This is honestly the last of these films.
[CAST AND CREW LAUGH THEN McKELLAN LAUGHS]
Filming these films has been a huge part of my life...
...because of the distances I've traveled...
...and the friends I've made.
- Big baby. - Ah, yes.
BLANCHETT: And I couldn't accept that that was gonna be the end.
But maybe it is.
JACKSON: It's like, what can you say that really adds up 13 years of experience?
[ALL CHEERING]
Good and bad. Funny and sad.
It's so powerful that you can't actually put words to it. I mean, you just can't.
[SNIFFLING AND SIGHING]
MAN: The fact that our swan song in the two trilogies of Middle-earth...
[CHEERING AND WHOOPING]
...will be something pretty epic was really special to us.
Yee-haw!
Oh, yes.
MAN: The film's called The Battle of the Five Armies...
...so there's a requirement to produce something spectacular.
MAN: We had all been waiting for a moment like this...
...where we could finally show some heroism.
We've waited two and a half years for this charge.
[YELLING]
MAN 2: There was goosebumps. Hairs on the back of my head were standing up.
[GRUNTING]
FREEMAN: My memory of filming it is an awful lot of swords in hand and a lot of fighting. Caw!
- And he picks her up? - Bang. Picks her up.
MAN: We're actually designing a fight for an elf to lose.
[SCREAMING AND GRUNTING]
We've never had an elf lose a fight before.
- Whoa. Ha-ha-ha! MAN 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BLOOM: It's really intense. The blood's rushing to your head. It was insane.
[GRUNTS THEN LAUGHS]
MAN: I've seen Peter laugh a lot.
[JACKSON AND MAN LAUGHING]
But that's one of the moments I saw him laugh the most.
Ha-ha-ha! ******* hell.
LILLY: Ha! It was obscene. It looked like elf porn.
Ha-ha-ha!
This will escalate into something so big, you can't possibly comprehend it.
[ALL CHEERING]
MAN: Anybody that's worked with Peter Jackson will know that...
...Peter actually likes it when it gets a bit rough.
[YELLING]
MAN: You can't work with Peter if you have no stamina.
You'd be dead after the first day.
Don't be lulled into a false sense of security.
MAN: Usually we have cut now. We have to hurry up or we'll do overtime.
This is, "we have to finish now or we're gonna be stuck on a mountain."
MAN: That's a lot of smoke. That's a... That's a lot of smoke.
MAN: It was one of the biggest days I've ever had in my entire career.
MAN 2: I got angry that day.
Screaming.
[SCREAMING AND GRUNTING]
WOMAN: Peter never got a chance to prep those movies.
I can't say that. But he didn't.
JACKSON: I spent so much of The Hobbit feeling like I was not on top of it.
When you're going onto a set and you're winging it...
...you got nothing to go on, no storyboards, no ore-ms.
You got these massively complicated scenes. You're just making it up there on the spot.
That's all being worked out now, as we speak.
MAN: There was this important episode in film three...
...called The Battle of the Five Armies. It might be time to actually think about it.
WOMAN: The actual battle, it was a mystery to us.
MAN: Nothing had been formulated at all.
So we were sort of waving around in the wind really.
JACKSON: If I was a director that hadn't had that 25 years of experience doing this in the past...
[GRUNTS]
...it would have just been almost impossible.
WOMAN: The climax of this movie is one of the biggest things Pete's ever done. It's insane.
MAN: You're laying the tracks directly in front of a train.
And that chased us all the way to the end.
[YELLING]
GALADRIEL: You are not alone, Mithrandir.
[GALADRIEL SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
One of the biggest reasons for us to include Dol Guldur...
...is very simply Gandalf's story.
THORIN: You're not leaving us. - I would not do this unless I had to.
BOYENS: In the book he goes off on an urgent errand...
...to confront a force that we know pretty much nothing about.
And he doesn't make a reappearance in the story...
...until the Battle of the Five Armies.
But in terms of filmic story telling...
...it's just, like, the worst tease you could ever do, ha.
You're gonna follow him, you're gonna know why he's left them.
McKELLEN: Dol Guldur has a mighty presence in the film.
Everything is at its limits.
Can't go any further, can't get any more dangerous...
...can't get any more dark, can't get any more violent.
McKELLEN: Does it smell in here? - Uh...
It's not too bad, I mean...
...somebody had something rotten for breakfast this morning...
...but apart from that.
[LAUGHING]
McKELLEN: That doesn't mean that there isn't a lightheartedness on the set.
[WOMAN LAUGHS, MAN WHISTLES]
Dol Guldur is like the wolf's lair of the bad guys...
...and for a period of time in the second movie...
...Gandalf is like a detective going in there by himself...
...and snooping around.
In doing that, he discovers...
...the character of Thrain.
You'll come down to here and that's when you...
...stop and see the little figure racing across...
...the background there.
One of the added layers of complication was just, you know, the number of variations...
...that you had for a lot of characters.
JACKSON: Okay, who'd like to be in this shot?
Hands up.
[CREW LAUGHS]
Are you the one who says words?
Can you just give us a word or two so I...?
It is, it's the real... It's the one that says words, it's good.
Excellent, welcome to the set.
The most complicated one was definitely Thrain.
We shot when Antony Sher as Thrain, he's one of the most amazing sort of...
...Shakespearean stage actors that Britain has.
From nowhere, they will come.
McKELLEN: Finished? - Yeah.
McKELLEN: What do you mean nowhere?
JACKSON: Then the other one speaks. McKELLEN: What do you mean nowhere?
Oh, Thrain, you make no sense.
YORKE: And we also had a young Thrain, an old Thrain.
Kiran played a Thrain double.
One of the stunties played a Thrain double.
I think at the end, we didn't really know...
...who was who because there's so many prosthetics.
What we're doing first of all, Mark, is a, um...
- It is Mark? It's not Mike, Michael...? - No, it's Mark.
- It's not Kiran? No? - No, no, definitely not.
Well, I got confused going, "Who is it today?"
Looking at the call sheet?
If anything, just leave the arms almost static.
I mean, not static, but just, just here.
Yes, so you don't feel this sort of rhythm. So it feels off-kilter.
All right, dude, break it in.
Sometimes you get about a 10-second rehearsal like this...
...and it's like, it's all you get.
So, hey, Terry.
- Don't forget he's a hunchback. - Yeah, yeah, so you're...
- Keep it real down. - Hunchback.
JACKSON: Oh, and then, Ian, when you come down the bottom...
...if you hear a sound behind you and turn and look...
Jesus.
Let's get in.
The leaping dwarf.
That's not what I enjoy doing.
I don't like fighting.
JACKSON: Can we have some...
...some pairs of clean underpants for Ian standing by?
I'd rather just be talking to another character rather than fighting.
[BOTH GRUNTING]
This is the third Thrain we've worked with today.
- It's been Thrain-ful. - It has been Thrain-ful.
So you watched...
...the monitor. You know what's going on. KIRAN: Yeah, yeah.
JACKSON: Where have you put that finger, Kiran?
These films would not have been possible without, uh, Kiran Shah.
Who? Well, Kiran Shah is a man who is...
...much smaller than most of us.
And that's to his advantage because he can play very small people.
KIRAN: I love working with Ian.
I think I got close to him from The Rings...
...where I had to work with him a lot more...
...that what I've done on The Hobbit.
McKELLEN: Most of The Lord of the Rings, I didn't act with Elijah Wood...
...I acted with Kiran Shah who was his small-scale double...
...wearing Elijah's mask.
What sort of mouth movement have you got, Kiran?
[CREW OOHING AND LAUGHING]
I've been Bilbo's scale double.
What we've got here is Martin's face coming on.
Shit.
I've never seen that.
Just show a little more emotion, Kiran, if you wouldn't mind.
- You know, just sort of feel it. - Why such a straight face, Kiran?
Yeah.
For God's sake, man, smile once in a while.
Smile, for God's sake.
I did Scribe...
...the goblin. MAN: Shall we put his head on?
WOMAN: Hey, Kiran. - Hi.
WOMAN: Having fun? - Yeah, I'm having fun.
I did a burning kid...
...in Daletown.
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
In the background, in the foreground.
So it's been fun.
This is outrageous. Pete tells me they're replacing me with somebody.
That's me.
Come, let's have a sword off. Somebody give me some white knives.
Now, you gotta see how fast you could spin it.
All right.
Man, his making me look so bad.
I hand it over to you. I'm done.
KIRAN: But the other characters...
...they all come out of the blue. Including Thrain.
JACKSON: Move away. You're leaning just...
In fact we were lovers for years and years.
[CREW LAUGHS]
You may be a lovechild.
Shall we?
So, what you can do, rather than drag him out...
...you can pick him up and dump him down.
Easy, Nine years of professional wrestling.
MAN 1: Sound speed. MAN 2: B marker.
MAN 3: Three, two, one, go.
JACKSON: And up you go.
And cut. No, cut the cameras.
[CREW LAUGHS]
We're gonna put a pin in this to hold that there.
Yeah, do that. Yeah.
- Hi, baby. BOY: Mom.
Where's the scary man?
The scary man's on set, monkey.
Well, I wanna see him last.
I don't know that you wanna see him, darling.
BOY: Yes, I do, Mom.
He's been eating small creatures and his beard's covered in blood.
I do want to. I do want to see him.
Well, I saw the Dol Guldur set...
...through the eyes of my sons.
That was his first Halloween experience.
Probably his last.
BLANCHETT: They found it really scary.
It took them a long time to actually step up onto it...
...for starters.
They wanted to go and touch the spikes...
...and the bits to make sure. And then once they realized...
...that was all made incredible scary...
...by the Art Department, but was in fact soft...
...um, they felt a lot better.
Somebody's been having a barbeque.
I think it was two weeks that the Aussies came.
In came the Elvin king...
