Back to “The Fellowship of the Ring”, the first part of Peter Jackson’s trilogy, and to a scene in which we can clearly see Elijah Wood’s understudy.
A trilogy of all challenges, The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson, adapted from the work of JRR Tolkien, required unfailing ingenuity from its director and its technicians.
Not only did they have to visually shape the gigantic universe invented by the British author, but also orchestrate colossal battles or create from scratch characters as complex as Gollum and Treebeard.
Yet arguably one of the greatest feats of the film’s artists was achieving a realistic coexistence of tiny Hobbits…and men who were two and a half times their size.
A feat so well executed that you hardly notice it when you discover the film for the very first time. Indeed, on screen, and throughout the entire trilogy, we really have the impression that Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen are five feet taller than Elijah Wood or Sean Astin.
Obviously, this is not the case, and if the magic works so well on screen, it is thanks to a whole series of visual stratagems put in place by Peter Jackson: blue or green backgrounds, a complex game on the depth of field, or the use of accessories of different sizes, for example.
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But the miracle would never have been possible without the intervention of the stunt doubles who replaced the actors throughout the shoot. Thus, on many levels, it is Kiran Shah, a British actor measuring 127 centimeters, who embodies Frodo in place of Elijah Wood.
If the spectators see nothing but fire, it is because Kiran is systematically filmed from behind, or hidden by his hood. But as is the case with all productions of such magnitude, The Lord of the Rings occasionally let a few small mistakes slip through.
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Thus, provided you know exactly where to look, we can occasionally see the Hobbit doubles during the feature film.
In (the long version of) The Fellowship of the Ringsfor example, press pause at 1 hour, 44 minutes and 18 seconds, just when Frodo has just volunteered to take the Ring to Mordor and Aragorn is approaching him to offer his services (see above).
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The space of a small second, we can distinctly see Kiran Shah in place of Elijah Wood. Difficult to notice it when you don’t know where to look for it, but impossible to miss it once you’ve seen it.
The same thing happens a few seconds later, when Sam joins Frodo on a similar plan, and the two Hobbits are again interpreted by the linings of Elijah Wood and Sean Astin (see above).
To go further, (re)discover our special program dedicated to the Fellowship of the Ring…