There and Back Again (20 page)

In the interest of full disclosure, I should acknowledge that I did experience a moment or two of anxiety over the issue of size, specifically, as it pertained to my own career and self-interests. I remember whining, half jokingly, to Nikki Mirisch, “Oh, great. I played the ball turret gunner, the smallest guy on the B-17, in
Memphis Belle;
I played Rudy, the smallest guy on the Notre Dame football team; and now I'm gonna play a three-foot-six hobbit. This will be the final nail in my coffin. I'm never going to be a big movie star because everyone will think I'm a miniature guy.” To which Nikki replied with a snort, “Get over it.”

Impressed as I was with Peter Owen, there wasn't a whole lot to our session. He wrapped my head in some type of cellophane, fastened it with rubber bands to create a skullcap, and then yanked it off. Just like that, he had a model of my head—all that he needed to begin the process of creating Sam's wig.

“That's it?” I asked.

He nodded.

“What about the hair?”

Peter explained that most of it would likely come from female “donors” in Russia, which is, for some reason, apparently the nexus of the hair trade. I didn't get to see or touch the hair that I'd be wearing for the next year and a half, but Peter did present a bunch of ponytail swatches for me to examine. He held them up to the light—as if we were choosing wallpaper patterns or fabric for a new sofa—and we both agreed that matching my natural hair color wouldn't be a problem. And that was about it. We shook hands and I left Peter's suite, emboldened by the feeling that Sam was in good hands.

Fascinating as this meeting was, it wasn't the only meaningful interaction of the day, for while walking through the hotel lobby, who did I meet in person for the very first time? Elijah Wood. I would be Sam to his Frodo.

Elijah's eyes opened wide as I came into view, and we literally ran to each other and embraced. I hugged him like a brother or a long-lost friend. That we had never spoken to each other seemed hard to comprehend in this setting, standing near the front door of the hotel, where each of us had gone specifically for the purpose of preparing for what would be the role of a lifetime (Elijah, too, had an appointment with Peter Owen). I knew enough about the story of
The Lord of the Rings
to know that the friendship between Frodo and Sam was considered not only central to the plot, but one of the most enduring relationships in literature. For the film to succeed, Elijah and I would have to make audiences believe in our friendship. He knew it and I knew it. So we fell against each other and hugged, then pulled back, and I remember just smiling at him nervously, excitedly, the two of us kind of studying each other quietly, as if we both were thinking,
This is a little overwhelming, but we're equal to it
.

Elijah was exactly what I thought he'd be: small, not quite waifish, and friendly. He's a little shorter than I am, and substantially thinner. My agents had assured Peter that I'd expand to the proper bulk before the start of principal photography, and I'd already taken the first sluggish steps down the road to sloth. Prior to getting the offer I was in the best shape of my life. At 160 pounds I was a lean, mean fighting machine, fit enough that I'd actually completed the Los Angeles Marathon. That's the way I thought I looked, almost like a movie star, when I auditioned for Fran and Peter. Interestingly, I got the distinct impression that while Fran thought I was appealing, Peter was less convinced simply because, in his eyes, I didn't look like Sam. That's not how he saw the character. One of the things I discovered about Peter is that he is uniquely qualified to work outside the mainstream. While he loves American films and is a true student of American and world popular culture (this, after all, is a man who got his start in splatter films and who turned to a remake of
King Kong
as his follow-up to
The Lord of the Rings),
he is no slave to Hollywood convention. I was proud of the way I looked. I enjoyed having cheekbones and a flat stomach. It made me feel like I could be a leading man. To Peter, however, such things were distractions, obstacles to overcome in developing a character. To secure the role, I vowed to do less running and more eating. By the time I met Elijah, I'd already begun to morph into Sam.