...Hugo Weaving.
And in came Cate Blanchett, Galadriel.
You wanna basically end up just standing on top of that little staircase over there...
...because that staircase continues going up to where Gandalf is.
BLANCHETT: Okay. - This is heading towards Gandalf.
MAN: A marker. WOMAN: And action!
In the book, she goes to Dol Guldur really only to expel the Necromancer.
But what Peter really wanted to enhance was that...
...she goes in to expel the Necromancer, yes...
...but she also goes in to save Gandalf.
But it involved Cate carrying a relatively light representation of me. A dummy.
We've got a Gandalf dummy traveling, which'll be here after lunch.
So that's for carrying him.
BLANCHETT: You're only using him in wide shots, right?
Well, it depends on whichever one gives us the better performance, darling.
I mean, that's who we go with.
Come in alongside, there we go.
Now, if you close your eyes, Ian, and look like the dummy...
[CREW LAUGHING]
JACKSON: This could be a new stage routine, couldn't it?
McKELLEN: You shall not pass.
He looked a little bit like Michael Gambon.
So Ian I'm calling Michael.
McKELLEN: He plays Dumbledore in Harry Potter...
...and he and I are sometimes...
...not to say often, mistaken for each other.
- Good morning. - Yeah.
Good morning, Michael.
JACKSON: Now, now. - He's actually on the call sheet.
As Mike Gambon.
JACKSON: Why wouldn't he be?
He's played as big a role in the scene as you.
Of course he has his own name on the call sheet.
I asked him one day after a play he was in in London...
...I said, "Do you ever get mistaken for me," because I often get mistaken for him.
"Oh," he said, "all the time."
I said, "What do you do?" He said, "I just sign your name."
So he'll be pleased to know that he was in The Hobbit...
...even if only by name...
...and he plays a dummy.
MAN: Marker.
BLANCHETT: We did some shots with the dummy first...
Because, you know, obviously Ian's in such demand, having to do various different things.
...We had to establish something with the dummy...
...before Ian had a chance to do it.
So I think it was a bit of a low moment...
...for Sir Ian...
...when I told him that he had... Ha. That the dummy actually did it better.
It's okay, Ian. Don't be sad.
And he had to sort of match what the dummy had done.
JACKSON: So you just have to be up in Cate's...
In the crook of Cate's arm there, Ian.
Big baby.
It was a bit cheeky, but...
...he gracefully did it.
He did it better in the end. Marginally.
Is that desperately uncomfortable for you? It is a bit.
- We can give you shoulder support. Yeah, it is. - Is this your knee?
BLANCHETT: We talked a lot about the way we should sit.
Because obviously a lot of the battle rages around them...
...and Peter really wanted to create a sense...
...of cradling a higher spirit.
BOYENS: I remember the first time I saw the Pieta...
...in Rome...
...with, um, the Madonna holding Christ.
And it was so sorrowful, so sad...
...and yet so protective.
It's the mother, isn't it? It's the protector, female spirit...
...we wanted to embody.
McKELLEN: As long as it doesn't say...
...Mother of God and Jesus Christ.
We just have to shift the iconography a bit.
- Just a tinch. - Okay.
But anyway, if you still wanna lie down, Ian.
Where the hottie is.
JACKSON: Where the hottie is. You can get a nice warm niche.
Not by any stretch.
So we're all right.
I don't think Ian and Cate had ever worked together.
Even on Lord of the Rings and the Fellowship, you know, Gandalf had died...
...just before Galadriel comes into the story.
They didn't have scenes together. So this was the first time.
JACKSON: And cut.
We get on very well together.
And there's an emotional connection...
...based on mutual trust...
...and admiration for each other.
So observers might think:
"What's going on there between Galadriel and Gandalf?"
It's not hard to be flirtatious with Ian.
I guess you could call it...
...a special chemistry, other people would call it snogging.
You're grabbing my tit. Don't do it.
They seemed to sort of fall in love with each other almost instantaneously.
And was hard sometimes to prise them apart to shoot scenes.
JACKSON: Okay, all right. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Okay.
Ian's a wicked man. I like a little bit of wickedness.
The money shot.
MAN: Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Brilliant.
I sort of fell in love with Cate, really.
I think, perhaps my favorite scene...
...in all the films is that little one that...
Of Galadriel and Gandalf.
You are not alone.
Exchanging rather soupy looks.
They clearly like each other enormously.
Perhaps in another life.
If only wizards and elves could procreate.
There's another movie, Peter.
The Secret Life of Galadriel and Gandalf.
JACKSON: That's the last photograph before the camera gets smashed.
[CREW LAUGHS]
BOYENS: We knew once we decided that we were gonna draw...
...upon the story of Dol Guldur, that we're dealing with Sauron...
...therefore his greatest servants, the Nine, were gonna come into play.
MAN: The Ringwraiths are very tough evil dudes.
Very sleepy, evil dudes today.
Nine kings of men.
MAN: Yeah, very sleepy. Wake up, evil dudes.
These Ringwraiths are kind of indestructible.
I thought it would be great if both Elrond and Saruman...
...they knock Wraiths off into these chasms.
And then I thought it would be good...
...where the Wraiths come scrambling back up the cliffs, like in a superhuman kind of way...
...and they come leaping back up into the fight.
It's tremendous, I'd never seen anything like it.
If people ask me if I did it all...
...I just say, "Of course, easy."
I have to be quite honest and say, I did not.
My age, it might be a little difficult.
Christopher is 92, 93, I think.
He was certainly 90 when we were shooting.
It was gonna be way too big a ask...
...to put him on a plane to fly him all the way back to New Zealand.
JACKSON: So, what we did several months later...
...is we shot Christopher largely against green screen...
...in London in Pinewood.
Except you've got the wrong stick.
Shall we swap?
Because this one is not worth as much that one.
This one you'd... This is cheap. That's expensive.
Now, Sauron...
Sauron is the yellow tennis ball up there, yellow and blue.
Christopher got to play Saruman at a time when he wasn't evil in the way...
...and corrupted in the way that he obviously is in the Lord of the Rings.
I said, "Well, that's fantastic. That's absolutely wonderful."
He's Saruman the White, the noble, the decent.
He's fighting on the side of the angels.
Are you in need of assistance, my lady?
JACKSON: It's great. Really give it all you've got.
I'll fall over if I do that.
JACKSON: Here we go. Okay, very tense.
Looking at them, very tense.
Three, two, one, go.
- Great. Good. Thank you. We've got that. WOMAN: Excellent.
At the end of it...
...when they've got rid of the Ringwraiths...
...the last thing I say:
"Leave Sauron to me."
And he means it.
I think as a Tolkien scholar and someone that cares deeply about these books...
...I think he was just very happy to be able to at least portray Saruman...
...before he fell into darkness.
It allowed him to kind of complete that cycle with the character.
My basis for accepting a part is always the same.
It's not a question of how long it is, how much it's gonna be on the screen.
If it means something in the story...
...and it's what the director wants...
You're using the staff in the hand like so. Yeah, perfect.
...And the audience remembers it...
...that's what it's all about.
I'm not doing funny finger things at the top of your head.
- I don't believe you. - No, I'm not.
I'm being very respectful.
LEE: It's as simple as that.
To be seen and to be remembered.
JACKSON: What I thought would be good is if Elrond is kneeling here.
Now, you've sort of crouched down there, you're looking up at the thing.
And then suddenly... she rises up beside you. It's like, "Holy shit."
It's like you just rise into frame in this whole different look.
You are nameless, faceless, formless.
Go back to the...
- Portaloo... What is it? MAN: To the portaloo where you came from.
Tolkien describes, every now and again, an elf lord revealed in wrath.
So we see that in Galadriel in Dol Guldur...
...when she transforms and becomes this thing of intense power...
...and pretty dangerous and scary.
And in some ways thematically similar to the way that she goes dark...
...when Frodo offers her the one ring in The Fellowship of the Ring.
In the place of a Dark Lord, you would have a Queen!
JACKSON: You're expelling this guy...
...and the last sort of energy go... and then there's a flash of light...
...and suddenly we've got the white Galadriel again just standing there...
...kind of about to go and you would rush forward and catch her.
- There we go. Off to Lothlorien together. - Bye.
BLANCHETT: Peter referred to sort of the eventual look as the drowned Galadriel.
So it's almost like she was an underwater spirit.
FALCONER: The darkness there has infected her...
...and she takes on some of the power and the qualities of the place in some way.
And I did a drawing of how that might look on her...
...and how it has seeped into her clothing and how it's sort of pulling her down.
And, fortunately, they loved it.
JACKSON: I thought it'd be good, when you rise up at the beginning...
...you're rising up and then... - Oh, okay.
...present, like, bring it up. Bring it up as a weapon.
You can just follow because she's doing all the hard work...
- I'll just do that. - ...and you can be doing...
Come on, come OH, mate, come OH.
WOMAN: All right, we'll shoot it. - Right. Yeah.
MAN: B marker.
It was the most memorable scene.
It will forever be engraved in my mind.
My wife and I, we were like little mice in the corner of the stage...
...and extraordinary performance.
We had shivers up and down our spines.
You have no power here...
...servant of Morgoth!
You are nameless...
...faceless...
...formless.
Go back to the void...
...from whence you came! JACKSON: Okay, big flash.
HOWE: And I'm totally at a loss for words to describe how...
...magnificent it sounded and looked...
...and the realization that actors, yes, they are special people.
Nonetheless, he must be hunted down and...
- Spanked. - Spanked thoroughly.
RADAGAST: From out of the darkness...
...a necromancer has come.
The Necromancer's talked of as being this sort of dark witch.
This force rising in the East.
This evil entity.
[VOICE SPEAKING IN BLACK SPEECH]
And his voice comes from the abyss.
It's barely there. It's disembodied.
And yet it has to be powerful and chilling and evil.
