There and Back Again (24 page)

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The notion that I'd have the opportunity to focus on my numerous entrepreneurial ventures during “downtime” in New Zealand was revealed to be pure folly within moments after we arrived in Wellington. As Peter explained some of the logistics—there would be at least three crews shooting at once, using twenty-four cameras at various locations around the country—it dawned on me:
Holy shit! There isn't going to be any downtime
. I realized quickly that work would expand to exceed the time allotted. Indeed, there was never a time, in nearly a year and a half of principal photography, when Peter or any of his assistants were complacent or even satisfied. They rarely, if ever, said, “Great shot, we've got it; let's move on.” Instead, we kept going back and redoing things, rewriting and reshooting scenes that, to even a trained eye, seemed to have been captured in a perfectly acceptable manner. Peter had taken all the money and resources he could extract from New Line, and then he went about the business of doing things his way, the way of a perfectionist. Early on I got the sense that no one at New Line truly understood what was happening on location.

Sure, they were getting all the dailies, but that was practically irrelevant, since no one human being could possibly watch everything that was photographed on any given day. There weren't enough hours on the clock. Consider that there were nine hundred-plus days of miniature photography, and every day an hour of footage, maybe an hour and a half, could be shot. And that was just the miniatures. Then you had the insert units shooting a half-day, the second unit shooting three hours a day, and the main unit shooting an hour a day with multiple cameras. So while on most films the dailies usually amount to maybe ninety minutes of footage, on
The Lord of the Rings
, daily footage could average four to six hours a day. That is astounding. At the time, it was also a bit depressing, and not simply because of the exhaustion such a schedule provoked. There was also the nagging feeling that reel upon reel of great stuff would never see the light of day, simply because there was no room for it. Yes, Peter needed a lot of material. We were shooting three movies, not one, and each was going to run for more than three hours. Nevertheless, there was no question that Peter's schedule was so ambitious, and his vision so broad, that only a portion of what we shot would be used in the final movies.

There were times when this presented a problem, when Peter asked for a tenth take, or a twelfth take, or a twentieth take, and I wanted to scream, for I just started losing track of what I had done.

An actor develops a shrewd sense of what's likely to end up on the screen. On the set of
Courage under Fire
, I shot a scene in a bar with Denzel Washington, and in the middle of the scene, in between takes, or when they were turning the cameras around to do my close-up after Denzel's close-up, I had this horrible feeling that the entire plot of the movie was coming to a screeching halt while we indulged in a scene devoted to the backstory of Denzel's character. I walked up to Ed Zwick and said, “Ed, maybe I shouldn't be asking you this, but what are the chances that this scene is going to end up in the movie?”

He laughed. “Pretty much none.”

“Then why are we shooting it?”

The reason, Ed explained, was that it was an important piece of the puzzle—not for the viewer, but for Denzel, who was trying to sort out his own character. Actor and director hadn't arrived at a point where they felt comfortable cutting the scene from the movie, so they filmed it, possibly as a courtesy to the star, or as a way for the director to feel the nuances of the scene. I think they needed to shoot it in order to cut it from the movie. Usually, in cinema, you can put a lot more money on the screen if you get to those answers sooner; similarly, as an actor, you don't want to get married to such indulgences. I'm not saying Ed was being wasteful—it always happens, but as an actor, you don't want to show up at the premiere looking for the scenes you fell in love with, only to discover that they've been left on the cutting-room floor. That has happened to me on several occasions, and it would happen with
The Lord of the Rings
.

Not that I was surprised. I knew the movie was going to be spectacular, but I wondered what would become of those little moments, those nuances that were captured somewhere on take seven, eight, or nine, with a C camera or a D camera whirling around the set, picking up reaction shots, when I was fully in character and emoting like crazy, and something magical, but peripheral, was happening. What were the odds a director could find those? One of the director's primary tasks in the editing phase is to tell the story, or to search and destroy those moments that don't work. But finding every little nugget that does work? Who has the time or the energy for that? It's not the way the process is designed.

