Hail to the King
Author: Lawrence French
Publication: Starburst magazine
Date: Jan/Feb '04

Elijah Wood told us that it was your son, Henry, who helped convince you to take the part in The Lord of the Rings when it was first offered to you on very short notice.
Yes, Henry heard me talking about it, when the phone call from Peter [Jackson] first came in. He said, 'What are you talking about?' and I said, 'It's a movie, The Lord of the Rings, they want me to go and make in New Zealand'. He said, 'That's a pretty interesting book, what character would you play?' and I said, 'Strider' and he said 'You should do that, he's a good character'. So I talked about it with him, and told him it would mean going away for a long time, but he thought I should do it. Also, as an actor I was a little nervous, because I hadn't read the book, and I wasn't sure if I would have the time to give them good value for their money, not knowing the material at all. From what they had told me the other actors had already been there for months, preparing and learning all the various skills, dialects and rehearsing. So it was good to have my son's blessing, but at the same time, you have to decide for yourself whether it feels right or not to do it. It felt like a challenge that I ought to accept, that I might regret not accepting, and I might learn something, which I certainly did. Much more than I bargained for, so I'm glad that I went, and made all those friends, and saw all those beautiful landscapes, and re-explored a lot of what I was already familiar with in terms of the source material - particularly Nordic mythology and mediaeval literature. It did out into focus a lot of archetypes I had been attracted to from different cultures and different media. Whether they be Westerns or Samurai movies, or epic poetry, or romantic poetry. Image-wise, those kinds of paintings and photographs. Like any movie, you try to get as much out of it as you can. You draw as many parallels and find as many connections as possible. You can treat working on it like comparative mythology, or you can treat it like a job, where you're supposed to memorize your lines, show up on time and do your thing, and walk away and not think any more about it. Either way, you can do a good job. The director takes what you've done and uses it as his raw material, along with everything else, and makes his movie. But for me, I like to explore and see where it will take you, and it took all of us lots of places that we didn't expect. Mentally, emotionally and physically, too.

Of course, you are mining a very rich vein with Tolkien. It's not a typical blockbuster movie, but more on a par with Shakespeare.
Yes, and in this genre of the heroic journey - the quest myth - whether it be of an individual, or as in this case, of a group, it's a story that has been told countless times over the millennia. Lord of the Rings is the same basic story that has been told thousands of times before. And not just in Europe. The same story has been told in Asia, Japan and by Native Americans. I don't think there is a place in the world that doesn't understand this story. I know the movie company was initially worried that Japan didn't have a familiarity with Tolkien's books, and Japan is a very important market for movies, but I was never worried about that. Obviously, everything in the Elf world - in terms of design, philosophy, fighting styles, connection with nature, concepts of beauty - it all relates very closely to certain Japanese models. But just overall, the whole heroic journey aspect of the story is a natural for any culture. There are parallels you can make to cultural archetypes in many mythologies.

Helm's Deep seemed to have a touch of an Akira Kurosawa Samurai movie about it.
Oh, yeah, when we did the charge of the Elves at Helm's Deep, it was completely obvious to me, it reminded me a lot of Kurosawa. In fact, I wanted to use Elvish commands. Using that language and some of those fighting styles, made it feel a little like a Samurai movie. It was a hodgepodge of different fighting styles, and total mayhem. I think you'll get that feeling on an even greater scale in Return of the King. It's hard to believe, after Helm's Deep, but Pelennor Fields is really going to be an incredible spectacle.

You were talking about how hard it was to do Helm's Deep, shooting for four months at night-time, so it must have been a big relief that the Pelennor fields battle takes place during the day.
Yes, to have hundreds of horses charging, and having stunt-men being knocked over under them at night would have been even more dangerous than what we did at Helm's Deep - which was already a very dangerous undertaking.

I understand you broke two toes and a tooth during the fight scenes.
Yes, every actor who was involved with fight scenes got hurt, in one way or another. You got stabbed, or smashed up. It sort of went with the territory. But as in so many areas, you were swept along in the river of the story to such a degree, that you were able to put up with, physically, mentally and emotionally, a lot more than you were accustomed to. A human being can be quite a resilient creature. When people are put to the test and engaged in something, they will go well past what they thought were the limits of their endurance. And all of us certainly did that. It wasn't just the length of time, but it was the concentration of work, in each hour of each day - which always involved overtime. Out of that, bonds formed between the cast and crew members that will last our lifetimes.