CUMBERBATCH [IN BLACK SPEECH]:
With Benedict, one of the things that struck us immediately...
...was his ability vocally was extraordinary.
And very early on we made the decision, he would only ever speak in Black Speech...
...which is the language of Mordor.
There is something very guttural, visceral, really ugly about it.
CUMBERBATCH [IN BLACK SPEECH]:
CUMBERBATCH: Tolkien knew what he was doing when he was writing that stuff...
...because it's a language of struggle, it's very gritty...
...then there are these wonderfully poetic moments as well where it's like breath.
And then in come the consonants again with all the anger.
JACKSON: It's not the sort of language...
...that lends itself to sweetness. - No, no.
It's like I can never quite believe anyone being romantic in speaking German.
It kind of doesn't really work, does it?
[IN BLACK SPEECH]
We broke down the different sounds and the rhythm of the speech...
...and the kinds of qualities of the speech itself...
...and wrote the whole thing out for him phonetically.
[IN BLACK SPEECH]
CUMBERBATCH: Leith was fantastic with Black Speech...
...and she's ridiculously enthusiastic about it.
So you kind of... If you please that teacher, it's a great day.
She literally runs over the room and launches herself at you, which I can take.
There was this extraordinary moment where Benedict and Peter were talking about...
...how would we play with this vocally, what would we explore...
...and Peter said:
"Why don't we record you speaking the Black Speech in reverse"...
You'll do your lines backward, but we'll go forward in that order.
McPHERSON: ... "and then we'll play it forward."
So it's got that strange kind of, you know, that amazing sort of quality.
And this was on the Friday...
...and we were recording all of this on the Monday...
...and Benedict turned to me and said, "Can we do that?"
And I of course said, "Yes!"
Of course we can do that.
So then Benedict actually did the Black Speech backwards.
I mean, I find it absolutely gobsmacking.
If it built to a crescendo, I would start with that crescendo...
...and then work backwards...
...to something, you know, more sort of neutral as a starting point.
CUMBERBATCH [IN BACKWARDS BLACK SPEECH]:
JACKSON: Yeah, we'll cut there, and do a replay.
[IN BLACK SPEECH]
And the Academy Award for Black Speech goes to...
Really, it's really interesting. It's definitely weird in reverse.
The boy is a genius.
It's kind of creepy, you know, in a nursery rhyme...
And the lamb went to sleep and the devil is here.
It does feel a little bit like playing with voodoo or black magic.
You kind of go "Ugh!" afterwards.
Go home and speak, you know, the Queen's English and have a cup of tea.
BLANCHETT: The beard, the beard.
I'm stuck on his head.
Gorgeous.
Last shot, Cate only solo...
...wind blowing.
Ooh!
I was going up the stairs, I was trying not to trip, I remember that.
Sorry.
It's a big thing. Big thing for me trying not to trip.
Peter had created these blasts of air...
...and said that it was like throwing beams of electricity or light out...
...to remove things from my path.
Get out of my way. You know, it's that sort of feel.
You know, when in doubt, throw another scary creature in a heroine's path.
JACKSON: Hey, keep walking even with that last one.
Just take that last step up, you know, just so you're really powering on.
You're not stopping really.
And action.
Great, let's just do one last one for luck. That's great. Keep rolling.
With each throw, get more contemptuous, Cate. More dismissive.
Alrighty, here we go.
When I finished my little brief stint on the Lord of the Rings the first time...
...I thought, wow, that was incredible and what an amazing experience...
...and that they were obviously gonna go and film on for another 18 months.
I didn't have a sense of the consequence of it ending.
WOMAN: And action.
That's lovely. Okay, great, Cate, we've got that.
BLANCHETT: So this time I wasn't going to let that go.
Finito!
- Thank you so much. - You didn't write it big enough.
Oh, very, very good.
Thanks, everyone.
We have a couple of...
- Shall I open them now? - Absolutely.
That's been fantastic, Cate.
Oh, my goodness. It's Adam Ant.
- Oh, look, that's beautiful. - I know.
Aw!
- There's nothing in it. - No, well, we...
We should have put some Chanel No. 5 in it.
- That's right. - Thank you.
That's absolutely beautiful.
- There's your bloody chair. - Just to prove I was here.
- Oh, yeah. - Thank you.
So thank you so much, Cate. It was an absolute pleasure.
- Fantastic. - Thank you so much.
Yeah.
It's been a privilege being back in Middle-earth.
I feel more Galadriel coming on already. All right.
I'll come back as anyone.
The show's not over yet.
So I'm still hoping that there'll be some sort of form of reshoot...
...although I'm hoping against hope.
I'll have Galadriel walk through the back of battle.
I'll put the frock on anytime...
...but I couldn't accept that was gonna be it, but maybe it is.
Get the crew on stage.
All, right, thank you very much, sir.
Du BOIS: At the very end of block one...
...just before we go on to a hiatus, there's a big surprise.
We have a special ceremony to perform.
Zane, you might like to introduce...
YORKE: Zane and Jamie started spending...
...a lot of time in Zane's office with the door closed.
And there wouldn't be any yelling...
...which normally when Jamie's in Zane's office, there's yelling.
I think we kind of freaked out the production office a little bit...
...because we were having these, what can only be described as clandestine meetings.
Finally, I cornered Jamie and asked him what was going on.
Because I was very suspicious.
And he revealed to me that he was working on a secret project.
We're starting this, this is just a prototype model.
But this will come into play for blocks two and three.
JACKSON: This is starting small.
This will escalate into something you cannot believe.
It's something so big you can't possibly comprehend this.
WILSON: So we came up with this idea of...
...Weiner's Wacky Wheel of Wonder.
Unveil please.
WOMAN: Don't break it.
All right.
This was a traditional spinning wheel...
...and in the middle of it had a picture of him behind the door of a washing machine.
The detail was beyond belief, really.
So at the end of shooting on Friday...
...whoever's name is drawn out of the tin basically gets to spin the wheel.
WEINER: All kinds of nice prizes, there are some not-so-nice prizes.
You can win anywhere from 20 bucks to a thousand dollars.
[CREW CHEERING]
You could be a loser.
[CREW GROANING]
Oh, my God.
Get your own chair back, you could have a night with Kieran.
You can have a dinner at my house. You can win a box of Raro.
MAN: Wow. That ran the entire gamut.
There's also "hold Eric's balls."
CREW [CHANTING]: Balls, balls, balls.
Yeah. Are you Eric?
I got to do that. I got to hold Eric's balls. I traveled 12,000 miles to hold Eric's balls.
And this was the beauty of the wheel.
It wasn't just one person that got a chance to spin...
...it was basically dependent on the mood Zane was in.
Oh, come on, one more, one more.
Johnny B.
And some nights it went for, like, 10 people having spins...
...and he'd just be giving away prize after prize after prize.
It's getting really hot in here.
He was always very excited when he didn't have to give anything away.
[CREW GROANS]
[CREW BOOING]
And it was just great prizes, a great little boost of morale...
...at the end of a Friday before going to the weekend.
WEINER: These prizes will change as we go on and it's all gonna be a lot of fun.
Hope you all come back for it.
[CREW APPLAUDING]
JACKSON: Thank you, everybody, for a great first block.
Have a great break, everyone that's having a break.
And we will see you back here soon enough.
SMAUG: Who are you...
...that would stand...
...against me?
Hello, mate. Hello. Good morning, and welcome back...
...to the start of block two.
So we came back for block two of filming in August, 2011...
...and we were into shooting with Luke Evans as Bard.
The first scene of block two.
- Here you go. - All right.
Barn.
My first day on set...
...was on the rooftops of Lake-town.
It was like, "Hey, welcome to New Zealand.
Throw this harness on.
We've got a team of stunt guys, they're gonna make you fly."
MAN: Action!
[GRUNTS]
[LAUGHS]
[ALL LAUGHING]
- I can fly. WOMAN: Cut.
I think Pete was testing me.
JACKSON: We'll see what you're made of, Luke, eh?
EVANS: He was seeing how far he could push me.
[GRUNTING]
And then they added fire to that.
And they added speed to that.
And we proceeded to do that for almost 15 hours on the first day.
Yeah, you need to pace it up. It needs to feel like you're just:
[JACKSON PANTING]
Okay.
JACKSON: And then go.
[GRUNTING]
EVANS: Even the stuntmen were coming up to me and going:
"Just say when you can't do any more." Ha-ha-ha.
JACKSON: At some point, you'll fall over, so we'll keep going till...
[WOMAN LAUGHS]
We'll keep going till you fall over. All right? Good.
And I remember going, "Nope. I'm gonna keep going."
- Unh! WOMAN: Action!
[GRUNTS]
He had an intense day that day, running around roofs...
...and it wasn't easy. The slopes were 40 degrees, so it was pretty steep.
[LAUGHING]
MAN 1: Did you get that? MAN 2: I did.
MAN 1: We got that.
Unless you had something to hold on, you were gonna slide off.
You were actually gonna physically slide off.
My hands were shredded.
But I'd got through that first day.
- Who said actors don't work hard? What? MAN: What's that?
That's the rooftops.
Nasty.
MILSOM: This particular first day back...
...it was very, very cold in the morning, and everyone...
...was sort of talking about how unusually cold it was.
And then someone comes running in and tells us to come look outside.
Suddenly, in Wellington, for the first time in living memory...
...we end up with a snowstorm at Stone Street.
It snowed in Wellington for the first time in 40 years.
And I remember one point, sort of looking down...
...while on top of the rooftop and everybody's disappeared, I'm thinking, "Where are they?"
And they were all outside catching snowflakes in their mouths like 2-year-old children. Ha, ha.
It was a major distraction to most of the crew...
...because most of them just wanted to spend the day outside.
Wellington in the summer.
I mean, Wellington, obviously being so close to the sea...
