Who were the divas in The Lord Of The Rings, and what exactly was on their list of demands.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 Listen, I'm not one to judge. If somebody can bring me a cup of tea while I'm sitting there
00:03 waiting to go on and film, I'm going to ask for that cup of tea. Of course, I'm going to ask for
00:07 it nicely because, you know, I'd like to be hired again. With that in mind, I'm Sean Ferrick for
00:12 WhatCulture, and here are six unusual demands made by Lord of the Rings actors. Number six.
00:19 The cast insisted that John Rhys-Davies' stunt double got a tattoo. Brett Beattie was the stunt
00:24 double who did most of the heavy lifting for the role of Gimli, while camera trickery was
00:29 mainly responsible for catching all of the main Fellowship cast together on screen. Both Gimli
00:33 and the Hobbits were portrayed by doubles for wider shots. However, Beattie did considerably
00:38 more than many of the other actors. John Rhys-Davies, the tallest of the cast in real life,
00:43 has frequently joked that a lot of the time Gimli is on screen, it isn't him, but Beattie in the
00:48 part. There were a number of reasons, but also a health one. Rhys-Davies was allergic to the
00:53 prosthetics used to create the dwarf, so tried to avoid wearing them for as much time as possible.
00:58 When it came for the Fellowship cast to commemorate the work they had done together with a tattoo,
01:02 Beattie was approached in Rhys-Davies' stead. This was fully supported by the actor,
01:06 who agreed that Beattie had done so much of the work that he deserved recognition. Therefore,
01:11 he is the only stunt double from the cast to have the elvish script of nine tattooed on his body.
01:17 This, sadly, would be the biggest form of recognition that he would receive for many years,
01:22 as the studio only billed him as "stunt double" in the credits. Number five. Andy Serkis wanted
01:28 to be Gollum on set, not just provide the voice. Now, this one might not seem like such a strange
01:34 demand at all. Nowadays, don't all films that require mocap imagery encourage the performers
01:40 to act on set, interacting with the other performers in a scene? Well, that was not
01:44 quite the done thing when Andy Serkis arrived in New Zealand to play the dual role of Smeagol
01:48 and Gollum. While motion capture technology wasn't invented for the Lord of the Rings,
01:52 one could argue that it was perfected during the production period. Serkis devoted hours
01:57 and hours of life to playing the villainous character on set, as he felt that standing
02:03 to the side and shouting his lines for the other performers to react wouldn't capture the spirit
02:07 of the scenes. So, he asked to be physically part of the action, donning his mocap suit and running
02:12 around like a controlled lunatic. This served not only to allow Serkis the best chance of delivery
02:18 and provide the CGI team with an easier reference point, but also allowed actors like Sean Austin
02:22 and Elijah Wood to delve deeper into each scene, as opposed to having Gollum's lines fed to them
02:27 via a bullhorn.
02:28 4. Viggo Mortensen Consistently Asked for Rewrites
02:33 Coming to the production later than most, Viggo Mortensen had been convinced to take on the role
02:37 by his son, who was an enormous fan of the books. When he arrived in New Zealand, he became part of
02:43 the collaborative process by which much of the film's scenes were devised once filming had begun.
02:48 According to Sean Austin's autobiography of making the films, Mortensen became something
02:52 of a pain in the backside to Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. He, apparently,
02:57 lived with the books, reading them over and over again, trying his best to understand the part of
03:02 Aragorn. This led to his constant suggestions that tweaks could be made to the script to improve the
03:07 character. While script revisions happened on many projects, this stemmed from the actor effectively
03:12 going over the heads of the scriptwriters. Basically, he was using Tolkien's own works as
03:17 a way to supersede them. Having said that, according to Austin, this was often well
03:21 received by Jackson, who would often, though not always, take Mortensen's suggestions on board.
