"I think I threw my back out." Elijah Wood takes a walk down memory lane as he rewatches scenes from his classic works including 'Lord of the Rings,' 'Sin City,' 'Wilfred,' 'Flipper,' 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' 'Deep Impact,' 'Yellowjackets' and more.
Director: Jameer Pond
Director of Photography: Oliver Lukacs
Editor: Alex Mechanik
Talent: Elijah Wood
Producer: Emebeit Beyene
Associate Producer: Zayna Allen
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Talent Booker: Mica Medoff
Camera Operator: Osiris Nascimento
Audio Engineer: Justin Fox
Production Assistant: Ariel Labasan
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Rachel Kim
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Additional Editor: Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Director: Jameer Pond
Director of Photography: Oliver Lukacs
Editor: Alex Mechanik
Talent: Elijah Wood
Producer: Emebeit Beyene
Associate Producer: Zayna Allen
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Talent Booker: Mica Medoff
Camera Operator: Osiris Nascimento
Audio Engineer: Justin Fox
Production Assistant: Ariel Labasan
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Rachel Kim
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Additional Editor: Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00And so a lot of those like jump kicks,
00:02I was on the harness and wires.
00:03It was awesome.
00:05I think I threw my back out.
00:07Hello, I'm Elijah Wood.
00:09And today, we are going to be watching a few scenes
00:12from projects over the course of my career.
00:14Let's have a look.
00:30I begin to understand, there is no going back.
00:37There are some things that time cannot mend,
00:41some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.
00:57Wow.
00:58All of the movies were shot simultaneously, all three films.
01:01The last thing I shot for principal photography,
01:04if I'm not mistaken, is that scene.
01:06He's finishing the book that his uncle had started,
01:11and then gives it to Sam.
01:13So the sort of symbolism of the scene,
01:15of me sitting at that desk, finishing those final pages
01:18before I give it away, is effectively Frodo
01:22finishing his work in Middle Earth
01:24before he sails away to the Grey Havens.
01:27It was highly emotional.
01:28We were coming to the end of our journey.
01:30At that point, we didn't know that we'd be coming back
01:32to New Zealand for additional shooting.
01:33That came later.
01:35So for all we knew, this really was the end
01:37of this extraordinary journey that we'd all taken together.
01:40And we could feel it.
01:41It was palpable.
01:42And the symbolism of that scene being the last for Frodo
01:46was really something.
01:47It was highly charged.
01:48The letting go of the character didn't really happen
01:50until after Return of the King was released, because we would
01:53continue to go back to New Zealand.
01:55So that was just like this extended process, not unlike the
01:59extended endings of The Lord of the Rings, where we were saying
02:02goodbye over the course of many years, really.
02:04And then there was the kind of very fortunate scenario of getting
02:07invited to go to the Oscars, and the film had been nominated for so
02:11many Oscars and had won them all.
02:13That was sort of this extraordinary family reunion,
02:16unbelievable, you know, victory lap.
02:18It's always strange to end a film.
02:20You are in a microcosm for whatever period of time that is,
02:23be it six weeks to six months, in this case 16.
02:27It's always a funny adjustment to come back to your life,
02:30because your life is the world of the film.
02:34It's quite insular, and especially if it's on location.
02:36If you're not going home to your own home at night,
02:39you're in another universe.
02:40So that transition, coming back from New Zealand to L.A.,
02:44and then not quite knowing what I was going to do next,
02:46was really strange.
03:03Come on, you son of a bitch.
03:06Damn, he's slick.
03:10Ah!
03:17We filmed all of Kevin's scenes in two days.
03:20The thing about Sin City is it was entirely shot on a soundstage,
03:24all against Green Screen.
03:26I think there were only a few sets that were actually built.
03:29Everything else was laid in in post-production.
03:31When I went to Austin to shoot over the course of those two days,
03:34Mickey Rourke had already shot out his entire Marv character.
03:37It was done, so I was only working with his stunt double at that stage.
03:41Just prior to getting there, if I remember correctly,
03:43they were like, have you ever done any wire work before?
03:46And I hadn't, but I was super game.
03:49And so a lot of those jump kicks, I was on the harness and wires.
03:52It was awesome.
03:54I think I threw my back out.
03:56And I was in a little bit of pain by the end of the last day.
03:59Is that the best you can do, creep?
04:03That's right, get personal, get close, I can take it.
04:08I got you, you little bastard.
04:10Let's see you hop around now.
04:12I was a huge, huge fan of the graphic novel.