I hoped that Peter Jackson would know just what to do, but I couldn't imagine how anyone could budget their time and marshal their energy to accomplish the mission. What I did know, from the very first day, was that he seemed excited and inordinately confident. Talent and ambition aside, Peter remained, at his core, a fan. During that first tour, Peter joked that he wanted to have his memory erased, so he wouldn't know how the film was made. He wanted to see it and enjoy it, just like anyone else. That's when I really understood how unique Peter is. Even though he needed to have confidence and faith and be this titanic figure on the set, there was an overriding sense that he was engaged on a purely emotional, almost childlike level. Despite the pressure and the exhaustion and the sheer enormity of the task, he was genuinely happy to be there. I remember looking at Peter one long afternoon, roughly halfway through the production, and saying, “I'll bet you can't wait until this is over so that you can get a good night's sleep.”

He laughed softly under his breath. “I'll get a good night's sleep tonight, Sean.”

And he meant it, too.

Peter's enthusiasm was infectious, particularly in the early days, when the entire production was bathed in optimism and energy and a sense of limitless opportunity. This feeling extended to the interaction between actors. Each time I met someone, it was like bonding with a fellow explorer. Among the first was John Rhys-Davies, who played the warrior dwarf, Gimli. We met in the Portacom, a ten-by-twenty-foot mobile hut, the kind of thing you might see at a construction site, which initially served as a green room for the cast. I was looking forward to meeting John—I'd been a fan of his ever since I was a kid, watching him as Sallah, Harrison Ford's comic sidekick in
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. John was boisterous and funny, not unlike the characters he's often played. He walked in, extended a hand, and introduced himself. “I'm John Rhys-Davies and I live on the Isle of Man, otherwise known as ten thousand alcoholics clinging to a rock in the middle of the Irish Sea. Hello, my lad!”

Well, this is going to be interesting
.

To John's amusement (and sometimes chagrin), I quickly jumped into an accurate impersonation of his voice as Sallah. I'd pass him on the set and say something like, “Indy, they're digging in the wrong place!” And if he didn't love it, he was at least tolerant. One day he did sort of raise an eyebrow and say, “You know, my boy … sometimes it borders on
parody.
”

I loved being around John, even though we have generally opposing political viewpoints. He's a very conservative man—the polar opposite of, say, Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn. I'm more of a centrist, so even though I don't necessarily agree with John, I can appreciate where he's coming from.

It was difficult not to feel for John, who suffered like Job throughout the entire production. His face reacted badly to the makeup—and it took a long, long time for the artists to apply the makeup for Gimli. John spent countless more hours in the makeup chair than I did, and I admired his perseverance, although his discomfort was so great that his double, Brett Beattie, was called on to do an unusual amount of work—so much work, in fact, that there was discussion about Brett getting co-credit for the role of Gimli. He wasn't the voice of Gimli and he didn't appear in close-ups of Gimli, but day in and day out, the amount of time he spent in makeup and on the set was sufficient to prompt consideration of a co-credit from the people who were with him on the set so much. Several more close-ups of John were added in pickups, though, and the controversy, such as it was, faded away. (“I'm not in the habit of giving away the credit for my character,” John once said.) And John was a terrific, if sometimes overzealous, promoter of the film.

“Rrrrrrraise your expectations!” he shouted at our first press conference, while thrusting an index finger into the air. “This movie is going to be bigger than
STAR WARS
!”

To which Peter replied, “Settle down, John.”

I absolutely love the combination in tone of what John achieved with his character. He strikes the perfect comic bravado and layers it with gravitas. During the premiere in Wellington, I felt like I had achieved some rite of passage when John and I rode in the same car during the ticker-tape parade.

