Let the re-watching of the trilogy commence
"And one of the orc masks — and I remember this vividly — was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as a sort of a f*ck you."
Elijah Wood never tires of talking about 'Lord of the Rings' in seems, which is great news for us because he's after revealing a very juicy moment from filming of the trilogy in New Zealand. According to the actor, who played Frodo Baggins, one of the Orc masks was designed after Harvey Weinstein.
Disgraced media mogul Weinstein, who is currently on year two of his 23-year sentence for counts of sexual assault on a number of women, is the co-founder of Miramax, who owned the filming rights to J.R.R. Tolkein's epic saga back in the '90s. Due to rigid stipulations placed on director Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh in order to create the film series, the trilogy eventually fell into the hands of New Line Cinema. Weinstein allegedly only wanted to make one movie, but New Line took a risk and gave Jackson three.
Going over the ins and outs of the story on the 'Armchair Expert' podcast with Dax Shepard, Elijah Wood added: "The popular opinion was, 'No, you have to see how [the initial movie] does and then invest the rest of your money'.
"I think the lore is that they were coming with two and it was Bob Shaye [at New Line Cinema] who said, 'We have to do three', which is insane. An incredible risk. Miramax thought there was no chance in hell."
And then comes the juicy "F*ck you" to Harvey Weinstein. Wood spoke of his former colleagues Dominic Monaghan and Bill Boyd's 'LOTR' podcast 'The Friendship Onion', which recently featured a guest appearance from Sean Astin. The three hobbits had been discussing their first memories of getting to New Zealand to film, which jogged Wood's memory.
He revealed: "It’s funny, this was recently spoken about because Dom and Bill have a podcast. They were talking to Sean Astin about his first memory of getting to New Zealand. He had seen these orc masks. And one of the orc masks — and I remember this vividly — was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as a sort of a f*ck you.
"I think that is okay to talk about now, the guy is f*cking incarcerated. F*ck him."
And now, please excuse us as we trawl through 686 minutes of the extended 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy release as we try to find which Orc looks creepily like Harvey Weinstein.