04:14I knew Robert from the faculty, so I've known him for a number of years.
04:18We went to dinner, myself and a mutual friend of ours, George Wang.
04:22I think I had just read through all of the graphic novels.
04:25And I may have been talking about it, and he's like, oh, that's funny, my next project's going to be Sin City.
04:29And I was like, wait, what?
04:31And he was like, in fact, I've shot the intro of the movie already as a proof of concept.
04:36Do you want to see it?
04:37And we went out to the parking lot, and he had it on his laptop.
04:40That opening scene with Josh Hartnett finished.
04:44And it blew my mind, because I thought, there's no way anybody can make this.
04:48It's so specific to, it really, animation feels like the only way that you could bring this to life.
04:53And he proved that you could do this live action in a way that was really honoring the way that
04:57Frank Miller had drawn these characters and created this world.
05:00I ended up auditioning for it.
05:02My audition was literally sitting in front of a camera like this,
05:06staring straight at the camera, because Kevin doesn't talk.
05:09And Robert read passages from the graphic novel in reference to the character.
05:14And that was my audition.
05:15But it was a lot of fun.
05:16It was fun to play a character that was so dark, so twisted.
05:19I mean, he's a cannibal.
05:23I try to slow my heart down and breathe the fire out of my lungs.
05:28My muscles make me a thousand promises of pain to come.
05:32The comic, the graphic novel, was essentially the storyboard.
05:35So we were shooting each panel of the storyboard, which made our work as actors kind of easy.
05:44Most films, you know, you're getting like a wide shot, right?
05:47A master, and then you're doing close-ups.
05:50We weren't covering it in that traditional sense.
05:52We were covering it as Frank had laid out within the context of the graphic novel.
05:56Stop!
06:03Ryan, I know your type.
06:07You're a good boy.
06:08You come when you're called.
06:10You don't rub your ass on the carpet.
06:12Aren't you tired of doing what everyone else wants you to do?
06:15Oh, my God.
06:17Wow.
06:18I have so much love for Wilfred.
06:20I fell in love with this material instantly.
06:22It was based on Jason Gann, actually, as the creator of the character.
06:25He initially made a short film.
06:27He then subsequently turned it into a series.
06:29I think they did two seasons in Australia.
06:31So I had that material to sort of look at and reference in regards to this adaptation of where this came from.
06:37And fell in love with it.
06:38I mean, just the idea that it's like Calvin and Hobbes.
06:41It's like Harvey with Jimmy Stewart.
06:43This idea that there's a guy that sees a guy dressed as a dog, but nobody else sees him.
06:50It's just so weird and so wonderful and rife for a lot of comedy, but also sort of mining depths of, you know, mental health and what's really going on with Ryan.
07:02Maybe it's time you quit playing ball with them.
07:06And just play ball with me.
07:09Where'd that come from?
07:12Just give it a toss.
07:14I don't think I should.
07:16I love that this gave me the opportunity to work on a comedy.
07:20To work on a TV show that really pushed the boundaries of what is normal.
07:24It was so effing weird most of the time.
07:27Every episode ended with the two of them getting stoned in his basement.
07:30And God knows if it was a real dog or not.
07:32Like, what the hell is actually happening?
07:33I love this clip and I love the experience that this show gave me.
07:37I was living in Venice at the time.
07:39A lot of it was shot in Venice.
07:41The pilot was entirely shot in Venice.
07:43And then we ended up shooting most of it on the west side and at the fox lot.
07:46It was like in my universe.
07:48Occasionally I could ride my bike to work.
07:50It was just joyful.
07:51It was really fun.
07:52And fun to work on something so weird.
07:54It was hard to let it go.
07:55After four years we were like...
07:57We still loved it.
07:58We still loved the characters.
08:07I found him.
08:08What's his name?
08:12Uh...
08:16His name is Flipper.
08:17This is so reflective of a really fun experience.
08:20I've never been to the Bahamas before.
08:22I think we shot maybe in the spring.
08:24I don't know if it was in the summer.
08:25But you know, to have this sort of tropical experience working on this movie with live dolphins.
08:31And getting to go to the Bahamas early to work with the dolphins and swim with them.
08:36Was a huge deciding factor in regards to participating in the movie.
08:40Honestly.
08:41I was like, I want to go work with dolphins and swim with them and work with Paul Hogan.
08:46Crocodile Dundee was pretty rad.
08:48It's amazing to see.
08:49I mean, I was a kid.
08:50It's funny.
