Greetings! I am the player of Fergus, who you may have seen wandering around mume from time to time. Over the past year or more I have been closely following the development of the movie trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" (LOTR for short). I have accumulated much information and images of the movie and its making over this period and would love to share some of it with you...

November 21, 2001

To have a successful LOTR movie you need to portray hobbits well. They are the key characters to story and are involved in nearly every scene from start to finish. Anyone in the audience that hasn't read the LOTR needs to learn much about hobbits to understand the irony that these small creatures, that would love nothing more than a second breakfast in front of a nice fire, hold the fate of middle earth in their hands. Most of the images I had in my mind of hobbits were from the artwork of Angus McBride (famous for his Tolkien artwork associated with MERP, a middle earth roleplaying game). The casting of the LOTR has kept more of the innocence of hobbits than what McBride portrayed. Although, as with most casting for the movie, I didn't like him at first, Elijah Wood seems to be a good choice for Frodo. He captures the innocence, yet determination of Frodo Baggins of the shire.

Casting three movies, the first of which features no less than fifteen major roles, was a crucial, early challenge for Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and their four casting directors. Although Elijah Wood had been asked to audition for the film, the young American actor was reluctant to audition in the director's office.

'They wanted me to go into a casting director's office in Los Angeles, to be videoed doing my audition against a white background. But auditions are difficult and office atmospheres are so sterile that I ready didn't feel comfortable with that.' Wood's solution was to make his own video 'on location'. Not having access to the script (on which a tight hold was being kept), Elijah had to read and learn the script at the casting director's office. Then, hiring a costume from an LA costumiers, the young actor enlisted the help of a couple of friends, one of whom had a video camera and the trio headed off into the Los Angeles hills where they

The Lord of the Rings is the latest venture for an actor who has already achieved much in his twenty years. He started out as a child model before moving on to minor roles in Back to the Future II, Internal Affairs, and Avalon. His movie resume now includes Paradise, Forever Young, The Good Son, North, Flipper, The Ice Storm, Deep Impact, Chain of Fools and The Faculty.

In order to film hobbits and keep proportions correct, the film uses 'scale-doubles' of most of the characters, substitute players dressed identically to the actors playing the hobbits, only much smaller (and for some sequences dressed like big people, only bigger!) and wearing masks to replicate the features of the actors playing the parts.

'Elrond is a fountain of knowledge and wisdom: he knows a great deal about the history of the Ring and understands not just what's has happened, but what might happen. Elrond is well aware that whether the ring is destroyed or taken by Sauron, the time of the Elves is almost at an end. Whatever the outcome, the Elves will leave middle-earth and be forgotten. There is, therefore, a sadness about Elrond which made me decide that - although he is an Elf - he also needed to have humanity, and that is what I have tried to bring to my performance.'

Did you know....

• The hobbit feet are actually prosthetic feet. They are slightly bigger than normal feet, but are hairy and relatively malleable. There is a thick layer of latex underneath to allow running and movement in what appears to be 'bare feet'. 
• the trilogy will include lines spoken in Sindarin, Quenyan, Khuzdul, Morbeth and, of course, Westron .
• the accent used by the hobbits is the english accent from the county of Gloucestershire .
• all three movies were shot at the same time