I can’t speak for them, I can speak for myself. I’m a fan of the book and I’m a fan of the movie. I see the differences and there’s times, to be honest with you, where I - as good as the movies are - I’ve been glad to do the extended versions of the first two because I think that they do more for the fans of the books. They explain things in a way that makes them more fluid as an audience experience. You don’t have questions. You follow. You’re like, “That’s right. Rivendall…” You go along with the film.
I think that Peter and all of us made as many efforts as we could to capture the spirit of what Tolkien wrote about. I think all and all, Peter did a great job with that. I can’t imagine another director having pulled off what he did. I certainly can’t imagine another director not having been hospitalized or at the very least having gone through this without becoming a screaming maniac – even a few weeks into it.
No matter how well prepared Peter was – and the design was great - there just seemed to be this very precise schedule that just went out the window because more shots were added. It would snow when it was supposed to be summer. Whatever could go wrong, it did. But it’s how you deal with the obstacles, how you deal with difficulty, that defines your character. And the way that this team, I mean the crew and the cast, dealt with adversity is what made these stories work so well, I think.
There’s a saying that all of life is sorrowful. You can’t change that, but you can change your attitude toward it. In some ways, that’s the way this story goes. Everybody volunteers to become part of this fellowship, but even those like Gandalf and Aragorn who have the most knowledge about the history of Middle Earth and what they’re up against, have no idea how tough it’s going to get. They have no idea that they’re going to lose Gandalf in the first part of the story. It’s one thing after another, and that’s where character is forged. That’s where you find out who you really are when it gets really tough. That’s the way it was for our shooting. In the end, no matter how much research I did, the most accurate reflection of what the characters were going through in the story was ourselves. Just looking around in the trailer, getting ready at 5 in the morning, or pouring rain or so forth. It was how people got through that.
Additional “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” Press Junket Interviews:
John Rhys-Davies, Sean Astin, Bernard Hill, David Wenham/John Noble, and Richard Taylor/Barrie M. Osborne
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” Premiere Coverage:
Orlando Bloom/Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood/Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, David Wenham/John Noble, John Rhys Davies/Bernard Hill, and Peter Jackson/Richard Taylor
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
"Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” Photo Gallery
"Return of the King” Trailer, Credits, Soundtrack Info and Movie News
