Elijah Wood rose to fame thanks to his role as Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but what has he done since then? Elijah Wood wasn’t a newcomer when he was cast as Frodo Baggins, as he began his career in the entertainment industry when he was very young. His first break was in Paula Abdul’s music video for “Forever Your Girl”, directed by David Fincher, in 1989, and that same year he had a minor role in Back to the Future II. His first big role arrived the following year in the TV movie Child in the Night, where he played the lead role of a kid who’s the only witness to his father’s murder.
It didn’t take long for Hollywood to take notice of Elijah Wood’s talent, and in 1990 he also appeared in the drama movie Avalon, followed by Paradise in 1991 and Radio Flyer in 1992. His role as Stuart Simmons in Jon Avnet’s The War earned him a lot of recognition and praise, with Roger Ebert calling him “the most talented actor in his age group”. All these projects and more ultimately led to his big break in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, where he played the lead character, Frodo Baggins. Wood reprised his role as Frodo in the sequels The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and once his time at Middle-earth was done, he took things a bit easier.
Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a massive success and continues to be regarded as one of the best and most influential film series in history, so naturally, playing the lead role gave Elijah Wood’s career a major boost, but he chose to take his career on a different path. Although The Lord of the Rings made him a widely known name, Wood inevitably faced the risk of being typecast, so once the trilogy came to an end, he went for roles that were opposites to what Frodo Baggins was. His first projects post-Middle-earth were Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), where he played Patrick Wertz, a technician for Lacuna who doesn’t have a good work ethic, and Sin City (2005), where he played Kevin, a cannibalistic serial killer.
His next project was the comedy-drama Everything Is Illuminated, followed by the independent drama Green Street Hooligans and Bobby. Wood has since appeared in a variety of movies (though none of them big productions, except for his brief return to Middle-earth in The Hobbit: An Expected Journey) and short films, but he has also turned his attention to voice work. First was Happy Feet, where he voiced the lead character, Mumble, as well as the title character in the post-apocalyptic animated movie 9. Voice work has also led him to the realm of TV, voicing different characters in shows like American Dad!, Freak Show, Robot Chicken, Tron: Uprising, and Star Wars Resistance. However, Wood’s work post-Lord of the Rings hasn’t been limited to acting roles, and he has branched out to other areas. He started his own record label, Simian Records, in 2005, and was dissolved in 2015; he became a DJ and even toured around the world with his friend Zach Cowie; he founded the production company The Woodshed (rebranded as SpectreVision) with Daniel Noah and Josh C. Waller; and in 2019 he shared his love for the horror genre in Shudder’s podcast Visitations, alongside Daniel Noah. Among his most recent projects are the crime movie No Man of God and the reboot of The Toxic Avenger, alongside Peter Dinklage and Jacob Tremblay.
Despite the impact of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and its legacy in the entertainment industry, Elijah Wood has opted for a more relaxed career that has allowed him to escape typecasting and branch out to other areas of entertainment, which in turn has helped him remain active in the industry. Elijah Wood continues to have a place in the hearts of the audience, who have been very welcoming of all his projects post-Middle-earth, whether they’re on the big screen, television, video games, podcast, or something else.