...very, very rarely gets snowstorms.
The capital's better known for its wind, but it's being transformed...
...into what the prime minister is calling a "winter wonderland."
They were going crazy.
Heh. Like, they were going, "Oh, my God, was that...?"
Like, "It's snowing."
And they're big snowflakes.
I mean, they were pressing their faces against the window.
"Look, look at the snow. Look."
Wow, that's almost hail.
[HAIL THUDDING]
WOOD: So it starts hailing.
And it was so loud...
...mainly because of the hail...
...that you had to yell to speak to the person five feet away from you.
[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]
It's, uh, 1.4 degrees. There's copious amounts of hail on the ground.
Are you kidding me? Hang on. Apparently, there's frogs out there now.
- And there's frogs. - On the ground.
Yeah, running around in the snow.
[FROG CROAKING]
JACKSON: We should stay shooting all night...
...we can't drive home, there's no beds here, we can't sleep.
So we might as well keep shooting and take tomorrow off.
It's not a bad idea.
And then we could build snowmen in the morning before we go home.
MAN: The weather's crap outside, it's gonna be crap tomorrow morning...
...coming into work, so Andy's just gonna say a...
Say a brief prayer for those driving home. Ha, ha.
If your vehicle goes into any type of skid, you stay off your brakes...
Being from Europe, I was like, "What's the big deal? It's just like...
...that much of hail." - It was a scattering of sleet.
McTAVISH: But they took it very, very seriously...
...and thought the world was coming to an end, really.
But I didn't.
WOMAN: And three, two, one, action.
When you have Luke trying to maneuver up these very, very tight spaces...
...with big, long arrows and a big, long bow...
...every now and then, something is gonna get caught up.
EVANS: Stuck.
EVANS: It was the biggest obstacle course, yeah.
And I had to move fast, I had to get up through this staircase...
...with a two-meter bow and arrow...
...and then when you made it to the top of the bell tower...
...there was this giant swinging bell that was in my way.
There wasn't much room once you were up on the bell tower and had this bell up there...
...swinging around, poor Luke up there as well.
WOMAN: Yeah, you all right, Luke? LUKE: ****!
That bell was a total pain in the backside for me.
****
WOMAN: Let's reset, keep rolling. You all right, Luke'?
EVANS: ****ing bell! WOMAN: Ha-ha-ha.
- Now you're angry. - Now I'm angry.
WOMAN: Okay, here we go.
Ha-ha-ha. ****ing hell.
****ing bell.
ONCE more, ONCE more, come on.
The second that Peter had the idea to chop that rope, I was like, "Thank God."
[GRUNTING]
This bow that I finally use in the film...
...it's a longbow, which is huge, like 2-meters-10...
...so it was actually taller than myself. - This thing was massive.
You could not hold it in a generic fashion.
If you were just to draw it regular, the draw would have barely even flexed the bow.
For an hour to work on this side pull...
...I've been pulling from here.
Bard's style of archery was more developed...
...from Japanese longbow. And you have to understand the Japanese longbow...
...is about 6 and a half feet tall.
Traditionally, how you would shoot that is actually, you go up...
...and then you draw and pull it down.
But filmic-wise, we had to sort of dirty him up.
Not gonna say gangster it, but actually make it more human.
And what we had Luke do was an overhand grab.
- I do it overhand, and then do it. - Right. Right.
So he's almost nocking and laying at the same time, and then he's ready to fire.
[GRUNTS]
But it would be obviously impossible to shoot a normal arrow at Smaug...
...and hope to do anything more than irritate him.
The Black Arrow is a really good example...
...of how an idea has to evolve.
JACKSON: That's a serious bit of... MAN: Yeah.
We know that Bard has to shoot the Black Arrow...
...with his bow. We know, therefore...
...that with a longbow, Bard has this length of draw.
Therefore, the arrow, arguably, can't be much longer...
...than this length of draw.
And we said, "Well, here's the size of Smaug."
Because remember, we've been making this dragon bloody big.
The size of Smaug was, uh...
...two 747s wing-to-wing for Smaug...
...and then again, two 747s for the length.
I mean, the arrow's gonna have to be big.
I mean, there's nothing you can do about a teeny, tiny little arrow...
...and this massive dragon that isn't gonna look stupid.
We had to get this arrow big enough so that at least...
...it felt like it was formidable for a creature that size.
We ended up with an arrow that was about 6 and a half foot long.
Even the head of the arrow had its own evolution.
I remember drawing dozens of arrowheads.
Every now and then, a doodle would appear in the corner of a sheet of paper...
...or in a notebook.
Eventually, I ended up designing this arrow with a hole in the head.
Set off at 90 degrees from the shaft to the point.
TAYLOR: The head of the arrow had to communicate...
...its ability to self-bore into hardened flesh.
It's like a corkscrew that you take a cork out of a bottle with.
And that's where the head of the arrow came from.
First thing I did, probably the most high-energy thing I did...
...was the first scene I did, no easing in.
My son's first scene with me, and he cuts my eyebrow...
...with the Black Arrow.
It's just an arrow, son.
- Sorry. JACKSON: You all right?
- Yeah, it's fine. JACKSON: Just a war wound.
- Just another one. JACKSON: Yep.
EVANS: Which then when we revisited the scenes after that...
...months later, they had to add a blood cut...
...to my eyebrow because it was part of the scene...
...happened in the scene and we couldn't get rid of it.
MAN: Dragon.
Dad!
You'll look up, you know, at this debris, and he's gone.
You're hanging on this broken tower and you'll just scream... Some of this isn't in the script.
- I was making this up this morning. - Okay.
JACKSON: And eventually, when it came time to have to kill Smaug...
...and we're gonna have to use the Black Arrow, we had to put our heads together.
"How are we gonna do it?" Ha, ha.
We went through a few ideas of how we were gonna shoot this arrow.
Because this arrow is enormous.
HOWE: It's almost the size of a javelin.
So impossible to shoot out of a bow.
JACKSON: I just came up with this concept...
...the longbow gets broken, snapped in half...
...which was a good thing, even if you thought...
...he might be able to shoot this arrow from a longbow...
...it's now broken.
- It was actually split in half. - Yes.
So the dragon's coming around...
...and you've only got a few seconds, so you wedge it in there...
...and you lean back over the back of the tower...
...holding on to this huge, big arrow...
...and you get Bain to sit there with you saying, "Left, right."
And then you just let go and it goes, zoom, past his ear.
Past his ear, yeah. Yeah.
Nobody watching the movie will think that that's how he's gonna shoot the dragon.
But when you see it actually happen, you think:
"There's no other way he could have done it."
This poor kid's just looking at his dad...
...and over his shoulder, his dad can see this monster flying towards them.
[GRUNTS]
JACKSON: That was great. There are some good bits in that.
[BELL TOLLING]
There was a day on Lake-town where we had sent all the extras home.
We had no extras, but we had a bit of time left in the day...
...so we decided to shoot the start of Smaug's attack on the city.
It was like, "Well, we can get on the phone...
...and call people, but it's gonna be another, you know, hour...
...before we can physically get people to Miramar, or we just get the crew."
We'd get this phone call and every department, especially off set...
...would have to give up, you know, three or four of their crew.
Drop what you're doing, go to Costume and Makeup.
[PANTING]
It's Rachel panting of fear.
This is what happens when you get crew.
My hair was too short, so I just had to go to Makeup...
...put a wig on, very quickly. WOMAN: You look beautiful.
- Thank you. MAN 1: Come on over here.
Come on, quickly, quickly, they're waiting for you.
MAN 2: Oh, sorry. - Ha-ha-ha.
JACKSON: Action.
I think I was pushing a barrel.
And I remember Peter on the voice of God...
...always going, "Come on." Because he knew the crew members.
He was naming them by their names on the voice of God, everybody could hear.
JACKSON:
MAN: I like it.
We donned armor, we donned garments, we applied ourselves.
- We still like to be counted. - Corrin just loves getting on camera.
He'll do anything to get on camera. As will most of the on-set crew.
Move along, you. Move along.
This is an example of how multi-skilled the New Zealand film industry really is.
My line for today will be:
"I'll take on the dragon."
WOMAN: Do you actually have a line, Rory? - No. No, I don't have a line.
There was a big day where we just had crew running around in costume.
[ALL CHEERING]
Most work I've done all year.
Well, I'm sort of feeling quite nervous about it all, you know.
You weren't expecting a star turn, Mum?
- Is that what you're saying? - No, I wasn't, that's exactly it.
I hadn't really realized...
...what it would mean to my mum to be an extra in Lake-town.
I'm realizing an ambition to be an extra on The Hobbit.
My son Orlando invited me over...
...wanted some help with my grandson...
...so of course I was only too happy to come and help.
BLOOM: Look, he's hiding.
[GIBBERING AND LAUGHING]
I spoke to Pete and he was like, "Of course, she's gotta be an extra."
Isn't he a lovely son?
Why not pop her in there too...
...and make it a family affair? She lent us her son for so many years.
And she did a great job.
Come on, let's get away. We're gonna be burnt.
That's great, Mum.
Um, in your undergarments, like you're just coming out of bed.
You want to film me in my undergarments?
- Yes, but, you know... BLOOM: Not in your brassiere, Mum.
...not 2012 undergarments...
...Lake-town undergarments. - Ha-ha-ha.
Du BOIS: So just give a seat here and we'll ask...
You're like a perfect Lake-town lady.
- Remember to breathe, Mum, okay? - Yes.
And don't worry.
It's gonna be fantastic.
And she was walking around behind the scenes going, "Ah! Oh."
- Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. - Yeah.
What's going on? Do my hands come into this?
No, I don't think you need your hands in it.
It's just there, burning.
JACKSON: It's not burning too much, it's not too big.
It's an inner fire, Mum, it's an inner fire.
