to remember the way that he spoke. Outside of that it was revisiting something I'd spent the better part of four years playing, and it was just a joy. ... The weirdest thing was being on set, looking down at my feet and it just feeling oddly normal, like, 'Here we are, doing another scene at Bag End, 10 years later.'

Wood said that there are still deleted scenes from LOTR that could turn up in future DVD releases, and that there are hours of "f*ck-ups and jokes" that would make great fodder for a "blooper reel." As for whether we will ever see LOTR on the big screen in 3-D, Wood said that he would like to see that happen and that there has been some talk of it happening.

I think it would be cool to see. There's talk of releasing a dimensionalised trilogy eventually. I'm okay with doing post-process 3D, as long as someone takes the time. What I'm upset about is when a movie doesn’t have the budget and the time to devote to it and they're not fine-tuning the detail of that, because it can look really bad and cheap. But I know that they wouldn't dimensionalise it unless it was a super meticulous process.
I mean, Titanic's coming out in 3D now, and Star Wars: Episode I [The Phantom Menace], which means we have to wait three movies to get to the f*cking good sh*t, it's unbelievable, I'm like, 'We have to wait three years for that? You're doing Episode I first? [frustrated squeal], what a bummer!'

The Hobbit screenplays were written by Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and are based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The movies will chronicle the adventures of Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) as he leaves the comfort of his home in the Shire to "burgle" from the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) for a company of dwarves. Joining Wood in reprising their roles from LOTR in The Hobbit are Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Sir Christopher Lee as Saruman and Andy Serkis as Gollum (motion-capture). The first movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, debuts in late 2012, with The Hobbit: There and Back Again following in 2013.

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