Peter Jackson's Second Interview on the
Lord of the Rings movie
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/lordoftherings2.html
Sunday, August 30, 1998
To the second part!
Peter Jackson Answers THE GEEKS!!! 20 Questions About Lord Of The Rings!!! Harry here,
with the results of the 2nd Peter Jackson Q & A about THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
Peter and you fans did a wonderful job with this, and well.... I am sure you
will be pleased with the results you will see below. Peter will be in
RED and the questions will be in BLACK, to make it as plain
as possible. When you click on the TALK BACK function, your TALK BACK will be posted
to the first page you clicked on, to see this Q & A. That way we won’t be
crowding this already stuffed page.
Without further ado, here’s
that guy that will be bringing us THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy,
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeter Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaacksonnnnnnnn....
PJ: Here we go
again! Before I launch into the questions, let me bring you up to speed with
where my brain is at. As most of you know, we had developed LotR as two
films for Miramax, and we're now reworking the material as three movies for
New Line.
As a result, we are
in the process of rethinking the structure and narrative, and making some
quite substantial changes to what we had done before. I mention this simply
to put my answers in context: we have written one draft of The Fellowship of
the Ring, we're half way through The Two Towers and haven't even started The
Return of the King. Therefore, I'm doing my best to address these questions
before the trilogy is actually written. We will be doing several more drafts
of all three scripts before any shooting begins, so please understand that
while I will give you accurate information based on what I know today,
things will continue to change and develop over the next few months.
1. Alright, let’s kick this Q
& A off with a good ol intelligent concern. For me, this question really
gets down to the tone and seriousness of the film as Denethor is... well...
an amazingly tragic character, and his sons are even more so. But Bonny here
gets to it far better than I....
“I am very concerned about the
way Denethor is going to be portrayed. In the Rankin/Bass production, he
only appeared in one scene--the scene where he incinerates himself--and he
is portrayed as a one-dimensional madman. (And Faramir is nowhere to be
seen.) However, I always felt there were more dimensions to the character
that needed to be explored, I saw him as a very tragic character under the
circumstances: the death of his older son Boromir, the conditions of his
office, his eminent removal, the assault on his city, and the seemingly
inevitable death of his younger son Faramir. So the question is this: Will
Denethor be portrayed as a madman, or will he be given the full dimensions
he has in the novel?
PJ: I agree with
you. In our old two film screenplay, Denethor is probably a little one
dimensional and I think we can do a lot better when we write The Return of
the King, which we will start in a few weeks. It is easy to portray him
simply as a mad villain, but layering a tragic subtext throughout his scenes
will be far more interesting.
The way that we
often write (not just this project, but others) is to provide different
layers over subsequent drafts ... i.e write the villain in one draft; get
that working, then go back over the scenes and humanise him in the next
draft. It makes it much easier when you're dealing with a huge volume of
material.
By the way, I've
never seen the Rankin/Bass "RotK", so if anyone can tell me where
I can get it, I'd be very grateful. I am curious.
Also at the beginning of The Two
Towers, when Boromir is killed, are you going to do it like the book,
beginning with Aragorn and having him find that Boromir has been shot, or
will you actually show him being shot with arrows?”
PJ: We are running
that sequence in real time, actually showing him defending Merry and Pippin
and getting shot. We're also sliding that sequence into the end of the first
movie.
2. Bonny had this second
paragraph of questions, that really gets into the structure of the
storytelling, and whether or not it will mirror the non-linear story telling
of the dear Professor’s. Here’s Bonny again....
“The Fellowship of the Ring is
told in a very linear format, but The Two Towers and The Return of the King
jump around in time a bit. (ROTK begins at Minas Tirith, then jumps back to
the previous day, according to the time lines in the back.) They also split
the novels into two halves: one half devoted solely to the battles in the
west involving Merry and Pippin, the other half devoted to Frodo and Sam.
Will the films follow this format, or tell the stories sequentially,
integrating the two halves?"
PJ: We will not be
following the "Book Three, Book Four" type format. We will be
intercutting between the various storylines. In fact, we are grappling with
intercutting between Frodo & Sam, and the events at Edoras and Helm's
Deep right now in our work on The Two Towers.