With all that overtime I'm surprised the crew never revolted.
Well, the regulations weren't to their advantage, but as a whole team, no matter how frustrated or exhausted we got, everybody just proceeded as best they could until the end. It was definitely a labour of love. And sometimes it was quite annoying, because you couldn't even catch your breath. You were like the walking dead. For the last six months that I was there, everybody was just completely exhausted at all times. But everybody was in the same boat. And even on the last few days of shooting, you'd still see Lord of the Rings paperbacks lying around not just the cast, but the crew members too. One felt it was a unique undertaking at all times, regardless of how chaotic and unmanageable any given day became, which was often the case. It was just barely under control a lot of times. It was a very ambitious project that seemed to become even more ambitious in its scope and aspirations as Peter kept brainstorming and coming up with new ideas.

The effects supervisors were telling me how Peter likes to keep adding on work, which makes their job much more difficult.
Oh yeah, I'm sure they'll go right to the bitter end. I'm sure he'll work them right into the ground. It's the home stretch now, and everyone knows that, so everyone is willing to do that extra bit. Peter's enthusiasm keeps everybody going, but it doesn't feel like the movie is ever going to stop, and it certainly hasn't for Peter. But since I started, I've always had the character in mind, and I've had to keep the part of me that was engaged physically and mentally with Aragorn, simmering. Due to the length of the shoot, it was like being in a repertory company; how familiar we all got with each other, and how familiar the actors got with their roles.

I understand you bought Brego, the horse you used in The Lord of the Rings?
Yes, he became my friend, just like the other cast members. The guy who owned him wanted to sell him, so he said to me, 'I know you've gotten along well with this horse, and I'd like to see him in good hands, would you like to buy him?' I thought about it for a while, whether it would be practical or not, and finally said, 'Why not?'

It's interesting because, like James Stewart, who used the same horse in all his Westerns, you can use Brego again if you should ever do a Western. Of course, the whole subplot of Aragorn freeing Brego into the wild got cut out of The Two Towers.
Yes, but it's back in the extended edition DVD. I'm very happy about that. Another scene, which is probably my favourite, is also back. It's a flashback to Denethor, Faramir and Boromir. You learn so much more about Faramir and about why he does the things he does in The Two Towers. And you meet Denethor, so it sets him up and you get to see what he's like before you see him in The Return of the King. It explains the relationships a lot more.

Barrie Osborne Told us it was your idea to add the scene in the extended cut of The Fellowship of the Ring where you visit your mother's grave in Rivendell.
I guess it was - I can't remember now. A lot of little touches were added by everybody. Like the song about Beren and the Lady of Lothlorien that I sing that Frodo hears. In quick fashion that scene does a lot. It builds a connection with Arwen and the Elves, before you even see them, and it also shows that Frodo understands something of the Elfish language and that he has a curiosity and an intelligence. It says as much about Frodo and Arwen as it does about Aragorn. But mostly it does something for the audience. All those little touches Peter cam up with for the characters in the extended version, allowed the characters to show their full rein. I just hope they show them in a movie theatre.

New Line is planning to show the first two extended cuts versions in cinemas for a one-week engagement before the opening of The Return of the King.
That would be nice. To me, the extended versions of The Two Towers and The Fellowship of the Ring are the legitimate versions. If I were to watch them , I wouldn't even bother looking at the theatrical versions, because the extended versions are a more complete telling of the story.

Did you work with a stuntman on set for your scenes with the King of the Dead?
Yes, although a lot of that will be done in CGI - The Army of the Dead, and all of that - so it was a case where we had to use our imagination. But I acted with a stuntman, Kirk Maxwell, who played the King of the Dead. He was the assistant sword-master to Bob Anderson. He laid the foundation for it, and he's who I acted against when I actually come face to face with the King of the Dead. In the final film, I don't know if he's the person who will be doing the actual movement though.

It must have been nice having fencing master Bob Anderson coaching you for all your scenes involving swordplay.
Yes, he was very helpful. One of the first scenes I had to do was with my sword, so I had to learn very quickly, and the first thing Bob did was just hand me a sword when I arrived. I found that by doing something physical, it helped me integrate myself into the role faster. And not just the sword-fighting scenes, but the whole physicality of the part in general. My baptism of fire in playing Aragorn was probably a good way to begin, because I was able to get some feeling for his movement and physical language before I ever uttered a single line of dialogue. So much of what I did in all three movies was non-verbal. How you get to know Aragorn is really through his gestures and reactions, much more than, say, Gandalf or Frodo, who are both much more verbal.

Yes, Aragorn is more like a Sergio Leone Western hero, and of course Peter Jackson likes to do extreme close-up shots right into the actor's faces. Did that bother you at all?
No. I find if I'm involved in the scene I'm doing, It doesn't matter to me if the camera is two inches away, or twenty feet away. You're still trying to play the scene and trying to figure out, from take to take, how you can improve it.