Think of that fire going on, it's burning in your stomach.
My job is easy today.
[MAN AND WOMAN LAUGHING]
Somebody gonna say action?
JACKSON: No, I haven't said action yet.
- Don't worry, you'll hear God saying "action." - All right, thank you.
JACKSON: We only employ the best. - Ha-ha-ha.
Yes, I agree.
JACKSON: Little curious, little nervous.
Here we go, and action.
They've woken the dragon. They've brought an apocalypse upon our heads.
There is that scene where you guys decide to pack up...
...all the rather sad treasures of the city... - Oh, yes, indeed.
- ...to escape. If the Master comes in the door... FRY: Yeah.
...looks around, makes sure no one's here, and there's a secret thing on the floor...
...and he does that. FRY: Oh, for God's sake.
- That's amazing. - Bravo.
That is brilliant.
I did a little party trick. Ha-ha-ha.
FRY: I'm afraid I can't help showing off, Mr. Bond.
[ALL LAUGHING]
There's at least three hours you're never gonna see.
Or two and a half hours you're never gonna see.
Um, or if you do, it'll only be in a special tape like this one you're watching now.
Thank you for watching this.
You're the only person who's ever seen this far.
No one else has actually managed to get this.
You, alone, are watching this gold that's going on.
This backstage gold.
Pulled a rather inquisitive shot in there, along with me.
Top of the world.
King of the canal.
[MAN WHOOPING]
Today's actually been one of the most, um...
...exciting days on the set I've had so far, I think.
This block has been absolutely brilliant.
Because we've been doing the Master of Lake-town and Alfrid escaping.
- Faster! - We're taking their prisoners.
We've got the four oarsmen of the apocalypse, as I very amusingly call them...
...and they're poling us along at high speed.
[GRUNTING]
Sorry, that's your trademark voice. I'm so sorry.
[ALL LAUGH]
- I do apologize. - It's free for all. Free for all.
- I was suddenly channeling Gollum. - It's in the public domain.
WOMAN: Action.
[GASPING]
Anyone here been strangled? Anyone here do that thing in hotel rooms?
- Don't be ashamed. - Um...
I do enjoy a bit of choking every now and again.
Yeah, it's very annoying, that stomach, though, to be reminded of it. Ha-ha-ha.
I felt very sexy in his fat suit.
[HUMMING]
I saw you shaking that gut.
[BOTH CHUCKLING]
WOMAN: Action.
[GRUNTS]
WOMAN: You okay?
It's my last day on the picture, and this is probably my last scene.
In which I meet my end.
SERKIS: And he gets hit. FRY: I have to look up above...
...and see this enormous dragon bearing down on me...
...in my last moments. - Three, two, one!
Crash!
It's rather wonderful to be outside in this huge area.
I keep thinking I'm inside, but we're actually outside.
There's a moon behind a very misty cloud.
They built an outdoor Lake-town which was completely different to the indoor Lake-town...
...and I sail my barge down this huge canal...
...all in the second film.
Yay! That was fantastic.
Yep, By the way...
Because we're outside here in the backlot, we wanna be able to control the sun.
And we've built this huge, big system of silks...
...that are suspended on poles up here.
It's basically the same system as the Colosseum used...
...in ancient Rome, to shade its visitors...
...who were there to watch the gladiatorial battles.
We've nicknamed it the Colosseum, and it's basically, urn...
...a series of shade cloth that we can pull out...
...in 25-meter-long panels, four meters wide.
Its main purpose is to shade the sun, because the sun's too bright...
...for the digital cameras to take the contrast out of it.
And it was fast. You know, if Andrew wanted to move something somewhere:
"Can you just shade that area over there?"
Two guys would just pull it down and it would be done.
The shade cloth material itself is an opaque shade cloth.
So, what that means is that it gives you a lovely soft light...
...when you're blocking the sun out. But when it gets dark...
...you can hit it with a few lights and it can actually also fill back in...
...and give you the same lovely light.
So it meant we could shoot longer, and at nighttime...
...if we are bouncing the light off them, you would swear that you were in daytime.
I remember driving home one night at 1:00 in the morning.
I must have been about two miles away and I could see this glow...
...over the mountains, and I was thinking, "Oh, my God, the aliens have landed."
I saw a photo of it from the hill where they had these huge lights...
...bouncing off these big screens to make it look like sunlight.
And from a distance, you could see that from anywhere in Wellington.
But what we didn't know was the light was passing through that...
...up into the sky about 200 meters away...
...from the final approach for the aircraft coming in to Wellington airport.
And we got a visit from a couple of policemen at the gate telling us to turn our lights off...
...because they're affecting the pilots on their final approach.
So that's Lake-town.
That's the backlot.
We're gonna burn it now.
[ALL SCREAMING]
Finally.
I'm looking forward to actually setting fire to things, truth be told. For real.
It is why we built them, it'd be a shame not to burn them.
[INDISTINCT YELLING]
We've done some previs on this stuff and most of the really big shots...
...will be CG, obviously, digital shots.
So, what's important to shoot here...
...is punctuating everything with short shots...
...to cut out kind of shocking or poignant moments.
What we wanted to do was to very much find the human response...
...to this kind of firebombing, really.
To see the human cost, I suppose.
- Pass him! MAN: Okay.
You know, Smaug is coming down and we have to imagine him...
...coming down and breathing fire and, you know, burning all our houses...
...and so lots of reactions of running around...
...and plenty of screaming. Heh.
[SCREAMING AND WAILING]
It's just gonna be one of those days when it's just great to be a stuntman. Yeah.
[INDISTINCT YELLING AND SCREAMING]
Good times.
Just gotta look absolutely terrified.
You're never gonna see your parents again, likely.
No celebrating.
WOMAN 1: Action. MAN 1: Action.
MAN 2: There he is! WOMAN 2: Brother!
JACKSON: That's fantastic work, everyone, thank you very much. Terrific.
So that was gratifying to see in the final movie...
...seeing a lot of the shots we did on the second unit.
Three, two, one.
MASTER: Go! Go! Get out of the water!
Hmm.
The third movie opens with the destruction of Lake-town...
...and, you know, culminating in the death of Smaug.
That's connected with the previous film.
But in some funny way, it's not particularly connected to this film.
The advantage of that for the third movie...
...is that we get to start a third movie with a James Bond-type...
...pre-credits sequence. There are eight minutes of just sheer mayhem and action.
One of the things that we were reminiscing on was when we saw...
...The Two Towers when it starts with Gandalf fighting the Balrog.
You know, and as soon as you jump into the film, you're in the middle of this event.
And we were hoping to achieve the same thing with Lake-town, it pulls the audience in.
PANGRAZIO: Well, I just really started with out-of-control fires.
Just looking at reference and trying to understand...
...scale-wise, how big can you get a fire? You know?
And Smaug is intent on destroying as much as possible.
His personality is pretty sadistic. I mean, he's kind of a psychopath, isn't he?
[CHUCKLES]
You know, there's not a lot of empathy there.
So I tried to convey a little bit of that in the original sketches.
This dragon is just basically showing off.
He wants to re-instigate the fear that he thinks is waning...
...because people are talking about revenge. "Revenge? Revenge? What revenge?
There's nobody to revenge. There's no ability to revenge me."
And so he sets about proving that point quite adamantly.
He just comes in for this blistering attack and just:
[MIMICS DRAGONFIRE]
Lays a big swathe of fire.
A nice line through the town. And that's his first attack. Although interestingly...
...we'd explored ideas and taken them quite far...
...of Smaug, actually, the first thing he does...
...was destroy the causeway with his talons...
He's obviously cutting off their means of escape.
...And then do an about-face...
...and he just incinerated, like, hundreds of innocent people fleeing...
...which was pretty scary.
That stuff got out out, I think because it was a little bit possibly too murderous.
You see Smaug attacking the city...
...and mostly, he's trying to do the most damage as possible.
His main strategy is to just light up the town.
And what that gives us when we're in it...
...is this incredible firestorm, but also this heat storm.
We created what we called these fire tornadoes...
...and that's what really drives a lot of the action.
That was something that Peter specifically asked for...
...and he said if you reference some of the World War ll firebombings...
...they would create these tornadoes that would rip through.
So if you look at some of the shots, and there's street level shots too...
...when you look in the background, you'll see these fire tornadoes.
And that there was so much fire roaring that it almost created windstorms of fire.
ESTEY: The big complication of this Lake-town scene...
...is that Pete wanted Smaug to be walking...
...on the buildings.
To have a building hold itself together in a realistic way...
...you have to put the nails in the right spot.
We had to put in tons of what we'd call constraints...
...which is ways of nailing the boards together.
This is where we introduce 50, 60, 70,000 nails that have to go into the building.
Where the blue and the red lines meet together...
...that's actually where the nail goes.
It's holding everything together. All the wood tiles...
...the little splinters, it's what makes this building stand.
Smaug is on the buildings, Peter wanted to make sure they felt strong...
...and that they would eventually give under his weight...
...but that they weren't too flimsy.
I think what's cool about it...
...is that you do press on it, you know, and it:
[MIMICS CREAKING, THEN EXPLOSION]
MAN: Yeah. JACKSON: It gives way.
PJ demonstrated the other day by grabbing an empty tissue box...
...and putting his hand on it and then going:
[MIMICS SQUISHING]
In the review. It was quite cool.
And that's what we're doing here.
Imagine that as a tissue box. Bang.
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
Is that your child?
You cannot save him from the fire.
He will burn.
[SNARLING]
Smaug's death was a critical point in the film, so we wanted to get it just right.
I'm going back now. When I was, uh...
When I was 10, I got this book, The Hobbit.
I copied the drawing on the cover which is Tolkien's sketch.
Smaug hit by the Black Arrow over Lake-town.
The drawing captured my imagination when I was 10...
...enough to try and draw it myself.
