LOTR Castmember Quotes
Makeup/Costuming |
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Speaker |
Topic |
Quote |
| Billy USA Today, 12/14/02 |
Hobbit Makeup | I think the ears are a strange look for me. Quite big. But I loved the hair down to my shoulders. It felt right. I'm thinking of letting my hair go. |
| Elijah | Hobbit feet | The first day I put on the feet, it was amazing. People were gluing stuff to my feet, and they looked really cool. But that wore off so bloody fast. Once we started filming, I wanted to have nothing to do with them, because putting them on meant losing an hour and a half of sleep. I had the sweatiest feet of all the Hobbits, so the glue was constantly melting, and we had to reapply them. It was just a mess. |
| Elijah | Hobbit Feet | They actually go bad, if you let them have too much air after awhile, they start smelling like urine. |
| Elijah | Mornings, makeup | Yeah! Every morning, I start with about two and a half hours of makeup, which means some very early mornings. We're usually picked up around 5 a.m. I come to the set, and I get into my feet, which takes about an hour. They actually are very comfortable, thank God, but it does take a while to put them on. Initially, that was so exciting. Got the feet, got the wig and the ears. And then it was like, Ooooo-kay...I could do without this in the morning! Then I put on my wig--it's the first time I've worn a wig in a film, so that's exciting--and the [prosthetic] ears, which fit on very well, so it's cool. You feel like a hobbit. We really transform in the morning, which is neat. |
| Harry | Swords | Uh, most of the extras didn't entirely use such heavy swords, but I was using a metal sword most of the time. |
| John | Allergic Reaction | For eight hours a day I'd have someone in my face applying the make-up, and during that time you can't read, you can't sleep, you can't even shut your eyes - and after six months of that, I developed a reaction to the prosthetics, I had to see a skin consultant, as the skin was burning off under my eyes. Eventually, there was simply no skin around my eyes for them to put make-up on. |
| John USA Today, 12/14/02 |
Beard, Allergic Reaction | That piece of yak tail had a life of its own each day. After six months of it, I developed what is gleefully described as topical eczema. I sort of looked like a panda. It was red, raw and also swelled up. |
| Karl | Armor | I actually had to maintain a consistent gym routine to keep my back strengthened because I don't usually walk around with 15kg of clothes on, but it was cool. Once you put that armour on, you can't help but feel like a fierce Rohan warrior. It really does embody the physical presence of the character. |
| Karl | Armor | When Karl Urban first put on the chain mail and leather armor worn by his character, the Rohan warrior Eomer, he got a shock. "I took my first step and started to sway over. I had to go to the gym and work out to strengthen my back." And he has a bizarre helmet, with a mane flowing out of the top and a horse's nose over his own? "Yes, I sort of felt a little bit circumcised when I was wearing it." |
| Liv | Elf Ears | They glued the Elf ears on, but they never got all the glue off. So, we would be picking glue out of our ears constantly. I went home to New York, and a week later, I still had all this sticky stuff. I was at a party, picking my ears and going, 'Ooh, sorry.' |
| Sean A Official Fanclub Magazine, 2001 |
Hobbit Feet, Prosthetics | It became like a suit that you just put on everyday. It was two and a half hours every day. You show up and it's dark out, and you transmogrify into this different character by having cold, wet, sticky uncomfortable glue put all over your skin. Actually, the feet were quite comfortable - except when we were running on the shale of Mount Doom, an active volcano (called Ngauruhoe) we filmed on for six weeks. Everybody ended up with cut feet. After a while, I started to take for granted the mastery, the real artistry that was involved in creating the feet. Each day, each pair of feet was its own work of art that these artists would hand-paint. The guy who put mine on - his name was Sean Foot! You got very close with your Weta prosthetics folks and makeup folks. It was like a traveling circus. I'll never forget when they took the mold of my head. I get claustrophobic, and the idea that they were going to put this compound all over my face, plug up my ears and eyes, and almost my nose and mouth, so I can just barely breathe, and then not remove it until it's completely hardened - I was just thinking, "What if there's an earthquake or a power failure, and they all run for the hills?" Right before he put the stuff on me, Howard at KMB gave me this nice little bit of psychology. He put his hand in the gloop and said, "You know, some people tell me this can be quite a soothing experience," and he put it right on my face. So the whole time it was on, I was like, "OK somebody thinks this is soothing." I just kept telling myself, "Don't worry - it's a soothing experience." That turned out to be a great metaphor for the whole year and half. At times when you were ready to go mad, you'd realize, "Wait a minute - why not give myself over to this process and enjoy it?" |
| Sean A | Filming | Andy Serkis was there, every single day that we were filming, and he was wearing this green Lycra suit, so he looked kind of retarded. |
| Sean A USA Today, 12/14/02 |
Hobbit Feet | Yes, I did [keep a pair], in full breach of the confidentiality agreements I signed. |
| Sean A USA Today, 12/14/02 |
Prosthetics | I was lucky I didn't have to wear a full facial prosthetic. That's what I loved. Just when you've endured the call of early morning with cold, sticky glue on your feet, some other poor slob came in and it was worse. |
| Sean B USA Today, 12/14/02 |
Ears | I have elf ears anyway, or so I've been told. |
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