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A ROUNDTABLE INTERVIEW WITH THE CAST AND CREW OF THE LORD OF THE
RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
On Wednesday, Dec. 5th, Jeffrey Overstreet
joined several other privileged film critics, including Steven D.
Greydanus (Decent Films), Andrew Coffin (World), and Michael Elliott
(Movie Parables) to talk with members of the
cast and crew for the year's most ambitious, exhausting, and gloriously
realized film. Over the course of this week, Looking Closer will be
adding excerpts of those interviews here. Keep checking back!
Ian McKellen -
Gandalf
Press:
Thank you for another fine film!
Sir Ian McKellen:
Well, thank you. What was the verdict?
Press:
We loved it!
Press:
We’re supposed to be hardcore objective journalists, but we approach you
as fans.
Sir Ian:
Ah, that’s nice.
Jeffrey:
Was there a particular challenge to playing Gandalf in The Return of
the King as opposed to the previous two films?
Sir Ian:
Well, of course, the big divide comes when he dies and comes back to
life, which is really what happens. And that happened in Part Two, so I
was never really aware of what Part Three was.
Jeffrey:
He seemed susceptible to some crises of faith and courage in this
episode that are even more pronounced than in the book.
Sir Ian:
When I was called back to do pick-ups this year, that’s what Peter
wanted to beef up. It thought that was an emotional line that would be
helpful to keep what would otherwise be two separate stories—he wanted a
link between everything that was going on with Aragorn and Frodo and Sam
and Gollum. Gandalf was the link. It was a good thing to have done. It
helps to give Gandalf a bit of humanity that he perhaps doesn’t have in
the second film.
Jeffrey:
Well, he’s been my favorite character since I was eight years old, and
you have done just so beautifully with him.
Sir Ian:
Oh, thank you. It’s very sweet when grandparents who know the books
bring their grandchildren to meet Gandalf and they look up at you like
this… [wide-eyed] and I tell them, “Well, I’m not the real
Gandalf.” It’s like Father Christmas saying, “I’m not a real Father
Christmas. He’s busy somewhere.”
Bob Smithouser:
I write for teenagers, and I wonder if, during the entire experience of
The Lord of the Rings, you learned a life lesson that you
think would be valuable for teenagers today.
McKellen:
No.
[laughter]
Except that my parents
brought me up to think that there was a prime of life. And it wasn’t
gonna happen any time soon. You had to wait. You had to earn your
prime … [a time] when you knew what life was about, when you were
accomplishing something.
And then the Beatles
came along and told us that the best time of your life is when you were
young. And I thought I’d rather missed out! Here I am at 64, and this is
my prime of life.
That would be my
message! Don’t worry ! Don’t try and hit it too early—your time might be
later on. Everyone has a different prime of life.
Press:
One of the things we keep hearing from the actors is what a
collaborative process it was to make the films—even regarding the
script. Gandalf is a character who is rather pithy. To what extent did
you feel wedded to the text? Did you have some latitude there? Was that
a tension?
Sir Ian:
Gandalf speaks an awful lot in the novel. He’s always telling people
about the past, filling them in on the history of things, making
recommendations. And although this is a “talkie,” there’s less talk in
it than there is in the books. So I was always saying to Peter,
“Shouldn’t there be a big scene here for Gandalf? Shouldn’t he say more
than he does?” He is more pithy in the screenplay than he is in the
book. He speaks in long rolling sentences that go on for pages
sometimes.
That’s the novel. The
film is different. But the character is the same, actually.
Of course, it was a
venture that everyone had their contribution to. Everyone’s contribution
was welcomed. These movies were not directed by a tyrant. No man could
have done it all by himself… no woman could do it. But what he did—and
it’s true of all good directors—he’s brilliant at casting. Not just with
the actors, but with the heads of department. He picked the right
people. No one was sacked on this movie. That’s because he’d picked the
right person.
So the point of doing
your job was to bring everything you possibly could to Peter Jackson’s
table so that he could approve or discuss or say no. And that process
was going on every day. However early in the morning you got there,
Peter was there before you sitting at his chair and reading a book. And
the book he was reading was The Lord of the Rings.
And I had mine. There
was a pocket in Gandalf the Grey’s costume for the book. And if ever you
felt something wasn’t quite right or you wanted a little help, out came
the bible and you looked it through and you said, “On page 279, Peter
there’s something pretty good.” And he’s look it up and say, “Hmmm,
alright.” If Tolkien wrote it, you’re onto a good thing. You could
usually get something slipped in.
