| Bringing you more news than you can shake a stick at since September 8, 2001 |
| Daily Digest staff trivia Articles Cleolinda came across whose titles punned on the fact that "hobbit" kinda sounds like "habit": Too damn many Variations of this pun, which is only vaguely funny the first time you hear it, much less the 5,067th: "Force of Hobbit," "A Change of Hobbit," "Hobbit Forming," "Hard Hobbit to Break" Age Cleolinda first read The Hobbit: 4, if you count the Rankin-Bass children’s book-and-tape tie-in (below) she checked out from the library every single weekend (adds Cleolinda’s mother, “EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND!”) Age Cleolinda first read LOTR: 12, mostly at the pool one summer Things Cleolinda remembers about the books from that summer: 0 Age Cleolinda subsequently picked them up again: 22, at the beach last June, after six months of following the movie production online Number of times she has read them all in the six months succeeding: 4 Digest staffers she converted to love of LOTR: The Lovely Emily and AngelDust Amount of time elapsed between the Lovely Emily finishing The Fellowship of the Ring and beginning The Two Towers: 30 seconds Cleolinda's favorite line from the books: “"I pass the test....I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel" Elvish phrase she has learnt by heart: Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo (“May a star shine upon the hour of our meeting”) Item Cleolinda hoped to find, buy, and wear the first time she saw the movie: Elf ears Item Cleolinda did buy on Ebay: Galadriel’s ring Nenya, “The Ring of Water” >>> Item the Lovely Emily bought on Ebay: Nerd spray |
| Stunts Other movies for which legendary swordmaster Bob Anderson has trained actors: The Mask of Zorro (1998), The Princess Bride (1987), Highlander (1986), Star Wars (1977) Film character for which Anderson was the stunt double: Darth Vader (The Empire Strikes Back, 1980) <<<Famous student of Anderson's: Errol Flynn (left, The Adventures of Robin Hood) Age of Anderson: 80 ("and he can [still] kick anybody's butt," says Tyler) <<<Actor Anderson says was “the most dedicated he’d ever met”: Mortensen Actor who got stopped by a New Zealand cop while “walking out of [his] apartment in the middle of the night carrying a huge sword”: Mortensen (left) Actor who, when told he was needed for a scene at 5 a.m. the next morning, said he would just camp out at the location that night--and was soon joined by the rest of the cast: Mortensen Actor who chipped a tooth in a swordfight—and asked for it to be superglued back on so he could continue: Take a guess (the crew refused, so Mortensen went to the dentist during the lunch break, had it fixed, came back, and finished the scene) <<<Actor who said, “I’ve broken my back, my ribs, my nose, both my legs, my arm, my wrist, a finger and a toe and cracked my skull three times” in the course of his life: Orlando Bloom, 24 Broken during the filming of the trilogy: Only one of the aforementioned ribs Bloom’s second movie role: The character referred to in Black Hawk Down’s tagline, “Leave no man behind”: “My character falls about 70 feet from a helicopter, breaks his back and numerous other parts of his body, and then has to get taken to safety on a convoy” What Bloom is seen doing on Fox's "Quest for the Ring" special: Bungee-ing from a cable car (with mohawk for a better "cupcake" hairline, above left) (What Mortensen is seen doing between scenes on same special: Fishing) <<<(What McKellen is seen doing in character on same special: Dancing a little jig) Actor who had to throw himself around the Orthanc set onto crash mats: Ian McKellen (left) Line McKellen was supposed to say: "The choice, it seems is to submit to Sauron or to you. I shall do neither!" <<<Line he actually said for one take: "The choice it seems, is to submit to Miramax or to New Line. I shall take--the money!" |
| Obligatory number-crunching (keep going, it gets better) Movies filmed simultaneously: 3 Total shooting days: 274 Months the movies filmed: 15 Months in the Fellowship’s journey: 13 Estimated budget for all three films combined: $260-300 million, not including advertising budget Years director Peter Jackson spent developing the project: 7 Number of movies he had previously directed: 7 Screenwriters: Jackson, his wife Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens Previous original screenplay by Jackson and Walsh that was nominated for an Oscar: Heavenly Creatures (at right; read our review) Screenplay it lost the award to: Pulp Fiction Actress who had her first screen role in Heavenly Creatures: Kate Winslet Winslet film that currently holds the top-grossing film of all time record: Titanic Articles