Let's discuss how you went about preparing a specific scene that was obviously going to be of great importance for you, such as Boromir's climactic death scene at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring.
We had prepared that scene, but they really didn't discuss specifically what they wanted. It was rare that we had time to discuss or prepare scenes at all. We'd often get rewritten scenes on the morning we had to shoot them. In this case, it was early in the shoot, the first month, and Sean Bean and I were able to sit down with Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh and work on the scene the night before we shot it. I'm sure Peter had input into what they were talking to us about as well. We stayed up later working on it, trying to figure out what the best way would be to get the points they wanted accomplished. Working with Sean on that scene was one of the more satisfying exchanges for me, and you get a better feeling for the whole trajectory of the scene in the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring. Sean and I were able to work on it in a good way. We were able to think about it and talk about it in certain general terms, where we hoped we would go with it. Then the playing of it, and how it went emotionally, grew organically out of the day's work. We did half of it in the morning and half of it in the afternoon. We took a whole day to do that scene, which seemed like an unusual amount of time to me. Later on, towards the end of the schedule, we would have probably done it in half a day. It was an important scene for Peter, and obviously very important for Boromir. It vindicated him, and made up for his lapse of weakness. Now Boromir has more than redeemed himself by giving his life. It was a turning point for Aragorn as well. It's the beginning of him being given more responsibility as a leader. I liked the way that scene came out.; it felt like it could have come out of the book.

It's certainly a very moving and emotional scene.
That's something you can't plan on. You hope it's going to be that way, but basically it's really how it grows in the moment. From moment to moment it was quite interesting how it went. I tried to be there as much for Sean, who had his side of it shot in the morning, as he certainly was for me, in the afternoon, when we shot my side of the scene.

What must be nice for you, as an actor, is that Peter Jackson seems to be a director who will let a lot of the key scenes play out in a long shot, as opposed to cutting it up, which is what a music video director would tend to do.
Yes, he does. I think you'll see a lot of beautiful shots in The Return of the King, and he lets the relationships have as much strength as the battles and all the great special effects shots. In Return of the King, you'll get a lot of character details and relationships that will hearken back to some of the best aspects of the first movie.

I noticed in your book of poetry, Coincidence of Memory, you included some photographs that you took in New Zealand.
Yes, although the photo of the tree on the cover was taken in Spain.

What scenes did you work on when you went back to shoot the pick-ups for Return of the King?
We worked on the Paths of the Dead and Pelennor Fields. I worked with Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Eomer and Eowyn. Those were for some group scenes early on, that took place in Edoras. I didn't have anything much to do with the Hobbits in the pick-ups, because we had already done all of those scenes.

Before shooting scenes that have a lot of effects shots, would you prepare by looking at the concept art for the creatures you'd be reacting to on the set, like the Fell-beasts and the Oliphaunts?
Yes, I was always curious and there was an open door policy in visiting Weta. You could walk into the office, visit Alan Lee and look at the sketches and production paintings any day of the week. When I think of it now, it seems amazing that we had access to all that, but at the time it seemed quite normal. It was fascinating to see everything, and how it was all coming together. It was the same in every department: they were all open, whether it was wardrobe or the weapons, and sometimes they would even incorporate thoughts we had into designs for particular things that our character might use, so it was great.

I understand you never went anywhere without your sword?
Yeah, it was a pretty important tool to Aragorn, and it felt to me like something that anchored the character. It had to be like second nature for him. To walk with it and handle it. If necessary, to sharpen it and clean it. All of those things, because that was Aragorn's most important tool - well, his second most important tool. I'd say his most important tool was his compassion, born from the experiences he has gleaned from travelling across Middle Earth. He also has a strong connection with nature. He is a man that has lived in the wild, so he understands not only the languages of the different peoples of Middle Earth, but also the language of the animals, the birds and the trees.

After Boromir dies, you take his leather vambraces and put them on, But conceptual artist John Howe, who is an expert on armour, was telling me how leather vambraces are in no way an authentic piece of armour.
Well, I do wear metal plated vambraces later in the story, but I think the leather vambraces are not necessarily wrong. It's better to have leather than having nothing on at all. I would say, like in most wars, people use what they have at hand. If you don't have metal, you put leather on. If you don't have leather, you run like a bastard. But I love the fact that John Howe, like everyone else in the art department, took things personally. I think it's great, and it helps give the movie that authentic feeling, because people care about those details. When it came down to quibbling about the details, it was about getting it as right as it could be. I know I found myself wanting to be as authentic and as true to Tolkien as I could possibly be, and I think most people felt that way.

It probably helped that it was shot in New Zealand, with a New Zealand crew, because sometimes Hollywood crews can get a very blasé attitude.
That's a generalisation, but I think it did make a difference. It's true that for most New Zealanders - especially when you get a group of them working together - it seems to come quite naturally for them to put the group before the individual. It certainly mirrors what the story is about. The group effort, of the group sacrifice, for the good of Humanity and the survival of Middle Earth.