Jeremy Landes:
Did the younger actors look to you as a father figure? And if so, what
kind of actor traditions did you try and instill in them… especially the
hobbits, since you spent about a year together.
Sir Ian:
No, I don’t think they did look at me as a father figure. I don’t think
Peter wanted them to. And I think I was allowed to join in their fun and
games. They’d been at it for three or four months before I got there.
They were well established. They introduced me to everyone and
everything. It’s one of the great joys of acting that you get to mix
with equal terms with people of other generations, so when I was their
age I loved talking to the old actors. But did they love talking to me?
Maybe I liked being with them more than they liked being with me… I
don’t know. It was not a relationship of respect and being patronizing.
That wasn’t part of it at all. But I don’t remember anyone coming to me
for help. Being slightly interfering, sometimes I did offer advice, yes,
usually referring to stuff in the book. Sean Astin was saying yesterday,
and I’d forgotten—when Sam meets up with Frodo in the bedroom after it’s
all over, and everyone comes through the door like in the Wizard of Oz,
I said “You know, Tolkien says Sam takes Frodo’s hand… and that’s pretty
significant. I think you should do that. I think some people will be
looking out for that mark of friendship.” So he did that.
Steven D. Greydanus:
One of the things that has come up in
connection with this movie is having sympathy and understanding for
mindsets that might be different than what we usually have sympathy and
understanding for. The obvious example would be the case of Gollum, who
has been portrayed as a monster in other renditions, but who has been
very humanized, and we really come to have some sympathy and some
understanding for him.
I’m
curious how you—and I’m sure this is something you’ve given a lot of
thought to—committed yourself to this film based on a book by a man
whose mindset and whose beliefs are very different from your own, and
yet who created something that for you I’m sure has power and beauty as
it does for us. [How did you approach] wanting to honor this man’s
accomplishment and his achievement … being aware that this work is
infused with some things that are very different from your views?
Sir Ian:
You mean because he was a Catholic … which I am not?
Steven:
Yes.
Sir Ian:
I note with delight that Hobbiton is a community without a church. There
is no pope in this story. There’s no archbishop. There’s no set of
beliefs. There’s no credo. I think what he’s appealing to in human
beings is to look inside yourself and to look to your friends and to
join a fellowship. They don’t join a church or a political organization.
Everybody brings to it whatever there individual strengths are. I’d be
with Tolkien on that.
But, Tolkien and I both
lived through the Second World War. He was writing this during the war,
and I was sleeping under a metal shelter in our house in the north of
England waiting for the bombs to fall.
So there was a Sauron
around.
And although [Tolkien]
doesn’t think of it as an allegory for the Second World War, how could
he not be affected? Because his Frodo, his boy, was fighting in the
north of France. Whenever I had to think, What is Sauron?—who we
never seen in the film—I would think of Hitler. He’s the great evil
force of our time. And certainly of Tolkien’s.
So I always think of
Frodo as the representative of all those kids who have given their lives
for everybody else. They’re still doing it… they’re doing it now. And
it’s very very painful, this journey that Frodo goes on. And you can see
it in Elijah’s face when he’s going mad with confusion at the end. He
gives his life… he doesn’t get back to Hobbiton. I always thought he was
too beautiful to play Frodo. I thought Frodo was everyman, an ordinary
kid.
But as you go around
New Zealand, in every village there’s a war memorial to men who died in
the first and second world wars, usually fighting wars that had nothing
to do with New Zealand at all… they were all part of the British empire.
The angelic faces of these fallen soldiers, teenagers… Frodo looks like
one of them. He’s got that wonderful milky marble skin, soft and hard
like marble is. You see it in their faces. I wonder if Peter Jackson was
thinking of those people. Those are the connections I’ve got with
Tolkien.
Jeremy Landes:
Sir Ian, your character and Saruman are very similar. But Saruman makes
one choice and you make another. What do you think it is that Gandalf
sees that sways him? Is there an inherent goodness in Gandalf? Is it
just that he makes one choice and Saruman doesn’t?
Sir Ian:
You’re right. They are alike, even physically alike. They are mistaken
for each other. New Line Cinema sent me photographs of Christopher Lee
to approve… they thought they were sending me Gandalf photos.
When you’re telling a
story as an actor, you’re just part of the storytelling process. You’re
at the behest of the writers. And in this case, not Tolkien, but Fran
Walsh and Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson. It’s their version of the
story that we’re now telling. Tolkien set down the myth and this is
their interpretation of the myth.