Years and years later, the previs sequence came through...
...and I saw the Lake-town sequence, and here was this shot...
...with Smaug in his death throes...
...rising up from Lake-town, I was like...
...you know, goose bumps. Heh.
MAN: Hey, Graham. BINDING: I've been working...
...as an animator at Weta for 12 years.
Over the 12 years, I've never asked for a shot.
I said, "Look, if this particular shot is still available...
...you know, I'd love to have a crack at it."
Peter wanted him like a 747 plowing into all the buildings.
So he's going on his back, turns over, pushes and launches...
...all in the one action.
We needed something very solid for him to get a purchase on.
Graham remembered that Lake-town was built on the remains...
...of an ancient city called Esgaroth, and that was made out of stone.
And there's still a lot of stone ruins spread amongst the town.
BINDING: I found a nice archway from Esgaroth.
So there's a good substantial piece to put in the right place...
...so that Smaug could get a claw onto it, and push off of that.
And then the note was, "Great. Approved."
Now, that's probably the best note I've got from Peter since King Kong. Heh.
And, you know, yeah, the 10-year-old Graham...
...thanks you, Peter Jackson. Heh.
[GRUNTING]
[GASPING]
For the actual kind of death scene itself...
...it was specifically Benedict.
His voice, that was used, because realistically...
...animal sounds or kind of even constructed sounds like that...
...can only go so far to present that to the audience in a way which kind of...
...captures the emotional...
...and when you've got a Benedict kind of vocal driving that...
...then you've got the complete package.
[GROANING]
The featured shot of Smaug dying, that's probably one of the...
...money shots of the film, actually.
Peter asked us to think of him like a drowning man...
...you know, trying to claw his way to the surface and save himself.
He's trying to...
[GASPING]
...claw his way up into the sky.
MAN 1: Yeah.
CLAYTON: We just used every control we basically had...
...to tell the story of him choking, his tongue was kind of lolloping in his mouth...
...and his lips were quivering, his jaw was shaking.
We built on film two's puppet and added...
...an eye bulge control. Ha-ha-ha.
Because it felt like as he was gasping and choking and dying...
...that his eyes would bulge out a little bit in not only disbelief...
...but just choking.
We were very proud of the result there.
JACKSON: By ending the sequence on the death of Smaug...
...we did want to connect...
...the concept of The Battle of the Five Armies...
...with Smaug getting killed in the destruction of Lake-town.
So just before the name of the film comes up...
...we return to Thorin.
The second that dragon dies, Thorin knows that he has...
...a battle on his hands to protect what is rightly his, his homeland...
...and the wealth within his homeland.
And he heads off towards Erebor.
And so when The Battle of the Five Armies comes up...
...the audience are immediately thinking:
"Ah. Now we know where this is gonna head."
Rock and Pillar was one of many beautiful locations...
...in the South Island which we shot on our location shoot.
It was about a 45-minute chopper ride from base camp.
O'GORMAN: That was a great day because it was the four of us from Lake-town.
And we were dropped on the side of this mountain.
And then the helicopter takes off and it's just us standing there by ourselves.
And that would circle around us and take footage of us.
As we were walking up the hill, we found ourselves humming...
...the, uh, theme song for Lord of the Rings...
...as we were actually doing the shot, which I thought was quite funny.
It felt very dramatic and it felt very epic.
It was a fun day.
SERKIS: When we went to Rock and Pillar, the weather was a lot calmer...
...and actually, it was quite hot, I remember.
Which wasn't the case for Main Unit, who I know had a pretty brutal time up there.
CONNON: When we were shooting some of the Warg chase sequence...
MAN: Come on, run.
...We were preparing to head up to the Rock and Pillar...
...which was a location across the valley on the other side.
JACKSON: Pretty much that distant ridge line between those two rocks.
Um, a pretty remote location.
And so, we had to run helicopter relays from our home base...
...and sort of chopper all the cast, all the crews up to the mountain.
It was the first stage in Operation Thunder.
It was a team helicopter expedition.
This is officially the coolest day ever.
McTAVISH: Operation Thunder, yeah. This taps into my theory...
...that all production people are essentially frustrated military people.
All they're missing are the weapons.
FREEMAN: It was like M*A*S*H. It was like loads of us just going on these helicopters.
You know, I haven't made films like that.
This job was my first time in a helicopter.
- Very new experience for most of us. - Whoo-hoo!
- This is Adam Brown's first helicopter ride. - Oh, my gosh.
I was ridiculously excited because I'd never been in a helicopter before. Never.
SERKIS: Being on location, you will go to the most remote, wild places on earth.
But with that comes, uh, challenges, in terms of getting equipment in...
...getting food in, getting personnel in...
...and, I mean, even toilets.
[YELLS]
Hey, put it down!
Put it...
Come on!
Well, that was close. Whew.
Honestly, sometimes they just don't check.
We had to travel with our make-up people, we had to travel all of the cranes up there.
We had to travel all of the weapons, all of the camera gear...
...and so they had, uh, helicopters with stuff hanging underneath.
We spent a lot of time preparing this mission.
The gear had to go up and had to come out the same day...
...so we had to make sure that we were gonna be...
...as efficient as we possibly could to get what we needed.
KIRCHER: There's just helicopters everywhere.
And they're flying in and out all day from, like, the base camp.
McTAVISH: Which one are you piloting, Adam?
- Uh, I'm gonna have the red one. - You're gonna take the red one?
BROWN: It was one of those moments where you're just pinching yourself all the way...
...in the helicopter going, "Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh."
And then landing on the Rock and Pillar Range...
...and seeing practically half of Stone Street.
Even a coffee machine.
That's when you know you're in an expensive movie...
...when they're helicoptering in the coffee supplies.
JACKSON: We had 120 cast and crew on location, and we had them up there...
...and we had all the equipment up there in the hour and the 15 that it took us.
It sounds so impressive anyway, doesn't it?
Rock and Pillar, it just sounds monumental and it is.
It's very high up. Beautiful views.
I mean, you could just see half of the planet it seemed.
- Oh, my gosh, what a day. MAN: Yeah.
It just felt really space-like being up there.
ARMITAGE: That crazy landscape which looked lunar...
...because it was so dry and the rock formations were like nothing I've seen.
- Yes. - Very noisy.
- Aah! Gross, it's on video. - No, no. Oh, my.
[ALL CHUCKLE]
I just love that we're higher. Higher up than those clouds right there.
MAN 1: Spectacular, obviously. MAN 2: Yeah.
KIRCHER: Rare, rare mosses on the ground, it's, uh...
You're walking in a place where...
...you have a total sense that nobody has been.
Being in such a fragile environment...
...we had to do what we could to protect the environment...
...and make sure at the end of the day when we left...
...there was not gonna be any damage.
McTAVISH: Walk on the rocks, stay off the moss.
BROWN: Walk on the rocks, stay off the moss.
Shooting up there in very difficult conditions...
...very uneven surface and all that, um, was a challenge for everybody.
Everybody lends a hand, because, first of all...
...you can't take your entire crew up to places like that.
So basically, every department is undermanned up there...
...and you are helping each other all the time.
If you've been brought up on low-budget movies, you don't have a lot of stuff.
And you make do with what you've got.
Andrew's actually very good like that as a camera man.
So long as he knows what he's got, he will make it work.
JACKSON: The idea is that as Balin starts talking...
...this thrush kind of just flies from nowhere...
...across the front of you, Martin, and you just watch this thrush...
...and it's gonna settle on a rock...
...that we're gonna put a branch in the foreground of the camera...
MAN 1: Sound speed! MAN 2: A marker.
It wasn't always like this.
Once, these slopes...
...were lined with woodlands.
ARMITAGE: We're being led to Erebor by this bird.
It's the scene where the Dwarves are...
...cresting the top of a hill, and they see the desolation of Smaug...
...lying before them.
FREEMAN: We're looking out at the most beautiful thing in the world.
You know, everything about it is lovely.
And we're just looking out at it, going, "Awful. Horrible."
You know, it's like... You know, that's probably, like, the best acting we do.
JACKSON: That was a lovely one. I think we got that, guys.
Thank you. Congratulations.
BROPHY: You don't take anything for granted if you're shooting in New Zealand.
The conditions change here like that: It can go from being sunny to snowy.
And they say "four seasons in one day," that great Crowded House song, that's very true.
We had a guide with us on the mountain, who told us...
...the weather patterns of the day.
He was watching it and he said, "Look. Come 3:00, the cloud's gonna roll in...
...and you're gonna have no visibility again.
And, um, so they carried on the filming and sure enough, as it got closer to (3:00...
...the guide pointed out, he said, "See these clouds? Here they come."
BROPHY: When the mist comes down, it's impossible for helicopters to fly...
...because they fly by sight of land.
And so when there's a mist come down, the helicopters can't fly because they can't see.
It makes it very dangerous.
Excuse me, Pete? We're doing Bilbo's line, aren't we?
We were working really, really against the clock and against this incoming cloud.
Complete whiteout. Ha, ha.
We will shoot, regardless, because it might be a good tasty look.
Pete is quite laissez-faire about things.
You know what I mean? Because I was... I remember saying to him something like:
"So yeah... ls this...? Are we gonna get this shot done even?"
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get it, don't worry. It'll be fine.
He's not overly bothered by anything.
I think he was the one who said, "Oh, this will pass."
But the word comes in that we're losing the light and this is not gonna pass.
JACKSON: And action.
ARMITAGE: We are mid-scene. - Relax, Master Baggins.
We have food, we have tools and we're making good time.
ARMITAGE: We're all really into the swing of it...
...and suddenly one of the chopper guys calls it because we have to come down.
Usually we have to cut now, we have to hurry up or we do overtime. This is:
We have to finish now or we're gonna be stuck on a mountain.
So, uh, the Dwarves should draw straws as to who they're gonna eat first tonight.
