Three films made at once
Peter Jackson filmed all three Lord of the Rings films together in New Zealand, over 274 days of shooting between 1999 and 2000, with extra filming in later years. It was a huge gamble for the studio: if the first film had failed, the other two were already made. Instead the trilogy was a worldwide success, and The Return of the King won every one of the eleven Oscars it was nominated for.
New Zealand's mountains, farmland and volcanic plains stood in for Middle-earth. The HOBBIT village built for THE SHIRE on a sheep farm near Matamata was rebuilt permanently for the later Hobbit films and now welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.
Making hobbits small
The actors playing hobbits were of ordinary height, so the film-makers used forced perspective: placing an actor further from the camera than another who is supposed to be next to them, so they look much smaller. Sets were built twice at different sizes, and scale doubles and cleverly angled tables made it work. When GANDALF arrives at BILBO's house, Ian McKellen bangs his head on a beam — that bump was an accident, and Jackson kept it.
GOLLUM was played by Andy Serkis, who acted every scene on set with the other actors and then again in a motion-capture suit. His performance helped change how films used the technique. Tolkien had invented whole languages for the elves, and the films used them: a linguist, David Salo, translated lines into Elvish and coached the actors to speak them.
Where Gandalf got his name
J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor of Old English and a great reader of Old Norse poetry. In one Norse poem, a list of dwarf names includes Gandalf and many of the dwarves of The Hobbit, and Tolkien took them almost directly. Our Norse mythology page covers the stories he drew on.
Christopher Lee, who played the WIZARD Saruman, was the only member of the cast who had met Tolkien. He had read the books every year since they came out and had once hoped to play Gandalf himself.
Real injuries on camera
Some of the strongest moments were not acted. In The Two Towers, ARAGORN kicks a helmet in grief and lets out a cry: Viggo Mortensen had broken two toes, and Jackson kept the take. Mortensen trained so hard with his sword that he often kept practising between scenes.
The workshop that made the films' weapons, armour and creatures produced tens of thousands of items, including chain mail made from hand-linked plastic rings, and hundreds of pairs of hobbit feet, each glued on and worn for a single day.
The Fellowship and the grid
The FELLOWSHIP sets out to destroy the one RING in the fires of MOUNT DOOM, in the land of MORDOR ruled by SAURON. It is made up of FRODO and SAM, MERRY and PIPPIN, Gandalf, Aragorn, LEGOLAS the elf, GIMLI the dwarf, and BOROMIR of GONDOR. EOWYN of ROHAN rides into the greatest battle in disguise.
And Gollum, who once owned the ring, follows them all the way.