Your job isn’t to start
judging the characters, just to try and embody them.
But, what I like about
Gandalf, and what Saruman doesn’t like about Gandalf is that Gandalf
likes hobbits. Saruman doesn’t—he’s extremely disparaging about them.
Jeremy Landes:
It’s not just the tobacco?
Sir Ian:
[narrowing his eyes] You think it’s tobacco they’re smoking, do
you?
[laughter around the table]
They’re not only
smoking. They’re eating a great deal. They’re having parties. They have
big families. They don’t know what’s going on in their world, they’re
just happy to be where they are. They’re very contented. [They’re not]
adventurous souls go off and discover the world. Saruman doesn’t rate
hobbits one little bit. And Gandalf does.
And who destroys the
ring, finally? A couple of hobbits. That’s a message for our world.
Don’t look to the great commanders, the great politicians, the great
wizards to know what’s right or to do what’s right. Look to the hobbits.
And we are all much closer to [being] hobbits than we are to being
wizards.
Press:
In the last movie, there was a lot of physical activity. How much of
that did you have to do, and what did you have to do to prepare?
Sir Ian:
Well, I’ve been fighting all my life professionally. Quite recently I
played Captain Hook in “Peter Pan.” At the end of a three hour show in
high heels on a stage to fight with a guy who’s a third your age, up and
down the stairs and on the rigging, and then jumping off twenty feet
onto the stage, and pretending to be eaten by a crocodile… that’s harder
than anything I have to do [here]… because you actually have to do that.
There’s an audience.
Here, it’s no secret… I
am not the only person to play Gandalf in this movie. There are a lot of
us. If you ever see my face, it’s me. That wasn’t a face that was added
to somebody else’s body—although that does happen in this film—but if
you see my back galloping up a steep slope or down it or wielding a
weapon, that’s probably not me. I had a riding double—Basil—who could
ride a horse without a rein, without stirrups, without a saddle, which
is what Gandalf’s meant to do on Shadowfax. And then there’s Paul. If
you ever see Elijah’s legs, and Gandalf is with him, it isn’t me because
I’m not big enough. And then I have stunt doubles as well, and I’m only
too grateful to let them do the life-threatening [things.] I’m not
over-brave about putting myself in danger.
Steve Beard:
When you talked about the pouch in your cloak in which you kept the
book, it struck me that you were a sort of guardian of what the book is
really about. How much did you think about there being fans all around
the world who would go and see the movie
knowing so much about the book?
Sir Ian:
So many films, alas actually, are adaptations of other media. I wish
there were more films written specially for the screen, but as long as
the version you’re doing relates strongly to the original material,
which this does... [that's
fine.]
I hadn’t read the book
when I was asked to do it. I just took the job on the job on the basis
of the script. And almost immediately on my website I learned that
millions and millions of people had read the book and were longing for
the film and dreading it at the same time. So we all knew… and this is
unusual… that people were going to go and see it… that that
opening-week audience was there. And if they liked what they saw, we
were probably going to be okay.
So Peter kept saying
publicly and in private that he was a fan. And he related
strongly to the other fans. And he contacted them through the web, which
New Line didn’t like. I think New Line felt, “The Web is a danger. We’re
losing control.” But Peter and I reveled in telling them what was
happening. They were on our side, for goodness sake. It
was wonderful. So there was that enthusiasm
for the original and the hope that the film was going to match it was
something that we all shared.
Jeffrey:
There are a lot of critics who are quick to take the story of The
Lord of the Rings as a way of talking about the literal West versus
the literal East. They’re finding political correlations between what
happens in the story and what’s happening in the real world. Do you see
a relevance of that sort in the story, and if so, what is that?
Sir Ian:
I wouldn’t go beyond anything I’ve said so far in rather general terms.
My personal reaction is
to think if Sauron exists for me. And I suppose he has, as I said
before.
But [Tolkien] was
consciously writing a myth. Myths of course are open to interpretation.
That’s the point of them. There’s no One Received Truth. It isn’t a
religion. It’s a pre-history which never happened, but which of course
could.
There was a woman who asked me for Gandalf’s autograph. I said,
“Gandalf doesn’t sign autographs.” She said, “No, please.” And I said,
“He’s not here! You can see, he’s not here!” And she persisted. And I
said, “Look, Gandalf doesn’t exist!!”
Well, you can’t say
that. Because he does... of course.
I’m still in the mode
of just the actor who was hired to play Gandalf. I don’t know how long
it will take me to get away from it and look at it objectively, so that
I could give you a better answer.
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