Aragorn is really a mediator. He's not like Gimli and Legolas, who act impetuously. In fact, Eomer and his soldiers would probably have killed all three of you when you first meet Eomer in Rohan, if Aragorn didn't intervene as a mediator.
I think that's something that's true to the books. Legolas and Gimli don't consider things before they take action, while Aragorn, because of his previous experience, makes an effort to understand other peoples, and other races. He uses his knowledge about the history and culture of Middle Earth to understand people better, and he doesn't act without thinking. Although, when the tale begins, Aragorn has not been known as a public leader. In fact, nobody even knows what his real name is, outside of Rivendell. For the most part, he's been anonymous. Strider is just one of many disguises, assumed names and languages he has made use of over the years, in order to be of service to people. Whatever good he's done, whether for the Hobbits in the Shire, in protecting borders, or in anything else, it's all been done under assumed names and disguises and that's something he's been comfortable with. Then, as we go into the third film, more responsibility is placed on his shoulders, and more is expected of him. So it's something he has to get used to. I don't know if that ever totally suits him, but it's something that he understands it's important for him to do.

Actually, in terms of the story, it's quite vital, since Aragorn is destined to be King of Gondor.
Yes, and that's another reason why he has consistently remained anonymous - to keep Sauron ignorant of the fact that there is an heir to the throne of Gondor out there. Sauron has much to fear from the line of Kings of the Númenorean race. They have long been his nemesis and Sauron has tried to eradicate that line. Sauron first becomes aware of Aragorn through Saruman and Wormtongue., and we filmed the scene where I finally reveal myself to Sauron - through the Palantir - which is a crucial point in the story, so I hope it will be in the final film.

When Aragorn is finally crowned, he's a totally just and compassionate King. It's too bad somebody like Aragorn couldn'e be President of America...
Yeah, that would be cool, wouldn't it? I don't think Aragorn is going to allow any companies to drill for oil in Fangorn Forest. One of the problems with our present government is everything is either black or white. There seems to be no place for discussing of thinking about the best way to solve situations like Iraq.

Did you have any favourite scenes in Return of the King?
It's hard to pick anything, because I don't know what's going to be in it. I know it will be interesting and I think Peter will round out all the different characters that we've followed for the last two years. But I hesitate to talk about it too much, because I've done that in the past and then those scenes weren't in the movie! I know the book, obviously, and I know what I was a party to in making it, and watching other people when I could, but I don't make any assumptions about what Peter will or won't put into the film. I wouldn't even venture to guess. I know the Paths of the Dead will have to be in there, where Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli have to confront a particularly daunting challenge. The battle of Pelennor Fields, and the ride of the Rohirrim will both be quite spectacular. Saruman's death, which comes early in the movie, should be interesting [Except it's now been cut from the film - Ed] and the new monsters, like Shelob the giant spider will be exciting. Beyond that, I'm not sure what will make it into the final movie. Gollum will play an important part this time, just as he did last time. As with any good story, in Return of the King Tolkien and Peter Jackson have upped the stakes. The odds of us getting through and succeeding and surviving are greater than ever. It should be a very satisfying story, because at the end we will pull all the story threads together. But I don't know what exact route Peter's going to take to get there.

You seems to get very deeply into playing the part of Aragorn. Did you ever find that you had to fake a scene?
I'm not sure what you mean… Depending on your point of view, the whole thing can be seen as a fake.

I mean how an actor - especially a method actor - may not be able to find the true emotions or the spine of a scene. There's a famous story of how Ingrid Bergman told Alfred Hitchcock she couldn't play a scene in Notorious, because she wasn't feeling it. Hitchcock looked at her and said, 'Just fake it'.
Well, you're being paid to do the scene, so you have to do it, one way or another. You can do it better on some days than on others, I grant you that, but it's up to the individual actor, if you want to fake it or not. But it's not just about you. There's other people in the scene, there's the director, and a lot of elements that go into the making the scene work. If you just remember that you have help there at all times, if you want to be open to it, then you won't be preoccupied by whether it seems like you're faking the scene or not. If you're involved with the other people there, and you're honest with yourself, you'll be comfortable with the scene. The biggest enemy for an actor is not feeling comfortable with the scene. So the degree to which he or she can relax is important. If a scene isn't working, there's a good chance that you're tense.

It sounds like Peter Jackson is a helpful director for an actor.
Yes and, as much as anything, Peter leads by example. He was very well informed and enthusiastic about every aspect of the film. In his way, he put his mind into the shoes of each of the characters and tried, in whatever way he could, to be helpful to the actors who were playing the characters.