printed speculating on how many box-office records LOTR will be able/unable to break: Too damn many The books Publisher’s son who approved the publication of The Hobbit in a book report for his father at the age of 10: Rayner Ulwin Publisher who later made the decision to chop Lord of the Rings into three volumes: the grown-up Rayner Ulwin Number of people (according to the press kit) that have read LOTR since its publication in 1954: 100 million Actor who says he reads the books every year, and has since they first came out: Christopher Lee Actors who say they had not read the books (or had started but not finished them) before filming: Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Liv Tyler (Arwen), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) Actor who said he actually fell asleep trying to read them: John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) Fully functional languages invented by Tolkien: 37 Languages his books are printed in: 25 Languages Howard Shore used in the film's score: Elvish, Dwarvish, and Orc ("Black Speech") Actors who perform scenes in Quenya (a Tolkien dialect of Elvish): Mortensen and Tyler (including the scene pictured above right) What Tyler calls Elvish: "The language of love" Actor who actually met J.R.R. Tolkien: Christopher Lee Personage the Lovely Emily insists Christopher Lee is older than: God Actor who said at the London premiere his one dream now was to “live to see the second and third films”: Lee (at that premiere, right) Actress who had a very good reason not to attend the premiere: Cate Blanchett, who had given birth to her first child a few days previous |
| Merchandising Actor who is a longtime collector of action figures (and now can have one of himself): Wood (with his Burger King likeness, at right, on Letterman) >>> Affliction the Burger King/LOTR commercials give the Digest staff: the heebie-jeebies First thing Liv Tyler did to the advance copy of the Arwen doll she was lent: Took off its clothes >>> Subsequent problem she had: The studio wanted it back, and she couldn’t get its dress back on Action figure that was delayed: Strider/Aragorn, because (We Are Not Making This Up) the company wanted to spend extra time sculpting a better likeness of Viggo Mortensen’s facial hair >>> Number of items listed as “The One Ring” found in a single, random search on Ebay: 124 Location of one seller: “Mordor” |
| The cast Actor said he walked into the first reading, looked around the table, and, looking at the actors in their street clothes, was able to identify each character on sight: Rhys-Davies: “I’ve never done that before…[Peter Jackson’s] casting is impeccable.” <<<Relationship of Galadriel to Arwen: grandmother (yikes) Age of Cate Blanchett (Galadriel): 32 Age of Liv Tyler (Arwen): 24 Age of Arwen (according to Tyler): 3000 Average height of an elf: at least six feet tall Height of Blanchett: 5' 8" Height of Tyler (Arwen): 5'10" <<< Actress who had to “totter about in disco-glam 70s boots”: Blanchett Reason Blanchett took the role: “I basically did it [for] the pointy ears” Actress who said, “There was basically a 1-800-Help-an-Elf number. Elves are almost impossible to play”: Tyler Actor who said he played his character as “two different parts” after a key point in the films: Ian McKellen (spoiler!) <<<Actor who compared his character’s thrall to the Ring to “a drug that has been eating away at him”: Sean Bean (Boromir, left) Actor who said of Aragorn and Boromir (metaphorically), “Well, obviously they are one in the same person”: Viggo Mortensen Actor who submitted a homemade audition tape of himself : Elijah Wood Webmaster who originally suggested the role to Wood: AICN's Harry Knowles <<<Legendary stage actor Elijah Wood referred to as “the Daddy, really, he f---in’ is”: (Sir) Ian Holm (Curse word Wood left the set—and his older British castmates, such as Lee and McKellen—enamored with: “The c-word.”) Actor who had previously starred as Frodo in a 1981 BBC radio version: Holm Actor who holds the Guinness record as “international star with the most screen credits” (more than 250 in TV and film), and thus “the Centre of the Hollywood Universe” (according to the Oracle of Kevin Bacon site) because he can be linked to anyone in approximately 2.59 steps, fewer than Bacon himself: Christopher Lee (Saruman) Characters Lee originally wanted to play: Bilbo, Gandalf Character Orlando Bloom (Legolas) originally read for: Frodo Character Sean Bean (Boromir) originally read for: Aragorn Musician/actor who wanted to play Elrond: David Bowie >>> Actors and the roles they were allegedly considered for: Al Pacino (Gandalf); Sean Connery (Gandalf and Saruman), Daniel Day-Lewis (Aragorn), Rupert Everett (Aragorn), Bruce