I met Billy Boyd (aka Pippin) in those first days, too. My first impression of Billy was magical. I was totally enamored of him, in no small part because of his voice. I loved listening to Billy, and even though I could barely understand a word he said through his thick Scottish brogue, I got the feeling (borne out over the course of the production) that he was a really appealing, sweet, kind of guy, the sort of man with whom I wanted to be friends. He was gentle and funny and very cool, very comfortable in his own skin. Both Billy and Dominic Monaghan (aka Merry) have a natural grace when it comes to performing humorous scenes, or when improvising for the amusement of the cast and crew. They worked well together, and that was reflected on-screen. The friendship that developed between Dom and Billy transcends description in any book I could ever write. They are unique human beings with exceptional talent. Living in close proximity to them over the years of making and promoting
The Lord of the Rings
taught me a lot about myself. There are cultural differences between us, to be sure. I think they were much better prepared emotionally to become pop culture figures than I was. Their sense of personal style and their comfort with themselves were qualities I occasionally found in short supply for myself. But the connection we formed was real and permanent.

The same could be said about my bond with Elijah Wood. The friendship between Frodo and Sam resonates with audiences because it appears to be genuine. There is chemistry, and chemistry rarely happens between actors who do not care for each other. I can honestly say that I love Elijah like a brother. And like any sibling relationship, ours is at times a complicated one. When we met in New Zealand (which was the first time I'd seen him since our brief introduction at the Ma Maison Sofitel), I had the weird feeling that Elijah was something of a chameleon. It happened at a restaurant called Castro's, where the cast and the “upper echelon” of the production team (including Peter, Fran, cowriter Philippa Boyens, Barrie Osborne, and then producer Tim Sanders) gathered for a preproduction party. Elijah and I shared a big hug, but I sensed something a little bit different abut him, something I hadn't noticed when we met in L.A.

He was happy to be there and happy to see me, but he had a more cosmopolitan air about him. He was smoking his ubiquitous clove cigarettes, and he was dressed very sharply—it was apparent he had a clear sense of his own personal style. In sum, he looked like a movie star, and I remember marveling at him. Here I was, just a guy trying to put a jacket on so I wouldn't be cold or look out of place, trying to figure out what the hell to wear to dinner, while Elijah seemed unburdened by such trivialities, even though it was obvious that in fact he gave such things considerable thought. It just seemed to come naturally to him. He was ten years younger than I, but already he had figured out how to move elegantly in virtually any crowd.

Much has been made of the bond between the hobbits, of the camaraderie that extended from the set to the pubs of Wellington and back again. To some extent, that's an accurate portrayal, for indeed we all got along well and indeed there were nights of debauchery and drunken revelry. For the most part, however, I was on the fringe of this scene. My circumstances were different. Billy, Dom, and Elijah (as well as Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas) are all young, single men, and to varying degrees they enjoyed the status and benefits of being movie stars in an exotic location. On the night of the first party, while others mingled comfortably, I fretted about whether I was stepping on toes by bringing my wife and daughter with me. I worried about things like that. Christine would always just roll with it. She seemed respectful of my concern, but also thought I was a fairly bad judge of propriety.

As much as I wanted to be respectful of other people and the dynamic of the set, I knew I had to carve out a place for myself and my family. I didn't think it was a big deal, since my father had often talked about Peter and Fran and how cool they were when it came to familial matters. He described their hotel room during the promotion swing for
The Frighteners
as being laden with baby paraphernalia; surely they would understand my trying to find the same balance with my family. As a young father I was a little out of my element. As someone who craves a sense of control, I found that the universe was playing a little trick on me. While everyone was getting comfortable with each other, I was eager to fit in. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a good husband and father, while simultaneously thriving among this auspicious group of artists.

To that end, I tried to make sure that my dressing room on the set was like another room at the house: anytime Christine and Ali wanted to be there, they were welcome. I wanted that and needed that, and I wanted the production to understand. I could work eighteen, nineteen hours a day, but I also knew that I'd be better on the set, better at my job, if my family was there when I got back to my dressing room. Everyone had their own thing. Viggo Mortensen had his artwork, his photography. The “boys”—Elijah, Billy, Dom, Orlando—had their video games and their music and their movies. Such things were considered sacred, for they provided a much needed respite from the endless slogging that the production became. I didn't smoke cigarettes or play as many video games. My diversion was my family—having my wife and daughter there if they wanted to be there.