03:26 Number 3. Sean Bean refused point blank to get into the helicopter
03:31 Sean Bean had a fear of flying, particularly when it came to helicopters. This became a bit of an
03:35 issue when it came to location shooting for The Fellowship of the Ring, as many of the scenes
03:39 involved high rise shots in the mountains. Whether it was the snowy pass of Caradhras or the heights
03:44 of Amon Hen, Boromir was needed, but Bean wasn't thrilled. He made somewhat strange requests to be
03:51 allowed to hike the distance each day. This was no mean feat, as filming locations were remote
03:56 enough for the rest of the cast to be airlifted to the set. However, Bean refused to get to the
04:01 chopper, so the producers were left with very few options but to allow it. The rest of the cast
04:06 remembered fondly in interviews their sight of Bean in full costume, shield thrown over his shoulder,
04:11 climbing up the mountain each day, huffing it up the hills as they passed him overhead in
04:16 the helicopters. Perhaps thanks to the physical nature of this daily hike, it was for the best
04:21 that Boromir's role in the trilogy effectively came to a close amid a shower of arrows at the
04:26 hands of the Orochi in The Fellowship of the Ring. 2. Viggo Mortensen did not want a gelded horse
04:33 In an interview in 2006, Miranda Otto, who played Eowyn in the films, recounted her experiences with
04:38 her horse. When asked if she had bought her horse to bring home with her, she answered that no,
04:42 she hadn't. She then went on to reveal that she only received that horse because Viggo Mortensen
04:47 didn't want him. Otto's steed was a gelding, which is to say that he had been neutered. Mortensen
04:52 demanded a stallion for his scenes as he felt it was more appropriate for Aragorn to ride one. This
04:58 meant that this horse passed to Otto. She credited the horse as a beautiful soul who was a dream to
05:02 work with, except for one little problem. When Otto had first met the horse, he was a smaller,
05:07 more easily manageable creature. They were separated for some time, during which his new
05:11 owner treated him very well. According to Otto, when he returned to the set, he had been so well
05:17 fed that he was nearly twice the size. However, despite that, she still found him to be a tame
05:22 animal. And all of this because Viggo Mortensen had no interest in riding a gelding.
05:26 1. Christopher Lee demanded a rewrite of his murder
05:32 Veteran actor and former soldier, Christopher Lee played the evil wizard Saruman in the trilogy.
05:37 Much has been said about his removal from the theatrical release of The Return of the King,
05:41 though thankfully his scenes were restored for the extended editions. This included a crucial scene,
05:47 his murder. With the excising of the Scouring of the Shire chapter from the book, Saruman was to
05:52 be stabbed in the back by Wormtongue atop Orthanc. Filming commenced, but Lee quickly demanded a
05:57 change to the script. In the written version, Saruman would cry out in pain when Wormtongue
06:02 plunged the knife into his back. Lee asked Peter Jackson if the director actually knew what sound
06:08 a man made when being stabbed from behind. Slightly apprehensively, Jackson said that he
06:12 didn't. Lee confirmed that he, in fact, did know. As Lee said, when the knife penetrated the lung,
06:21 all the air would be forced out, so there could be no cry, merely a gasp. Jackson, thoroughly spooked,
06:26 allowed the change in the script, and the scene exists as Lee intended in the complete version
06:31 of The Return of the King. That's everything for our list today, folks. If you have anything
06:35 you'd love to add, please drop it in the comments below. Please don't forget to like, share and
06:39 subscribe, and remember that you can catch us over on Twitter @WhatCulture. You can catch myself
06:44 @SeanFerric on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. You look after yourselves now until I'm talking to you
06:49 again. You be kind to yourself, you stay safe, you stay well, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks very
06:55 much. Hello there, everybody. Trek Cultures' Adam Cleary here. Just to hold my hands up really
07:11 quickly and say I have tried. I've tried my best to replicate, duplicate, just outright clone our
07:18 god editor Chris Thompson here, and I have failed. It's been absolutely disastrous. At a front to
07:25 god, somebody called one of the efforts, so do you know what? I give up. We're just going to have to
07:30 hire a new video editor here at Trek Culture. If you've been sitting at home watching this glorious
07:36 channel thinking, "I could do that," well, then prove it. Sunshine, there is an email address on
07:42 the screen right now. If you're interested in becoming part of the team, we want to see your
07:45 showreel, we want to see your CV, we want to hear what you can bring to this channel. And if you're
07:51 good enough and we like you, maybe we'll get in touch and you too could be editing out the numerous
07:58 mistakes I make in every single video. So yes, email address on screen now, CV, showreel, etc.
08:04 Join us here on Trek Culture to boldly... I don't know, fix it in the edit. Goodbye.
08:14 [Music]