"I suppose I should include
this also: the two productions I have seen (okay, one was radio) both
include Gandalf's capture by Saruman. Will this be seen as part of the first
half of the film, or be told, as in the book, as a flashback during the
Council of Elrond?"
PJ: At the moment,
we have the best of both worlds: we are showing Gandalf's capture by Saruman
in "real time", but showing his escape as flashback during the
Rivendell council.
"Also, will you be
including Tom Bombadil? The Ralph Bakshi production cut it out, as did the
BBC radio drama.”
PJ: At this point in
time Bombadil is out. The main reason is not just time or pace, but one of
simple narrative focus ... the Bombadil sequence has so little to do with
Sauron or the Ring, it is difficult to justify the screen time. It simply
doesn't give us any vital new information. A very simplest rule of thumb
that I use in movie storytelling is to try and further the story with each
new scene.
I'm flicking through
our Fellowship script ... it is 138 pages long. The Hobbits leave Hobbiton
on page 30, and arrive at Rivendell on page 63. Even that 33 pages on the
road feels a little long and will probably get trimmed in our next draft.
3. Alright, now we move on to
the accents. Leah E. had the following to say...
“I'm really curious to know
whether there is going to be any consistency in the accents of the
characters, and if so what accents they are going to use. In (my) ideal
world, Frodo, Bilbo, Pippin, and Merry would speak English Country Squire
and Sam would speak English Country Bumpkin--it seems important since the
hobbit world is so closely linked to the idealized English countryside. Then
if the other species had accents peculiar to themselves, that would be
pretty cool. Or failing that, it would be GREAT if no one spoke with an
American accent as that often seems to bring fantasy worlds crashing down. I
am American, by the way. I just don't think it would suit Tolkien. Thanks!
Leah E.”
PJ: My preference is
to use English accents as I think an American accent would feel as out of
place in Middle-earth. If you are making Braveheart or Rob Roy, a King
Arthur, or Robin Hood movie, then a basic asthetic sense says that American
accents are not appropriate (as in Costner's Robin Hood). The Lord of the
Rings is a classic English story. However, I think that New Line are
concerned that having no American accents will alienate a US audience, so
that debate has yet to be resolved. There may be a way of figuring something
out.
4. Alrighty, here comes the
‘casting’ question out of the group. The following comes from Ivenshang:
“You have said repeatedly that
you want unknowns for the Hobbits and would tolerate more famous (but
inexpensive) people for the supporting cast. Define famous (Sean Connery is
obviously famous, but would Jeremy Northam qualify?)"
PJ: With apologises
to Jeremy Northam, I would not define him as famous! Not today at any rate.
"define unknown: are these
hobbits-to-be newcomers with little experience (hence dicey prospects for
the heavy duty acting required later in the saga) or simply professional
actors who haven't gotten a big break before?"
PJ: Both of those
would apply. I like working with "unknowns". It can be dicey, but
also hugely satisfying and exciting. Kate Winslet had never been in a film
before Heavenly Creatures, and who had ever seen Ralph Fiennes before
Schindler's List? These people are out there ... somewhere in the world is
the perfect Frodo and perfect Sam ... and we will find them!
(gahladriel's note: The parts
of Frodo and Sam had already been given to Elijah Wood and Sean Astin,
respectively.)
"and also can you confirm
or deny the following casting rumors: Patrick Magoohan as Gandalf; Kate
Winslet as Arwen or Eowyn; Christopher Lee as Gandalf, Saruman or Denethor;
Charlton Heston as Denethor, Gandalf or Theoden; Sam Neill as Aragorn?”
PJ: None of those
rumours are true. At this point in time, NO RUMOURS ARE TRUE! If you hear
rumours, then you can safely assume they are 100% FALSE!
(gahladriel's note: The cast
for the major parts and many of the minor parts had already been made with
the following actors and their parts,respectively: Ian McKellen as Gandalf,
Liv Tyler as Arwen, Miranda Otto as Eowyn, Christopher Lee as Saruman, John
Noble as Denethor, Bernard Hill as Theoden and Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn.
