Most members of the cast of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy declare themselves fans of the famous fantasy work, but many were not born when the author died.
New Line Cinema
A masterpiece of fantasy and one of the best-selling books in history with more than 150 million copies worldwide, The Lord of the Rings is not the only book by JRR Tolkien set in Middle-earth, but it is the most popular. The acclaimed British author published it in three volumes between 1954 and 1955, almost two decades after the children’s fantasy novel The Hobbit during which the writer dedicated himself body and soul to the development of the story.
Republished several times and translated into more than 30 languages, The Lord of the Rings has captivated millions of fantasy fans around the world for decades and has become part of popular culture, even being named as the best-loved British novel of all time. Tolkien’s work has also been a source of inspiration for many other authors and has served as the basis for games, films, music and other artistic expressions, his audiovisual adaptations can be counted on the fingers of the hands.
The first time The Lord of the Rings was adapted to the screen was for an animated version in 1978, but, despite some previous attempts, we would not see a version with flesh and blood actors until 2001, when Peter Jackson signed on. took on the challenge of developing a live-action version and succeeded. It is said that several filmmakers, including Stanley Kubrick himself, considered it, and some series of little impact were even made, but finally it was Peter Jackson’s trilogy – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) – which would go down in history.
The New Zealand director was barely five years old when Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings but, like so many generations after the author’s time, he discovered it later. And he became a true fan of history and Middle Earth. In fact, Jakson would comment on some occasion that the fact that he was the director of the films had prevented him from enjoying them from scratch, without knowing anything, and that he had even considered doing a hypnosis treatment that would allow him to watch them as a spectator. further.
Among the cast of his films there is also another huge legion of fans: some from before taking on the characters and others who jumped in once they had obtained the role.
But only one of them, a single lucky actor, had the opportunity to meet JRR Tolkien in person.
New Line Cinema
Since the British author died in 1973, when Jackson was only 13 years old but was already playing with his 8 mm video camera, a good part of the cast was not even born, so you can imagine that the lucky one is among the most veterans.
According to Christopher Lee himself, who played Saruman in the first trilogy and died in 2015 at the age of 93, in an interview with Cinefantastique in 2003, he had the opportunity to meet JRR Tolkien by complete chance.
“[Lo conocí] by chance, really,” he recalled in the interview. “I met him with a group of other people in a pub in Oxford I used to go to, The Eagle and Child. I was very impressed by him as you can imagine, so I just said, ‘How are you?’
Lee had already read the books when they were originally printed in the 1950s and even then became a huge fan: “Like so many other people, I couldn’t wait for the second and then the third book. Nothing like it had ever been written,” he recalled. Read.
So, when he found out about the project that Jackson had in hand, Lee literally needed to be a part of it. And this is how he marked another milestone within the franchise, since, due to his extensive knowledge of Tolkien, Jackson was cast in a role as soon as he met him, being the first signing for the film. However, in an Entertainment Weekly interview with director Peter Jackson it was revealed that the role Christopher Lee desperately wanted was Gandalf, which went to Ian McKellen after Sean Connery’s rejection.
2023-09-13 19:00:24
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