Willis (Boromir), Liam Neeson (Boromir), Jude Law (Legolas), Harvey Keitel (Denethor and/or Theoden), Patrick Stewart (Denethor and/or Theoden), Uma Thurman (Eowyn and Galadriel), Ethan Hawke (Faramir) <<<Actor originally hired to play as Aragorn: Stuart Townsend (shown with the late Aaliyah on the set of Queen of the Damned, above left) Reason he was fired after shooting began: “Creative differences” Insider interpretations of that phrase: "too young" or "too delicate" Age of Stuart Townsend: about 25 at the time Age of his replacement, Viggo Mortensen: 40 when hired Amount of time Mortensen was given to prepare for the role: None Height of Elijah Wood: 5’6” Average height of a hobbit: 3’6” >>> <<<Tallest hobbit: Dominic Monaghan (5'7", above left with John Rhys-Davies) Height of John Rhys-Davies: 6 ft Height of his character, Gimli the dwarf: 4 ft Oldest hobbit (over 50 in hobbit-years): Frodo Age of Elijah Wood (Frodo): 21 in January of 2002 Youngest hobbit (not yet "of age," or 33): Pippin Billy Boyd (Pippin): 33 Actor whose daughter plays his character’s young daughter in the third film: Sean Astin (Alexandra Astin plays Elanor Gamgee, above/left) Actors who say their sons talked them into accepting their roles: Mortensen and Rhys-Davies <<<Actor who played Frodo in the shots of Liv Tyler in the Ford of Bruinen scene: “a little person” (said Liv Tyler in an interview on MTV) Actor who played Arwen in the shots of Elijah Wood in the Ford of Bruinen scene: “a man in my costume” (ditto) Actor who said, "I love the hobbits. If I could be anyone in Middle-earth, I'd be a Hobbit. The weed, the food and the greenery": Tyler Actors who say the filming gave them nightmares: Liv Tyler, Sean Bean Members of the “Fellowship” who got commemorative tattoos the last week of filming: All nine (Wood, Astin, Monaghan, Boyd, Bean, Mortensen, Bloom, Rhys-Davies [who sent his double] and McKellen) Actor whose idea it was: Bloom Significance of the tattoo: Elvish symbol for the number 9 >>> |
| Production Character McKellen described as looking like “a yellow tennis ball on a stick”: The all-CGI Balrog, who was indeed, at the time of shooting, merely a tennis ball waved in McKellen’s direction. Actress whose gelatine elf ears, saved as a keepsake, melted on the dashboard of her car: Tyler Actress whose prosthetic ears were bronzed and given to her: Blanchett Pairs of hobbit feet made for the four main hobbit actors: 1600 Actor who says his feet were the “sweatiest,” causing numerous reapplications of fake feet: Wood Time the actors had to report for prosthetic hobbit-foot application: 4:30 a.m. Time it took to apply prosthetic feet: 1-2 hours, standing up Tobacco the hobbit actors smoked in their pipe-smoking scenes, discovered onset by Sean Astin: Mayfair, “a French vanilla and nougat-flavored blend” a special effects supervisor was smoking (Pipes & Tobacco magazine, above right) Monthly cost of coffee for cast and crew: $86,500 Cost of alcohol for a single location shoot on New Zealand’s North Island: $6,400 Speaking roles: 114 Extras cast: 20, 602 Casting directors' way of marking a "difficult" auditioner's form: T, for "tosser" (Kiwi slang for "idiot") Nickname the Orc extras had for the Elf extras: "Cupcakes" Cupcake who wore a mohawk: the dark-haired Orlando Bloom, to give his Legolas a "more Elvish hairline" under his blond wig Number of locations: 100 Number of sets constructed: 350 Tolkien illustrators asked to come aboard as conceptual designers: Alan Lee and John Howe (Lee's "Pelennor,"above right; Howe's "Bag End," at right >>>) Tolkien illustrator seen personally touching up the set of Rivendell with a brush in one hand and a bucket of paint in the other: Alan Lee Number of original props made for the films’ armory: 48,000 Suits of armor made: 900 Costumes made: 15,000 Wigs made: 300 Number of props bought or rented: 0 Number of props displayed at the Casa Loma exhibit: approximately 300 Computer program invented for the film that creates thousands of individual extras, allowing you to see from the POV of any one you choose: Massive ("Cupcake" armies facing down Sauron's legions >>>) Terabytes of storage used by the special effects computers: 10 Meaning of the prefix tera- : “One trillion (from the Greek: monster)” (American Heritage Dictionary) Number of gigabytes in a single terabyte: 1,024 Number of gigs of storage on Cleolinda’s computer, for comparison: 9.53 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Updated 1/20/02 Links will take you to articles with more info. Hold your cursor over the pictures; most have captions,"hidden" extra pictures, or some kind of general snarkiness. |
 |
 |
 |
| Rings Things |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|