Elijah had no such concerns. Wide-eyed and almost elfin in appearance, with an earnestness few actors can project, he was perfect for the role of Frodo. I had known for some time (well before I got the part of Sam) that New Line was involved in negotiations with Elijah, and I was looking forward to having a chance to work with him. I had followed Elijah's career and admired the way he had managed it. He always seemed to be working on interesting stuff alongside major stars, in roles where he was really
acting
. I'm ten years older than Elijah, but I consider him a colleague, and I was at that time old enough to appreciate what he was doing as a young actor rising through the ranks. I looked up to him as an actor at least in part because of his ability to avoid being characterized as a child star insofar as that term is sometimes less than flattering. He had made better decisions than I had in traversing that path. He'd been more adept at choosing projects and negotiating with studio executives. I can recall seeing him in those old Lays potato chip commercials alongside Dan Quayle (“Want a potato chip, Mr. Vice President?”), and thinking,
Wow, that kid is in the zone. He's so smooth.
Elijah conducted himself in a way that was almost unnaturally professional for one so young.

As he matured, it became clear that his youthful precociousness was not just a fluke, not something that would erode with time. Shortly before we met, Elijah had appeared in
The Ice Storm
, Ang Lee's quietly haunting story of domestic upheaval in a suburban Connecticut neighborhood. His career was soaring. Critics and fans alike viewed him as a serious, nearly grown-up actor. But I had appreciated his abilities for some time. Elijah had appeared in
Forever Young
with Mel Gibson and
North
with Bruce Willis. He'd played Huck Finn and the Artful Dodger. He was still a teenager, but already he had a substantial body of work, and he was keenly aware of it.

I suppose I was a little bit envious, or maybe I just wished I had known what he seemed to know. When I was fifteen years old, I started my own business. I wanted to write, direct, act, and produce. I wanted to be all things to all people—and I still do, as a matter of fact. When Elijah was fifteen, he wanted to work with great filmmakers. That's it. I think he understood the importance of those connections, and thus set out to obtain the best roles he could possibly find.

At that age, I just didn't get it. I thought I was the guy who could be the great filmmaker, the person who could choose the scripts, maybe even write the scripts, and create the great movies. I understood the power of the medium, but when I was Elijah's age, I wanted too much at once, and the thing that got sublimated was the research into other people's film careers. I should have been finding out who was making what movies and figuring out how to get in them. I didn't realize that I could learn about the environment and navigate it in a more sensible way by working with artists who appreciated the value of working with
other
artists. The smart way to approach a career is to realize how talented other people are and figure out a way to work with them.

That's the way I viewed Peter Jackson and Elijah Wood. In fact, Elijah had become a significant component of my motivation for working on this project. There were six really interesting buzzwords or phrases attached to the film: Peter Jackson,
Lord of the Rings
, New Line, trilogy, New Zealand, and Elijah Wood. The importance you attach to something can often be distilled into something as simple as the way you answer a query. When people would ask me what I was working on, I revealed something with the way I responded. Sometimes I'd say something about working on an adaptation of
The Lord of the Rings
, but more often I'd say, “I'm going to New Zealand for a year and a half to be Elijah Wood's sidekick.” Why? I guess because it sounded cool, exotic. Who wouldn't want to visit New Zealand? And who didn't know Elijah Wood?

“Are you ready for this?” I asked him at the Ma Maison Sofitel.

He looked right at me, almost through me, with those impossibly blue, almost alien eyes, and smiled.

“Yeah, I am.”

It was clear that he wasn't just saying what he thought I wanted to hear. There was an intensity to him, an honesty, that I found thoroughly inspiring, because what I was trying to project to him was an air of responsibility, of confidence, of nurturing:
I know on some level what we're about to undergo. And I'm prepared
. But I was also feeling a small degree of anxiety stemming from not knowing whether Elijah was equally prepared. It turned out, of course, that neither one of us could possibly have known what we were in for, but I took comfort in hearing him say that he was ready and excited. It gave me strength and confidence.

That initial interaction lasted only a few minutes. Elijah was running late for his meeting with Peter, and my ride was waiting by the curb. We hugged again, said good-bye, and went our separate ways. The next time I would see him would be in New Zealand under very different circumstances.