As for the others, check out
http://www.lordoftheringsmovie.com/faq/.)
No "name"
actors, or their agents have been approached in anyway. That's not to say
that any of the above actors would not be great for the trilogy. Several of
them we would seriously consider ... it just hasn't happened yet.
We started casting
in Dublin and London before Christmas and will ramp up first thing in the
new year, with casting spreading into LA, Australia and New Zealand. At this
stage, we are auditioning lessor known actors for all the major roles. In
March we will review the results and then strategise with New Line about
where to place "name" actors ... and who those actors might be. So
assume any "rumours" between now and March to be hogwash.
And from Harlequin will you be
working or casting any past Peter Jackson cast folk like “Jake Busey (my
favorite for Legolas: agree or disagree?), Clive Merrison, Jed Brophy, Peter
Dobson, Timothy Balme?”
PJ: I would love to
work with any of those actors again. The Lord of the Rings has to be the
ultimate example of the saying "the right actor for the right
role" and that's the philosophy we will follow. We will find and cast
the right actors for the very specific roles that LotR requires. Whether I
have worked with them before, is a secondary consideration. So the answer at
this stage: I don't know.
Also Peter, I’ve been being
deluged with e-mail about casting for a long long time. And perhaps the
question that most came to my mind about it is this. When George Lucas was
casting STAR WARS, he assembled multiple ‘groups’ of actors to see how
the chemistry was between them. As they went through various readings the
pool was narrowed down to the group we finally got on screen. How are you
assembling your final ‘group’?
PJ: That is sound
thinking, especially for an "ensemble" cast - which the Fellowship
obviously is. Geography might go against us ... if we have a favourite Frodo
in London, a Sam in Sydney, a Merry in LA and a Pippin in NZ, then it will
be hard to get them together during the auditioning. We will see. On
Heavenly Creatures we got around that by having Kate read a scene in London
and Mel read a scene in NZ and then we cut the two performances together on
video to get a sense of what they were like as a couple.
5. Now we move on to the weapons
and armor of LORD OF THE RINGS....
“Do you intend to have your
people research bladed-weapon fighting so that the swordfighting, axe
hacking etc looks believable, or are you just going for the Phantom Empire
approach (ie let the actors do their own thing with the weapons)"
PJ: We will make it
look believable. One of our artists, John Howe is a member of one of
Europe's most authentic medieval reinactment groups ... and he is making
sure that the weapons and equipment have a very realistic quality, whilst
still looking original in terms of design.
We have had various
workshops with sword masters, both European and oriental. We have also had
workshops with one of the only guys in NZ skilled at firing an authentic
English longbow. We are working hard at establishing unique fighting styles
for the different races of Middle-earth.
"also how much stuntwork is
required for the major characters"
PJ: A difficult
question to answer now. Obviously the stuntwork will be dictated by the
final scripts and fight choreography.
"and how do you intend to
handle the Race of the three Hunters?”
PJ: I assume you're
referring to the sequence where Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli pursue Merry and
Pippin? It pretty much follows the book.
And then Joe Piela of Lonely
Mountain Forge asks this:
“How is the Weta Workshop
handling the enormous job of producing huge amounts of chainmail, other
armor,and weapons to equip the thousands of extras appearing in the
movies?”
PJ: The armor making
is well underway. "Hero" suits are being made in steel, with
background suits in fibreglass. They is no better way to make steel armour
and weapons than the way it was done 600 years ago ... we have a foundry set
up at Weta. Steel is heated red-hot and beaten on anvils! It looks very
authentic!
Our hero chainmail
is being manufactured in India of all places. There is a company there that
can make square-section mail very quickly and cheaply (Amnesty International
have assured us they are not using child labour).
For the background
suits of mail we are using the old knitted string technique. A wonderful
Wellington Knitting Club is producing about one suit per person per day (all
these ladies are over 70 years old!)
Background and
fighting weapons are being cast in a strong, rigid rubber material, that
will not wobble (did anyone see the wobbling axe in the last shot of
Braveheart?)
6. Heh heh heh.... The geeks are
doing pretty good thus far, so let us continue. The almighty Andy came in
with this question about Sam and Frodo’s journey....
