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TOLKIEN OF AFFECTION
Labor-of-Love Adaptation of "Lord of the Rings" Stays True to the Text's Heart By Christine James

The quest began a millennium ago and whisked the Bearer of the One "Ring" to exotic faraway lands. That is, Elijah Wood was tapped circa mid-1999 to play Frodo Baggins in New Line's epic adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, filmed on location in New Zealand.

Wood, now 20, was a child actor on the rise around the time his contemporary (and co-star in 1993's "The Good Son"), McCauley Culkin, was skyrocketing to fame slapping himself silly in endless talk-show re-enactments of his Edvard Munchian "Home Alone" aftershave scene. While Culkin's celebrity went the way of his baby teeth, Wood continued to build a reputation as a young star whose wise-beyond-his-years aura negated the need for a gimmick or catchphrase. Wood's footing in Hollywood became less sure as he vacillated between the artistic ("The Ice Storm") and the exploitative ("Deep Impact," "The Faculty"), but the same magic that turned Kiwi country into Middle Earth transformed the actor who not long ago was wrangling with adolescence in the big-screen version of "Flipper" into the shining hero of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic good-versus-evil quest fantasy.

As Frodo, who inherits a ring of great but inherently evil power from his uncle Bilbo, and must return it -- with the help of a fellowship of elves, dwarves, wizards, humans and fellow-hobbits -- to its place of origin in order to destroy it, Wood himself faces the equally daunting challenge of embodying a character whose iconic, archetypal status is rivalled only by that of its source material, the Bible of fantasy literature.

BOXOFFICE: I saw some advance footage [of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"] and the scenes in Moria [a dwarf mine overrun by the baneful Orcs] were perfectly realized. Better yet, there was someone beside me who even said the Orcs were actually scarier than they had been in his imagination. Which is some feat, because usually it's a letdown to have something rendered that you've already visualized in your mind.
ELIJAH WOOD: So often when you read a book, it's very much your own interpretation, and everyone has their own interpretation of what "The Lord of the Rings" looks like. So to put that to film and [try to] meet other people's vision is really complicated.

BOXOFFICE: What has the response been so far?
WOOD: Tolkien fans who have seen simply just the trailer are pleased with what they see -- and most of the people who have seen the footage you saw were absolutely blown away. The response has been great from Tolkien fans, just in terms of the look and the feel of it, which they feel represents the books perfectly.

BOXOFFICE: What's your insight into how that was achieved?
WOOD: Ooh, a lot of heart and soul and hard work. This film, this project, was just a culmination of nearly a thousand incredibly passionate people who were either Tolkien fans or became Tolkien fans in the process. Everyone involved was so incredibly passionate to make the Tolkien vision that they had either grown up with or just read come alive on the screen. And we had some of the most amazing artists designing what they felt best represented Middle Earth. We also had an artist who had illustrated [later editions] of "Lord of the Rings," Alan Lee -- he was one of our art designers.

BOXOFFICE: That was very smart. I was about to use the word "synergy," but then I'd have to wash my mouth out with raw lye.
WOOD: [laughs] Yeah. So a lot of people who are familiar with those illustrations will be really familiar with the imagery in the film.

BOXOFFICE: There are a lot of variant accounts as to how you became involved with the project, and most of them involve [Internet movie-news maven] Harry Knowles.
WOOD: I was working in Austin, Texas, on "The Faculty," and that's where Harry lives, and he often visited the set because he was friends with Robert Rodriguez. [Knowles in fact had a cameo in the film as one of the titular alien-possessed teachers. -- Ed.] And one day he came up to me, and he was like, "Dude, they're making 'Lord of the Rings' as a feature. You gotta play Frodo!" And the news was really exciting, but they weren't casting for it at that point. It was just kind of in the news. I first heard about it from him, [but] I actually wasn't approached to audition for it until nearly a year later.

BOXOFFICE: What was the process?
WOOD: My agent called me and said, "Look, they're casting 'Lord of the Rings'; Peter Jackson is gonna direct it, and you should go in and put yourself on tape." [But] the idea of putting myself on tape in a casting office wasn't particularly attractive to me, mainly because I wanted to try to convey my passion for the project and for the role, and going into the casting office against a white background and being put on tape did not seem at all conducive to what I wanted to portray. So I [decided to do] my own tape, which I'd never done before, but I figured that this project deserved my own interpretation and my full attention. So I got a voice coach and worked on my accent for a little while, and then a few friends of mine got together and we went up to the Hollywood Hills after getting some costumes at Western Costume, and we shot the scenes like you would a film, [with] various angles and things. And we went that night to the Miramax offices and borrowed their Avid machine and edited it together, and the next day I brought the video into the casting office and I kind of let it go, just knowing that I'd put my best foot forward in terms of getting the role, and I would see what happened. And it all went from there.

BOXOFFICE: It's interesting because you have, it's been remarked, otherworldly, kind of Elvish features, whereas the Hobbits are a little more stocky and ruddy. So how did that all work out?
WOOD: Well, the thing is that Frodo actually is differentiated from the other Hobbits in a lot of ways. He, like his uncle, Bilbo, is quite interested in the outside world -- the world outside the Shire -- and in Elvin lore and the history of Middle Earth. And he was brought up by his uncle, hearing stories of his adventures and tales of the elves and things. So he's always been fascinated by that. Which is kind of peculiar for a Hobbit, because Hobbits tend to not want to know about what's outside the Shire, because outside is unknown to them, and slightly frightening. So Frodo was always quite different. And, in terms of my own features, I think [they] played into that in a physical kind of way.