*   *   *

Getting fitted for a wig was one thing; getting fitted for all of the other prosthetic devices that might be needed to create a hobbit was quite another. Central to this process was the construction of a face mold, which the makeup artists could then use to complete the character of Sam. This is a normal part of the preproduction stage of any movie involving characters who will be required to wear a significant amount of special-effects makeup, and to most actors it isn't a big deal. However, if like me you happen to suffer from the occasional bout of claustrophobia, it is a very big deal indeed.

It had happened to me twice in England during the filming of
Memphis Belle.
The first incident occurred during a ten-day, premovie boot camp designed to foster camaraderie among the cast and, no doubt, give us a sort of war-weary look of authenticity. On the last day of boot camp we were taken to the entrance of a dirt tunnel that was nearly filled with water. The object of the exercise, the drill instructor said, was to crawl through the tunnel and exit the other side, several hundred yards away, without drowning.

“If it collapses,” he said flatly, twirling a pickax smoothly in his hands, “just try to hang on, mate. We'll come get ya.”

This guy was a career hard-ass. His nickname was Bungee, and his skin was stretched so tight over his skull that he looked like a living, breathing cadaver. He'd served in the Falklands, where allegedly his specialty was interrogating prisoners as they dangled from the open door of a helicopter. As often as not, according to set lore, when Bungee extracted the necessary information, he or someone close by would pull out a knife, cut the prisoner's lifeline, and watch him plummet earthward like a stone. Laughing, no doubt. Whether any of this was true, I don't know, but it had the desired effect, which was to shrivel the sacks of a bunch of Hollywood dudes preparing to film a war movie.

We all knew that Bungee was trying to mess with us psychologically, but looking at the tunnel, the potential for a cave-in did seem real. I was the most overtly enthusiastic member of the
Memphis Belle
cast, so I was assigned the task of crawling through the tunnel first. Unfortunately, claustrophobia seized me, and I ended up going fourth. I made it, but not without enduring a healthy dose of anxiety, embarrassment, and humility.

That, however, was merely a prelude to what I experienced during the actual filming of the movie. I knew a time was going to come when I'd have to climb into the ball turret, wearing a heavy wool uniform, a leather jacket, a mask, and a helmet, and stay there for however long it took to film a particular scene. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to do it. I think my claustrophobia stems from my childhood, when my big brothers were messing with me and rolled me up in a big carpet and stuck me in a closet. After listening to me scream and cry for a few seconds, they opened the door and let me fall out. Silly as it may sound, the memory of that brief imprisonment has never left me, and every so often it reaches out and makes life difficult, even now. For the most part I've learned how to manage it. But it takes effort. The night before we shot the ball-turret scene I was in my hotel room in London, barricading myself in a closet with a pile of clothes and blankets, forcing myself to breathe through the panic, hoping to desensitize myself and in that way prevent an anxiety attack on the set. To a degree, the strategy worked.

The turret sat atop some scaffolding, where it could be rotated back and forth, giving the illusion of height and movement, as if the occupant actually sat in the belly of a bomber. There was room for only a few people on the scaffolding, at least two of whom would have to like me enough to rescue me if something were to break, and they were rotating the turret and feeding me stuff through straws, bits and pieces of plastic that were designed to look like frozen saliva, as I fired hundreds of blanks from my machine gun. I was dizzy and tired and nervous when they opened the door and offered me a quick break and a drink of water. Then they slammed the door, resumed rotating and shooting, and suddenly I felt something rising in my throat. Whatever the cause, I felt like I was about to paint the inside of the turret, or at least my mask, with the contents of my stomach.

“Open the door,” I pleaded.

No response. Just more rotating.

“Please … open the door! Now!”

For just a second I could tell that the director, Michael Caton-Jones, was contemplating filming my distress. I don't blame him, since it surely would have added a touch of realism, but I was nonetheless relieved when the door opened and I gasped for air and the nausea passed.