Or maybe the crew should draw straws as to which Dwarf we're gonna eat.
MAN: Bombur. - Bombur.
JACKSON: The crew are taking votes as to which Dwarf we're gonna eat first tonight...
...when we're stranded up here and we have to throw a Dwarf on the fire.
KIRCHER: Anybody that's worked with Peter would know...
...Peter actually likes it when it gets a bit rough.
[CHUCKLES]
It's just like that's the boy in him, you know, and that day...
...he was loving every moment of it.
- I think you'd be quite healthy to eat. - Well...
I think you'd be popular.
It depends what kind of out you want, what cut of meat.
That's what would've happened. It would've turned into...
...that story Alive, you know, in the Andes.
Uh, but in this case all dressed as Dwarves wearing prosthetic makeup.
We would've ended up eating... Peter would've been the first to go.
- We would've just eaten him. JACKSON: Ha-ha-ha.
KIRCHER: There was a little bit of alarm at the fact that we might not get out of there.
Peter had a huge grin on his face. He was loving it.
- Well, no, no. My tent's the boudoir. - Oh, we all know each other pretty well.
My tent's the boudoir and it's, uh... I'm afraid you'll have to build...
...your little stone huts outside. - No grips allowed.
- All right? - No, no, no.
Now, there's the place to sleep tonight.
Stake a little stone wall up here.
That's a bit of a Bear Grylls-type spot.
Sleep with the wetas.
MAN: Wow.
[MAN CHUCKLING]
WOMAN: Here we go. Watching. Quiet, please.
And we're making this look like a different part of the mountain.
And, you know, the director wants to keep filming.
It was like, "No. You have to go now."
And we realized very quickly while we had time, we'd better pull the plug on the filming...
...and start getting everyone down this mountain as fast as we possibly could.
Oh, we really have to go? You know, sort of...
We're actually having to trot, not strolling.
It's kind of exciting, but also you kind of think...
...what if we don't make it down the mountain?
But we've got to go now, we have to go now because it's coming in.
So when the helicopters in we gotta run...
And in groups getting into helicopters.
And you think, this is really exciting, but what if we don't get there?
So it's this mad scramble to pick up everything.
All the camera crew are kind of packing up their stuff and getting it into helicopters...
...trying to get off the mountain in time because the cloud is coming in so quickly...
...that if the cloud hits the mountain, we'll be stuck up there for the night.
Getting to the choppers, please.
The choppers?
BROPHY: It's an amazing thing of efficiency.
Watching everything get packed up into containers...
...and then slung under a helicopter and taken off.
Logistically, I don't know how they did it.
ELLINGFORD: We had all stayed in kind of clusters because you could hear the choppers...
...out there but we didn't kind of know where they were.
[HELICOPTERS WHIRRING]
Eventually little pockets would open up in the cloud...
...and the chopper would kind of ninja in...
...and we'd all go running up to the choppers and jump in.
We kind of get up to about 20-feet off the ground...
...and then just kind of inch our way through the cloud...
...almost at walking pace at times.
KIRCHER: So we're hoping that a little gap would appear...
...that your helicopter could get through...
...which just happened. It just opened up enough for us to get up and out.
Another ten minutes and we wouldn't have got off.
In fact, a lot of technocranes that they had up there had to stay up there overnight.
I think quite a few of us were happy to go, "Okay, let's do it. Let's camp. Let's stay."
You know, we've got these really, really heavy warm costumes. We'll just camp out.
But of course, actors get shoved into helicopters first.
Whoo-hoo! Amazing.
We really have to start walking that way if you don't wanna walk down.
When I saw the second to the last helicopter taking off...
...I went, "Well, all right. Well, I'm sure we can jump into the next one."
YORKE: Now, unfortunately, the cloud got in too quickly...
...for us to get the last helicopter load of people out.
ARMITAGE: Poor old Bruno Du Bois was left up...
...at the top of the mountain with a couple of his fellow crew members.
When it didn't land, my first thought was:
"Okay, we have to walk down, fine.
I'll be late for dinner, I guess. Fine.
But where are we going? We couldn't see, you know, three meters in front of you.
Bruno's a Belgium guy. You know, Belgian people are fantastic...
...but history has rendered them as slightly expendable...
...so Bruno, unsurprisingly was one of the ones that had to...
...be abandoned up there.
They actually had to get below the cloud so the helicopter could come in...
...and pick them up...
...while the rest of us nervously awaited down at the bottom.
CONNON: So there's a lot of circling that went on for a good hour.
The pilots were all scanning, trying to look for...
...a break in the cloud so they could see where they're gonna land.
...because there's no way they're gonna fly into the cloud blindly.
Du BOIS: We didn't really know in which direction...
...we needed to go to go down the right side of the mountain.
[CHATTERING]
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
They did eventually turn up, and they're quite sweaty and a bit flustered...
...and they've been bushwhacking their way down the side of this mountain.
A little adventure, right? Nothing like that.
ARMITAGE: It was a good two or three hours' walk for them.
So, yeah, I think he got bought some beers that evening.
Mr. Du Bois.
The person... Well, no. The thing that suffered the most was, uh...
...Peter's chair had to stay up on the mountain.
[ALL LAUGHING]
MAN: Get the chair when you're walking.
On Lord of the Rings, Peter was given his chair...
...and his chair's become quite famous on set.
Another day with the chair.
CONNON: We always had to make a few jokes...
...about whether or not the chair was gonna make it to the next location or not.
So we had to leave it up there and then send a helicopter up on first light to bring it down.
BROPHY: I think we maybe got four hours up on the hill before we had to leave.
You know, in terms of getting everyone up, it was one of those big days.
You can work against the elements, or you can make them work for you...
...and, you know, to have all that fog in the background in the shots just looks amazing.
I almost wish we'd missed the helicopters because the sight of a bunch of men...
...climbing down a mountain, dressed as Dwarves...
...well, Pete would've shot it.
It would've been in the movie.
ARMITAGE: I would totally have camped.
Bruno could've had my place in the helicopter, I would've been happy...
...with, you know, a pan of sausages and a little campfire.
We would've done that. Because we're Dwarves.
That's what we do.
BARD: Winter is upon us.
We must look to our own.
JACKSON: Here we are in the heart of the Southern Alps.
Behind us here is Mount Cook, which is New Zealand's highest mountain.
We've been shooting in a location near Twizel.
One of the major locations in the third film is Lake Pukaki.
This is Lakeshore, the Lake-town refugee camp...
...which is where the remnants of the Lake-town people have ended up.
Before shooting, we had a cast read-through...
...at the Mackenzie Country Inn with Peter and Fran and Philippa and all the cast...
...which was the first read-through we'd done in quite a while.
I'm imagining that this is the morning after.
You know, Lake-town burned during an attack that night...
...and now this is sort of dawn the very next morning.
BOYENS: One of the reasons we did that was so we could all sit down...
...be in the same place, and often that's the best thing that you can do...
...because then everyone's literally on the same page...
...working towards the same objective.
WOMAN: It could be an eel. - You know...
Something's biting me. Something could be, you know...
WOMAN: It could be a big eel. Heh.
That'd be funny.
I think they like suggestions, and if you come to Peter with an idea...
...or Philippa or Fran, you can sort of say, "Hey, what do you think of this?"
And they go, "That's terrible," or they go, "That's brilliant," you know?
JACKSON: Bofur would have an attitude of, "Well, stuff you."
You know, "My brothers are dead, and all for what?"
Or perhaps I don't believe in her.
BOYENS: No, that would be great. That would be a really good...
It's quite rare to have that sort of input...
...and hands-on feel about what you end up saying in the film.
It's a lovely process.
[ALL CHATTERING]
And then, after that, it was nice to get outdoors...
...and work on such an expansive location.
Here we are on the lake.
Lake-town's just been attacked by the biggest dragon in the world.
We decided that when Smaug attacked Lake-town...
...huge elements of the town would fall into the water...
...and would drift to the edge.
VINCENT: I guess, when Smaug hit the water...
...the tidal wave had pushed all that stuff up onto the beach.
And so Lake Pukaki was a very set-dressing-heavy project.
MILSOM: Before we started filming, we had a look at the shores of Lake-town...
...from a chopper, and I remember looking at this massive beach, thinking:
"Oh, Christ." You know, "This is gonna be epic."
JACKSON: The only thing is there's no real guarantee...
...of what this beach is gonna be like when we come here.
VINCENT: Between the time that we'd first reckied the spot...
...and the time when we actually arrived to dress the beach...
...the height of the lake had dropped...
...and the beach was three times as deep as what it was when they first reckied it.
So, in theory, we needed three times as much product to dress it.
Fortunately, we brought six truckloads of stuff with us.
We weren't sure which little section of the beach we were gonna dress...
...and we were told that Peter would like to come up the day before...
...and we'll lock off part of the beach that we're gonna shoot on.
I mean, this is not bad. I mean, there was a nice shot just on the other side of that tree...
...for one of the drama scenes.
VINCENT: We had kind of planned... You know, worst-case scenario...
...we'd do a hundred meters of beach line.
HENNAH: And so the director has been there, he has a vision...
...but then on the day that you get there, uh...
...that vision... You know, the conditions are different...
...and so there was a better way to look at it.
We would bring a lot of that stuff in...
...and do all this area, and maybe we'd get to do a bit of those hills back there.
- Yeah. - Because we've got that stuff on the hills...
And he said, "Yeah, this is good. Let's use this bit.
And that bit.
And let's do this bit up here on the grassy knoll.
And, well, that bit way off in the distance."
[CHUCKLES]
I mean, we should put as much shit as we can here...
...but it won't be as big a dressing job as it is up on the hill there.
So where? I can't start from the beginning now, can we?
VINCENT: Originally, the plan was to dress a small piece of beach.