08:51The band t-shirts that the character wears.
08:54I had something to do with some of them.
08:56I wasn't a Soul Asylum fan necessarily.
08:58But I was a big Smashing Pumpkins fan.
09:00And I remember asking specifically for Smashing Pumpkins t-shirts.
09:03And he wears a few of them in the movie.
09:05So that was my contribution.
09:07I've never seen one alone like this.
09:09Usually with their families.
09:11Alone, he'd be no match for Scar.
09:14Who's Scar?
09:15We used a lot of real dolphins.
09:17There were some animatronic dolphins.
09:19And I think in the very first shot.
09:21Which is that sort of wide establishing with the dolphin in the foreground.
09:24I believe that was an animatronic.
09:26And when it flips around, it was obviously the real dolphin.
09:28Anytime you see it move like that as a real dolphin.
09:30But we had some really incredible animatronics that looked very real.
09:32This was a blast.
09:33It was like a sort of summer vacation experience making the film.
09:37First time scuba diving.
09:39I was probably 15, I think.
09:4214 or 15.
09:43So for me to have that experience at that age was really awesome.
09:46This is Patrick.
09:47Do you have any idea?
09:48How unethical?
09:49It's not really bad.
09:50I mean what?
09:51What?
09:52Get that look off your face.
09:53What's wrong?
09:54Patrick!
09:55You stole a girl's panties.
09:56So this particular scene, it's funny like that laugh at the end.
10:06I remember Michelle would come in and some of his direction would be to sort of completely avoid the script entirely.
10:25So that laugh, I believe, came from a take where all we did was laugh and just kind of like throw the whole thing and like explode the whole scene and mess around with the dialogue and not worry about where we were headed.
10:39The beautiful thing of what he did is kind of combine elements of varying takes with really different approaches.
10:47Working with Michelle was an absolute gift.
10:49Mary hates me.
10:51Never really had much luck with the ladies.
10:53Maybe if you stop stealing their panties.
10:56I remember when my agent at the time called me and said that there was a Charlie Kaufman script that Michelle Gondry is going to direct.
11:03I remember very vividly I was on the freeway and I nearly pulled over because I was like those two elements.
11:09In some ways I almost didn't have to read the script.
11:11I was fucking in.
11:12Like whatever you want me to do.
11:14And then I read the script and I think it surprised me.
11:17I found it incredibly emotional.
11:19This character who makes this really intense decision to like get rid of a relationship.
11:24Which is something that I think all of us have probably felt at one stage.
11:27Like can I just erase that experience, that heartache, that pain, that, you know, from my life.
11:33But then to explore what the consequences of that are.
11:36Both from a comedic standpoint but also from a really vulnerable emotional one.
11:40As someone's like having it being erased and realizing that he doesn't want it to happen because he wants to hold on to those things.
11:47Because they are precious.
11:48It's just such a brilliant concept.
11:50It was really, really fun.
11:51I found it in my Bartlett's.
11:53What's your Bartlett's?
11:55It's a quote book, Patrick.
11:57It's a book of quotations.
11:59And it's interesting actually.
12:00The script, the chronology of events within the context of the script, differ from the way it was edited.
12:07So the editing, just in terms of where things exist in time and on a timeline, shifted and morphed.
12:14And I'd love to read the script again actually.
12:16It's been so long to remember where things were on a timeline.
12:20It wasn't that it was entirely linear.
12:22But I feel like it was slightly more linear than what the film ended up being.
12:26Which is a real kind of bouncing back and forth in time and space.
12:30Patrick, can we get through this?
12:32Patrick.
12:33Hey, can I breathe?
12:35Oh, Patrick, it's you.
12:38It's so funny, this thing of like, I think we're well past this.
12:41But this idea that, you know, comedians jumping into dramatic roles as if that's such an insane idea.
12:46I think previously he had done The Truman Show, which certainly is more of a dramatic role.
12:52But this character was quite different from anything he'd played.
12:55And I remember him really, like, acknowledging that and talking about it.
13:00And being in a kind of vulnerable emotional state a lot of the time.
13:04Which was really incredible to watch.
13:06As a fan of Jim's work, you know, I've always admired what he does as a comedian.
13:10And he's really kind of in a class all of his own.
13:13To see him work in that way and really kind of get himself into a space that no one had ever really seen before was a joy to watch.
13:21A couple things that come to mind immediately.
13:46I had never ridden a motorcycle before.
13:48When I got the role in that pre-production time, really to get ready for this sequence when my character's riding this motorcycle.