“How do you intend to show
Frodo and Sams journey from the Breaking of the fellowship right through to
the ascent to the pass of Cirith Ungol. In the Novel this particular part of
the journey was given quite alot of time to develop indeed it was given a
complete book in the Two Towers. The reason I ask this is because this
entire section is a slow build up of tension were Tolkien tried to slowly
increase the horrors and power of Mordor which is fine in the context of a
novel but quite simply there is not enough action or excitement for a
film.it would be a shame to see the first part of frodo and sams journey
brushed over to make way for the more epic events that happen to their
fellow friends in the Two towers".
PJ: This is the
stuff we are currently writing , so we are aware of the problems that you
point out. There is much more action with the events in Rohan, so in a way
that becomes the "A Story" or driving narrative of the 2nd movie.
We are developing
the Frodo and Sam story in two ways: We are putting a lot of emphasis on the
Gollum/Smeagol schizoid personality split and how that impacts on Frodo and
Sam, and also making their capture by the Faramir's troops as tense as
possible. It's interesting that in the Two Towers, the greatest threat to
the Ring comes not from the Orcs but from Man ... and we want to really
strengthen that drama.
Our experience here
is a good example of what we are discovering during this writing process.
Everything is in the books to one extent or another ... we have little need
to make things up, but we do need to be selective in what we emphasis. In
some areas we are taking things that Tolkien brushed over and developing
them more, because it supports the narrative drive of the film ... and
deleting some things entirely because they don't support what we're doing
with the film at that point.
"Also will you show the 3
assault's upon lorien and the siege of Dale and Erebor in the Return of the
king or will you merely refer to them in passing conversation between
characters?”
PJ: At this stage,
they are neither shown or referred to in our old scripts, but as we have yet
to write The Return of the King, anything could happen. Showing the assaults
on Lorien could be great. We are definitely finding that as we now have more
screen time with the trilogy, we are able to include much more of this type
of detail. Keep your fingers crossed!
7. Here is a question from Doug
about the whole “Children’s film” mark that he fears will be stamped
on these films. So tell us Peter... How many Ewoks will you put in this
movie and will you tear them up or let them kill the orcs?
“This question probably is
asked a lot, but, What measure are taken to keep people from immediately
thinking that this might be a children's film? Some people (and studio
executives) might have some negative feelings, seeing the main characters
being short people with curly hair and hairy feet. I had this fear after
Entertainment Weekly said that it was a very shaky decision to give Peter
Jackson 140 Million dollars to make a "Hobbit" trilogy.”
Your question really
falls into the marketing domain. I know from experience that people who
haven't read LotR think it is a children's book - getting mixed up with The
Hobbit, no doubt. It is the job of the New Line marketing department to
educate film goers as to exactly the type of movie they should expect. That
is helped by having a great trailer and poster, of course.
The films we are
making will be PG13. However, let me assure you that there is no pressure
from New Line to gear them towards a children's audience. They are smart
enough to know that The Lord of the Rings was huge in the sixties, and most
of those readers are now 50 years old. The intention is to make it neither
childish, nor overly dark ... a good solid action adventure with
intelligence and depth.
I was talking with a
New Line executive the other day, and we were saying that the battle scenes
should push the PG13 envelope, not in terms of violence, but shear
intensity. I also wouldn't rule out the possibility of "extra battle
footage", unsuitable for a PG13, for future video releases either.
“One last thing, I would like
to thank both Harry and Peter Jackson, If I did not read what people felt
about the books, I would never have picked them up, and I would have never
realized Tolkien's great work.”
8. I’ve been inundated with
query after query about Gollum. Will he be a fishy, froggy thing. How will
evil twist and turn a Hobbit into a Gollum? Will he be an actor in a
costume, a puppet, a cgi thing? However the best person to ask all of this
stuff was our dear man Cliff, and here’s what he had to say...
“I submit the $0.64 question:
Rumor has it that all main characters will be live actors except one: which
will be a completely CGI creature. This must be Gollum, then? One would
assume you would not create a "Yoda"-type Gollum that was a fancy
electronic hand-puppet".
