‘Lord of the Rings’ Reunion Brings Actors, Director, Writers Together on Zoom

“Just about the entire cast of The Lord of the Rings gathered their Zoom screens together for a reunion nearly two decades after the end of the epic fantasy film trilogy,” reports CNET: io9 notes that it was comic actor-singer Josh Gad who “gathered the hobbits, the wizards, the elves, and the wicked menfolk to go to Isen — YouTube, where they joke, talk shop, reminisce, and just seem to really thoroughly enjoy each others’ presence. In this stream are Elijah Wood [Frodo], Sena Astin [Sam], Ian McKellen [Gandalf], Orlando Bloom [Legolas], Viggo Mortensen [Aragorn], Liv Tyler [Arwen], and more, along with director Peter Jackson and, presumably, the kind doting ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien just off-screen.” The Wrap has more details, including the fact that the event was to support No Kid Hungry, a charity in support of ending childhood hunger, and some ways they changed J.R.R. Tolkein’s book for the movie: “Gandalf does not say, ‘You shall not pass!’ in the book,” McKellen notes. “He says, ‘You will not pass.” [Co-writer Philippa] Boyens also notes that Gandalf’s first line in the trilogy was one she came up with herself, instead of coming from Tolkien: “A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.” Another moment from the trilogy that gained Internet immortality was Boromir’s famous “One does not simply” speech, where he warns the Council of Elrond that trying to sneak into Mordor to destroy the One Ring is impossible. Jackson admits that the speech was written the day before the council scene was filmed and while Sean Bean’s speech was done so well that it became a meme, he needed some help to remember it. “What Sean did, which I thought was really clever, is he got a print-out of the speech taped to his knee,” Jackson said, pointing out Bean places his hand to his head to display Boromir’s sense of despair. “If you watch the scene now, you’ll see every time that Sean has to check his script.”