The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released in theaters 20 years ago, kicking off one of the most ambitious and acclaimed film trilogies of all-time. The project was very risky, as director Peter Jackson shot all three movies back-to-back, but it was a gamble that paid off. The Lord of the Rings was incredibly successful at the box office and earned widespread critical praise. All three installments were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, with finale Return of the King taking home a record-tying 11 trophies.
At the heart of The Lord of the Rings is the touching friendship between Frodo and Sam, the two Hobbits who brave the journey to Mt. Doom and destroy the One Ring. To celebrate the trilogy's landmark anniversary, Sam actor Sean Astin spoke with Screen Rant about his time on the films, his experience reading the books all these years later, and much more.
Screen Rant: Looking back at just that release weekend, the fandom, the carpets, all of that, what sticks out to you most?
Sean Astin: Wow. Like you said, that... It was like light bulbs just went off in my face, not carpet light bulbs, but just so many memories popped into me. Coming out of the Ziegfeld. The Ziegfeld is the historic cinema, Downtown Manhattan, where we premiered it. I don't even know if it's still a theater or not, but it had been there from the beginning of cinema, and gorgeous, ornate things.
Anyhow, I have this vague recollection of coming out of there, and there was this like white awning. It was freezing cold, and I think it might have been raining or snowing, and I remember getting into the limo. Life was about getting into the limo, getting out of the limo, being on a carpet, being off a carpet, sitting in a chair, answering questions, going back, being on a stage. It's was unbelievable, so much.
And it's funny how, after a week of it, you're just used to it. You're just like, "Oh yeah, of course, we're in another thing, we're in another thing." But we jump in the limo and there's this guy knocking on the window because people were always like... It was like a Beatles movie, they were always chasing after you. It was crazy. But this guy, he was dressed fancy. So I rolled the window down a little bit, and he puts an envelope through the thing, and he is like, "Hi, I'm Dr. So-and-so." He's like, "I have to tell Peter Jackson that there's a mistake, or there's an anomaly," or something like that.
When the cave troll comes into Balin's Tomb, and it's really the first time the Fellowship sets up as a group, and we're fighting him. I'm using pots and pans on orcs, and Elijah's got the mithril vest to stave off the orc, or the whatever, the cave troll stabs him with the spear. Well, Balin's Tomb, the dwarf is lit by a ray of sunlight, and the cave troll passes through it. Well, if you know the Hobbit, when trolls encounter sunlight, they turn to stone. This cardiologist had identified this seam in the universe, in the mythology where we had made this mistake. I just remember thinking, "I don't think we can redo it now, man."
Somebody did that with James Cameron, with the star map in Titanic. They were like, "That's not what the stars were that night," and he changed it because it drove him nuts.
Sean Astin: I can't remember if I told Peter. I can't remember what Peter's reaction would've been. He would've laughed at that, I'm sure.
But it was a heady time. I think I wasn't really prepared for it. I mean, 9/11 had happened three months earlier, so the emotion of that, the trauma of that was still really weighing on everyone. It's part of what made Lord of the Rings so special, was that it came at a time when people were really like... There had been this loss of innocence. We'd existed for a long time, probably since the Vietnam War, in this sense of relative calm and peace, and now, this idea was like, "Oh, people hurt each other."
So, that's a part of it. I didn't know if I would ever work again. I was worried about money. I was worried about money and what the next job would be. We were selling our house. I didn't make enough money on the movies to be able to keep my house. If could go back in time and be like, "Dude, it's going to be okay. The movies are very successful. You're going to work regularly or semi-regularly. You will be able to buy a nice house." But at the moment, I didn't have that, so that was affecting me. And then they're like, "Look, these are toys with your face on it." And you're like, "Oh." Somehow, when I saw the action figures with my face on it, I thought less of my Star Wars action figures from when I was a kid, because I'm like, "Well if I can be an action figure, anybody can be an action figure." "You're an action figure, you're an action figure," you know?
Do you still have anything from either set or some kind of action figure that you were given at that time that you still have? Your most prized possession.