PJ: Gollum will be
completely CGI. His performance has to be spectacular - way beyond anything
we have yet seen in CGI land. WETA are developing vast amounts of new code
to deal with this. New modelling codes, new skinning code, new bone and
muscle code - muscle that actually acts the same as the real organic tissue.
His performance will be based largely on motion capture - an under used,
under rated technique that if done badly can be terrible, but if used well
is amazingly life-like.
The Gollum design is
finished and approved. How do I describe him? Not too fishy or froggy - a
little I guess, but we took a great deal of care to make him believable. You
have to accept that he was once like Frodo, but that the power of the Ring
has kept him alive way beyond his years. We were very careful to give him a
range of expressions from the evil of Gollum to the sympathy of Smeagol. His
design is based on a sculpture created by the WETA workshop guys. This has
been scanned into the computer used a NZ invented scanner that reproduces
all the detail of the original sculpture - he doesn't look in the slightest
like a CG model.
Throw out any
thoughts or concerns you have about CG creatures you've seen .. this is
gonna be different. Gollum's going to be cool!
"And if you do make Gollum
as completely CGI, the biggest question is what will you look for in his
Voice? Clearly the voice-actor must make Gollum suitably wretched and vile,
but at the same time pitiful, as his relationship with the Hobbits in the
latter part of the story is so important. A whole generation of Tolkien fans
have a strong impression of the Gollum that Brother Theodore voiced for the
Rankin/Bass television movies. Will your Gollum have this guttural, twisted
monster voice or will he sound like a Hobbit (which he is, ostensibly)?”
PJ: We have yet to
cast Gollum's voice, but I would imagine it should reflect the same twisted
deterioration that has happened to his body.
9. Alot of people are curious
about your research for writing with Fran Walsh the 3 scripts for the films.
Did you consult the Professors various notes, The Silmarillion, or Tolkien
scholars works? Here’s what Josh was curious about...
“Are there any (at least
possibly tentative) plans to feature references to Tolkien's *other*
masterwork, "The Silmarillion", in dialogue, or perhaps, in
flashback (such as Aragorn's recounting of the Beren and Luthien tale in
"Fellowship"?
PJ: We have a vast
library of every book we can find that has been written by and about Tolkien
and Middle-earth. I can't claim to have read them all over-to-cover, but we
consult them when nessacary.
The Silmarillion is
obviously very useful, but it does not feature in our trilogy. There is
cross-over material that appears in both, like the history of the Rings and
Sauron, and the Last Alliance, Elendil and Isildur. Like I said earlier,
material that does not have direct bearing on our story is difficult to fit
in. However, there are many references to the early Ages in our dialogue.
10. I know you have been seen
buying butt-loads of model kits at modeling shows and shops. Undoubtedly
this comes from being a geek. Give us your impressions, as a geek, of the
modeling work that is being done on the film. Which ‘kit’ is going to be
the one we’ll all die for?
PJ: The model kit
analogy is very apt, since all of our creature and armour designing is based
on resin or garage kit techniques. After doing a series of drawings, we
start marquetting the designs as small (12") sculptures, using Super-sculpty
and casting in resin. Richard Taylor's team must have produced nearly 300
such sculptures already, with many more to go. There are about 50 Uruk-Hai
marquettes, dozens of Orcs and Gollums, Rohan and Gondorian soldiers. Just
before Christmas they finished a series of design marquettes of Dwarves in
full battle armour. They looked great! Any one would make a great kit.
WETA has a team of
about 6 main sculptors who do beautiful work. This stuff is great, just as I
thought their Kong dinosaurs where the best I'd ever seen.
Don't worry ...
we're shooting miles of video footage of all this stuff for the
"Special Edition" laser and DVD supplements!
"Will you beat NEW LINE
into setting up the toy license with McFarlane toys? Ok ok ok, yeah I
know... this is all stuff that is so far away you don’t want to even think
about it, but when you walk into the Weta studios and you see the work
that’s being done.... describe how it makes you feel as a lifelong
geek..."
PJ: It feels amazing
... it's an honour and privilege to be working on a project like this. It
transcends film making and becomes something you love doing every second of
the day. It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.