13:55I didn't have a driver's license either.
13:57So I had to get my driver's license, go to driver's ed, learn how to drive, take that course, get my license.
14:03And then also simultaneously get my motorcycle license.
14:06So I went out with the stunt team and I learned how to ride a motorcycle through that team for this film.
14:12It just goes to show, like, sometimes the things that you have to do for a film are also to incorporate new skills.
14:18And in this case, put a fire under my ass to get my driver's license, which was great.
14:21I was stoked.
14:22And I learned how to ride a motorcycle.
14:23I'll see you soon.
14:24I'll see you soon.
14:25Get out of here, Neil.
14:27Go.
14:28Go to high ground.
14:29Go.
14:36The movie is about what all these characters are going to do with the time that remains and how that reflects on who they are, the life that they've led so far, and what they're going to do now that there's only so much time left.
14:49In this case, our characters who are maybe in love or dating, it accelerates that process for them where they're like, well, let's get married.
14:57Let's do all these things before this happens, you know?
15:01So they're in this really kind of heightened, accelerated romance by virtue of the circumstances that they can't control, which I just thought was really interesting.
15:11And for, you know, for two teenagers, and as a teen myself, it was such an interesting opportunity to play something out like that.
15:19I really appreciated the sort of emotional reasoning behind it, rather than the film just being about a spectacle.
15:25And, you know, to work on one of the two asteroid nearly hitting or hitting the planet movies that came out kind of close to each other.
15:36This Deep Impact and Armageddon were kind of neck and neck.
15:41So to make this kind of big universal kind of spectacle movie with a core heart just felt so fun. It was really fun.
15:56Oh, this is from the new season. Okay. I haven't seen this yet.
15:59Okay, what the...
16:01Hello, Shauna.
16:04Walter?
16:06It appears my cover is blown.
16:08Yeah, you literally hit my car.
16:10Oh, my God.
16:11Walter.
16:12This scene's really fun for a couple of reasons.
16:15Melanie Linsky is a dear friend.
16:17I adore her.
16:18I've been a fan of hers for a super long time.
16:20We have gotten to work together a couple of times, three times now.
16:23Initially on Over the Garden Wall and then in a movie called I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore.
16:28And the fun thing about that film is it involves my character and her character sort of teaming up to sort of be detectives to solve a problem that she has.
16:38The fun thing about this scene is that it sort of brings us back to the dynamics of those characters a little bit.
16:44Like tasting a little of the fun that we had on that film with a slightly similar dynamic, which was really cool to play out again.
16:52And just to work with her.
16:53Because I...
16:54Walter, in the first season that I worked on the show, season two, we didn't have any scenes really together.
17:00And so we were really hopeful that eventually we would have something to do together.
17:04And we got that this season, which was great.
17:06I admit I was probably too aggressive.
17:09Tailing is a lesser used skill of mine.
17:11Why are you doing it now?
17:13And just, you know, to see Walter take himself so seriously as a citizen detective and think that he's got such sort of skill and swagger is really funny.
17:24He is such an oddball.
17:26I love him so much.
17:27I'm so grateful to the creators for asking me to be a part of this.
17:33It's really funny.
17:34When I first met Bart and Ashley, they pitched me the character.
17:37And a sense of where they thought the character was going to go in the first season.
17:40But they didn't have any...
17:41They had nothing written down that I could read.
17:43So I was kind of going on...
17:46I mean, two pretty solid things.
17:48One, a show that I loved.
17:49So I was like, it's going to be great because the show's great and the writing on the show is great.
17:53And then this really detailed pitch they'd given me about who this person is and how weird he is.
17:59And how in some ways he's like sort of similar to Misty, but maybe more functional than Misty is.
18:04And it was a period of discovery, you know, because when you're working on a TV show that isn't entirely written beforehand,
18:11which is largely never the case, there's a little discovery as you go along.
18:14There are things that are sort of withheld and information that is doled out to you as you read it, you know?
18:20You're not kind of given a book on the character that spells everything out for you.
18:25So there were discoveries made along the way, like his wealth was kind of news to me.
18:29That was really interesting.
18:30It spoke so much to kind of who he is and how he's able to sort of play around with his whims
18:35and chase these odd sort of cases because he doesn't have to work.
18:40It's just really bizarre and funny.
18:42Thank you so much for watching. This has been really fun for me to revisit some of these films in different periods of my life.
18:53That's all folks.
18:54Thanks.
18:55Thanks.