Excerpted from:

Mr. Beaks' Comic-Con Report - UNDERWORLD, RETURN OF THE KING, FREDDY VS JASON, Michael Madsen on 6 Million Dollar Man..

Published on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 - 3:05am 

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LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING

“The most sacred acting experience I’ve ever had was at the top of Mount Ruapehu with Elijah Woods in my arms,” says Sean Astin with the contented confidence of an actor who knows he nailed the moment. This enticing tidbit certainly lends credence to the Oscar buzz that’s been building up around his performance in RETURN OF THE KING ever since the first film hit theaters in 2001 (I know Moriarty in particular has been championing this notion for some time). But that’s hype best left stowed away until December. Right now, I’m seated at a roundtable with such web celebs as Garth Franklin and Smilin’ Jack Ruby (by the way, guys, the entourages are getting *way* out of control), trying to draw out of Astin and Dominic Monaghan some specifics about those month-long reshoots in New Zealand that just concluded a couple of weeks ago, and expecting little more than well-rehearsed vagaries. That said, these guys are, as ever, a joy to be around. They’re still very much in love with these movies, and grateful for the chance to be a part of them. At the very least, it’ll be a pleasant discussion.

But that’s not going to deter us from taking up the dental drill, and going to work on these bastards. What about those reshoots? According to Dominic, these were “less reshoots, and more like finessing things, like some scenes with Gandalf and Pippin where they head off to Minas Tirth. We kinda fleshed out those scenes a little. Merry on the battlefield… we kinda finessed a bit of that. Nothing too huge, just drawing out the scene a little bit.” Sean added, “We reshot a couple of things, and we did additional scenes… new scenes.”

With the idea of new scenes floated, we tried for specifics, only to be met with an exchange of furtive glances between the hobbits, who issued, through Sean, a polite no-comment. “I don’t know how to talk about it without ruining it,” allowed Sean, who stated further, “you know how the story ends, not how the movie ends. And these would be spoilers. I don’t know if I feel good about giving good spoilers. I want to answer your question, but I feel like I shouldn’t.”

This line of questioning did, however, lead to the inevitable discussion over how much this final film differs from the novel in terms of plot points. “I don’t think it differs too much from the book,” said Dominic. “It’s very sad, it’s very poignant; it’s the bringing together of all of our stories, and the eventual destiny of the ring is decided. So, it sticks kind of close to the book.” Sean’s take was a little more personal. “You know what I find? I’ve read the books three times, and I can’t remember the books. And I’ve worked on the films for several years now, and I can’t remember the movies.” Sean laughed, and continued, saying, “I’ve reached the point of critical mass. Maybe it’s a zen exercise; I’ve finally arrived at a place of real wisdom because I live in the moment. There’s just so much information, so, I think my experience is different than… a fan who had come to it like… they’d read the story when they were kids, and they remember certain things. And when they go see the movie they want to see *that* thing that they remember, but I bet, if they read it again, different things would emerge for them. Peter and Fran and Phillippa are really the best to talk about that. And also Mark Ordesky’s pretty sophisticated at talking about, storywise, why certain things were changed structurally, and what the difference in the film is narratively. I’m the wrong guy to ask about that.”

Sean is, however, the perfect guy to ask about his “sacred” moment at the top of Mount Ruapehu, which apparently required a marathon of takes until he arrived at the emotional truth of the scene. But repetition wasn’t the key so much as the script, for which Sean is full of praise. “There was something… about the poetry of the language that wasn’t in the script (originally). It was a last minute script addition, which was sort of characteristic of everything. There were scenes that we filmed a few weeks ago, and we got pages after we filmed them, so we had to go back and film them again. But there’s something about the quality of the language – the poetry of it – plus what (Sam) was saying, *plus* being on the volcano and, then, seeing Peter Jackson who was so stoic and played it close to the vest, seeing the fact that… it affected him so emotionally. Then, we kept doing more takes, and it was like… a pottery wheel. And we just kept shaping it and shaping it. My little brother’s an actor, too, and people asked him when we were on the train yesterday, ‘What do you do?’ And he said, ‘I’m an emotional engineer.’ So, I felt like I got my PhD as an emotional engineer on THE RETURN OF THE KING. Is that quotable?”

Meanwhile, the boys have been busy sandwiching in other films while the finishing touches are put on LORD OF THE RINGS. For Dominic, it’s the disparate gangland duo of SPIVS and THE PURIFIERS, the latter of which he described as a hyper-violent British remake of THE WARRIORS. As Dominic put it, “Ten rival kung-fu gangs get together to try to control crime in one city. My gang, the Purifiers, don’t want to do it, so when they’re heading back to their own territories, the nine conglomerate gangs come together and try to kill them.” Dominic, describing vividly how the fight scenes were shot, really sold me on this one in particular. Having heard from Garth of a ratings squabble in the UK over the violence in the film, I’m more than ready to check it out.

Sean, on the other hand, went for a wallow in the Sandler sty on FIFTY FIRST KISSES, where he’ll be playing a freakishly tan gym rat with a severe lisp. It sounds like fun, and Sean certainly sounds pleased with it. “I think it’s a chance for people to see that I have a little bit of comic timing, and that I enjoy doing characters. We’ll see what happens. I trust (Sandler) and Peter Segal, who directed it. You know, I could look like a real… well, I’m sort of assured to look like an idiot in it, but, hey, I need a bit of a modesty check in a while.”

As for LORD OF THE RINGS, there are signs of weariness beginning to set in (mind you, this malaise is setting in four years *after* cameras first started rolling). “At moments, I am *so* sick of it,” Sean admitted. But, as he goes on to stress, “At moments. And, then, there are moments where I just love it, and don’t want to end. And I recognize that it’s going to be really sad. It’s a pretty complicated emotional reality to experience.”

Dominic struck the same gently melancholy tone, saying “They’re great projects. We all really loved being in it, but change is a good thing. Doing new things is always interesting. We’ll miss each other… but that’s part of life, isn’t it?”

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