Before The Lord of the Rings transformed fantasy filmmaking and reshaped blockbuster cinema, the project was an enormous gamble. New Line Cinema had committed to producing three massive films simultaneously, filming them back to back in New Zealand, under the direction of Peter Jackson, a filmmaker best known at the time for cult horror titles rather than epic fantasy.
The scale was unprecedented. The risk was enormous. And for the actors auditioning, it was immediately clear that landing a role in The Lord of the Rings would not be like landing any other job.
Elijah Wood sensed that immediately.