Sean Astin: We were gifted items. I stole items as well, but we were also gifted items, Sam's backpack, the elven brooch. My wife always brings up the elven brooch, which I actually put on the wrong way after lunch, and the wardrobe people noticed it, so they felt that it was critical it always be worn that way. And so three people, three Hobbits had their elven brooch this way, and one had it that way. And every day, for two years, several times a day, we had to do the mental math of, "Which way is it supposed to go?" Sam's sword, a couple of pairs of Hobbit feet, which smell after time, Elven Rope. Didn't want the Ring.
You didn't want it?
Sean Astin: No way.
Why?
Sean Astin: Elijah wanted it. There were a couple. I think Ian McKellen got one. I think Peter got one. There's three of the One Ring. Why? Because it's evil. People always come up to me like, "Oh, we're getting married. Look, we got me the One Ring." I'm like, "No."
"You don't do it."
Sean Astin: It's like 12 hours of movie to get rid of it, and then you bring it back? So yeah, I don't know. What else? There's pictures. We have the books, the actual, the big three-volume set of it that we all autographed, not autographed, but all signed like a yearbook to each other. That's kind of a treasured possession.
Speaking of the books, you are also revisiting the book with your book club at Fable, and I love this, because I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know the last time you read it, but you were probably in full studying mode, and now, you're reading it as...Is it different this time around?
Sean Astin: Ash, you have got it in one.
Boom.
Sean Astin: I read it three times, cover to cover, during the filming. And it was not an enjoyable experience in the way that the fans describe, where it saves them, where they disappear into this world, where the characters are allowed to mean so much to them. So study is a great word, but study has a kind of relaxed quality to it. I've been saying it was like I was in a cockpit, and the engine went out, and the book was my checklist. And I'm going through it, trying to find, "Is there this? Is there that?"
So my commitment to myself and my commitment to the book club readers is, and thank you for mentioning it, fable.co, is not just to try and read it from a more relaxed perspective, but also to try and read it, like I'm trying to see if it's possible to separate Sam out. Everything I've ever known about the books has come from the perspective of Sam. Every word, every prop, every image of film, every convention, autograph, it's always from the position of Sam. So I'm a 50-year-old man now with three kids. The oldest is just about to graduate high school. One's a graduate in graduate school. The other's in college, second year. I've run marathons and triathlons, I'm getting a graduate degree myself, I've done, what? 20 years worth of movies, I'm 30 years married, I'm a different person than I was 20 years ago. I know that there are elements of this book, ideas, emotions that will resonate with me and that will appeal to me differently now, if I can find a way to let them.
So we're doing it in bits. It's like a chapter a week or something like that. And reading people's comments, I'm looking forward to seeing the comments, to have my experience of, first-person, of making the movies and being one of the guys that's in the movies is talking about it, and other people who are kind of outside, wondering like, "You, what did you keep? What was it like on the set? What was it..." All those natural questions. I think there's going to be a coming together of their consciousness and my consciousness so that the conversation can have its own new life. That's what I'm hoping happens with the book club reader.
And it was not to happen instantly. There's a self-consciousness. I'm really determined not to be self-conscious. But I was just saying, like these interviews we've been having, if the readers of the book club see this interview with you, I think it will help strip away some of the artifice that comes to it from like, "Okay, so the guy, it's your 20-year anniversary." It's a game, right? I want to try and push that together, and end up with something that is a different experience.
I will never know as much as Stephen Colbert. I will never know as much as Cliff from theonering.net. What I have decided is, I'm going to be forgiving of myself, because each time I read the books, and then whenever I've seen a passage, a chapter, or something in the years past, there's always things that I didn't remember, like, "God, I didn't remember that. I didn't," but like big-ticket items, big lead characters, big set pieces, things that you're like, "You said you read it. Did you actually read it?" I'm like, "I read." I have this childlike quality of like, I'm a Buddhist. I only know what's happening in the moment. I carry nothing from before. So I'm not going to punish myself for that. I'm just going to try and appreciate those words for what it is.
I'm out of time already, but so lovely to talk to you. I'm a huge fan of Bob Newby, justice for Bob.
Sean Astin: Bob loves you. No, no. This is the thing. Bob had justice. He died a hero's death. Barb, no one knows what the hell happened.
[laughs] I know!
Sean Astin: We need justice for Barb! We can have a statue for Bob, kind of a hero's... Maybe I'll stride a horse or something to recognize... Rename the Hawkins school after him or something like that. But he had... What is justice?