We ended up... We dressed a couple of kilometers of Lake Pukaki.
There was roofs from Lake-town, there was smashed boats...
...there was pieces of chimney, we had old blankets...
...kids' toys. It was tons and tons of this burnt wood that we had.
The struggle was all actually part of the method dressing in this case...
...because our team turned what was a nice tidy beach...
...into somewhat of a disaster zone.
That's the wonderful thing about set dressing. You can never do too much.
Well, you know, it's another day at the beach, really, isn't it?
- Ha, ha. - I mean, what can I say?
Well, we'd better get to work, I suppose.
[HENNAH GRUNTS]
Not much else going on.
Just a bit of movie making.
- Another day in the sun. - Another day in the sun.
When the camera was rolling, you know, we had our usual on-set team...
...but then we had about an additional 10 set dressers, I think.
Our department, and Ben, in particular, who's our director on set...
...didn't have enough to dress, you know, the whole place.
And sure enough, we were one busy art department.
I used to get quite frustrated because we'd race to get it dressed...
...and they'd start shooting, and then they'd decide to just tilt the camera up slightly.
MAN:
And from that three degrees that they tilted the camera...
...a third of our dressing was suddenly out of frame...
...and you're suddenly seeing this whole section of beach that was undressed.
Okay. All right, well, I'll clean that...
I just thought, "Oh, God." And then Pete would be over there, saying:
"Oh, why is that piece of beach not dressed?"
Everything you lifted took it out of you, you know?
That was some of the most massive dressing I've ever been involved with.
Art Department's just grabbing everything from one end...
...we knew that was not on camera and transporting everything on the other side.
And then, "Okay, the next shot, we're turning completely around."
It was a big, big job for Ben. I think we lost a few KGs.
MILSOM: It was one of the biggest days I've ever had in my entire career.
I don't think I stopped to eat or drink.
Or... It was just, go, go, go.
Because every camera setup meant another whole ton of dressing had to be moved.
Heh. It was... Yeah. I got angry. I got angry that day.
[BOAT CLUNKS]
WOMAN: Are you guys having fun?
Yeah, man.
Ha, ha. Gave you a fake smile and then the real smile came through underneath.
[ALL LAUGH]
MILSOM: Those days like that, you know, you get really caught up in the moment...
...and it gets intense, but ultimately, you're having a good time...
...and you really... You enjoyed that beer at the end of the day. Heh.
[ALL CHATTERING]
JACKSON: Locations are interesting because they are totally unpredictable.
You really have to go with whatever weather you get, for the most part.
I mean, there's not a lot of choice.
But here we are at this beautiful location, and it's been fine.
Beautiful, crystal clear.
It's supposed to be winter and cold and miserable.
The magic of movies will take care of that.
WOMAN: Background, three, two, one.
JACKSON: Nice and cold, everybody. Shivering.
Really feel the cold.
Just pull those blankets tighter, hunch those shoulders.
Sweltering.
Obviously, in the film, it's meant to be wintertime.
And we had days where it was 30 degrees...
...because, you know, it's summertime in New Zealand.
Act like it's cold when it's really, really hot out and you're wearing fur.
We have to pretend everything else anyway, so...
Pretending it's cold isn't any harder.
And you can actually make your teeth chatter if you try hard enough. You can go:
[SHIVERING]
JACKSON: Just keep that cold, shivery feel going...
...because it's miserable, it's wintry...
...frosty, it's freezing.
You're gluing wigs onto people, and when people get very hot...
...glue comes unstuck and wigs come off...
...because they're sweating all the time and they're not meant to be sweating at all.
The sweat just adds to the look of the weakness. Ha-ha-ha.
KING: So it's constant touching up and getting them to look cold...
...because it was so hot.
All the crew are swanning around in shorts and T-shirts, while the extras...
...are under four or five layers of heavy, Middle-earth-type clothing.
Yeah, it's not what I'd normally wear on a day like today.
I'd much prefer to be in that.
WOMAN: How's the water? - Fricking freezing.
MAN: But the contrast is that it was very hot...
...but then a few guys needed to be in the water.
So even if three-quarters of the extras were boiling on the beach...
...the water was absolutely freezing.
So there was a big contrast between the two.
I, of course, had the "privilege" of getting in Lake Pukaki...
...which was cold.
Help!
Lake Pukaki is apparently one of the coldest lakes in the world...
...and I can certainly attest to the truth of that.
It's so cold I saw penguins out there.
- Penguins are going to warmer waters. - Yeah.
JACKSON: I mean, just go with it. - And should I do a big:
JACKSON: No.
- No. This isn't over the top. - Please.
- This is not a cartoon. GAGE: Right, sorry.
And you come in from behind and you just put your hand on his shoulder...
...just to lever yourself up and she, whoo, goes under the water again.
And you don't have to actually push her head.
- I think the shoulders will be fine. GAGE: Okay.
I had to crawl across this stuntwoman. I just felt a bit mean.
Make way for the injured!
Because I had to push this woman underwater and she was submerged completely.
It took me so long to crawl with these heavy clothes...
...I was convinced that, when I rolled off her, she was just gonna sort of float up...
...with her eyes open and sort of a fish hanging out her mouth.
[GRUNTING]
But she didn't. She was alive. I want to make that clear.
I didn't kill a stunt person, no matter what the Internet rumors may be.
[ALL LAUGH]
- Off to the lake. - Off to the holiday.
BOYENS: When we were casting extras around Lake Pukaki...
...we needed to get extras from that area.
Hi, Mom. Ha-ha-ha.
BOYENS: We put out word and we had big casting calls so that we would get locals.
WOMAN: We're going to start traveling everybody to set.
My wife was reading a local paper...
...and they had an advert that they wanted unusual and bearded men...
...so she thought that I actually fitted very well.
So up rock these people, never been on a film set before, and they're like:
"Jesus, takes a lot of people to make a bloody movie, doesn't it?"
This is the first time I've actually done anything like this. It's quite mind-blowing, actually.
All the bits and pieces and all the gear and all the people.
It's remarkable seeing how all this is done.
We wanted rugged outdoor types, and they're there.
That's where they live, and they looked right.
They were kind of down-to-earth, you know, country folk anyway.
They were just really... They almost looked like they lived on the land, you know?
And the great thing is, is they all know each other.
So you get this kind of in-built community so that they gel better...
...than getting a lot of complete separate individuals...
...who suddenly have to be this village. We got this village...
...from the people that lived in the area.
Just another face in the crowd.
BOYENS: They didn't complain, they didn't mind mucking...
...and they weren't a bunch of precious performers...
...who didn't like getting their feet wet.
Who wants to be dead?
MAN: I can handle that. - We don't have to do much acting.
- Am I dead? Okay. - Yeah, you're dead.
BLOOM: The extras worked tirelessly...
...and it was fun. We had a good time there. They were great people.
- There you go. - Thank you so much.
Nice to meet you.
MAN: B-marker. JACKSON: Let's roll it up while we're doing it.
MAN: Marker.
[NESBITT TRILLS]
MAN: Rolling. JACKSON: Everybody stand by.
Absolute panicking. And action.
[ALL SCREAMING]
JACKSON: Screaming!
[ALL SCREAMING]
- Da! - Da!
Da!
LILLY: When we started filming, the extras were so good.
They were so talented and they would really get into it.
[ALL SCREAMING]
They were playing a difficult thing. They didn't have to just walk through a mall.
They had to pretend that now they're homeless, they're freezing cold...
...and they've just watched the death of tons of their townsfolk.
So these people are doing full-on Acting 101...
...and they're doing it while we were trying to act.
That could, by rights, have been very distracting, but it wasn't.
Because this sense of chaos that should've been there...
...was so alive and present.
And look like you're gonna cry in...
- You know, you can do it on the day for real. - Yeah.
You don't really have to act, because when there's 200 people around you...
...kind of crying, groaning... - Crying.
...and there's wind machines...
And because there's so much going on, you just get into it anyway.
Your natural instincts kick in.
MAN: Obviously, a lot of the extras, they're always so enthusiastic.
But from a sound-recording point of view...
...sometimes, when you tell an extra, "Okay, and I want you to act...
Act, act, act..." Sometimes you wish you hadn't used that word.
You must go.
Come with me.
[EXTRAS SCREAMING]
And you're like, "Hey, guys, look. It's kind of important that when we're rolling...
...we're trying to get the dialogue over here.
We only wanna hear what these two people are saying."
Keep it.
As a promise.
"So could I just possibly ask you to mime?"
"Eh?"
"Could you just, um... Don't actually talk, but just pretend like:"
"That's a bloody stupid thing to do."
WHITEHEAD: When you're on set, you don't really want a whole lot of people...
...talking in the background. And so, quite often...
...you will do replacement dialogue to try and fill in the gaps in the background.
Maybe a piece of wood fell off one of the burning houses...
...and squished your hand.
And so you've got two broken fingers and a bad burn up the side of your hand...
...and it really stings like quite a lot. Can you imagine that?
And so we brought in some children to record in a controlled environment...
...to get a wider palette of things that you might be able to put into the scene.
I think they had a great session. I wasn't at it, but I heard it was quite funny.
You are in pain, you're suffering, and you're going:
[GROANS]
You're just gonna whimper and go, "It hurts." You'll do it better than me...
...because I'm not a kid anymore.
- It hurts. MAN: That's good, actually.
Some kids who are coughing because they almost drown.
[COUGHS]
- Fantastic. Who's next. Okay! GIRL: Me, me!
[SHRIEKING]
I'm pretty sure your voices are put in here because...
- Yeah, I heard voices. GIRL: There's, like, so many buttons.
WOMAN: So who's gonna get into postproduction sound when they grow up?
- I'd love to. - I also want to be a nurse.
Ooh, tell Peter Jackson I said hi. From Brooke.
MAN: So what Matt and I are now doing is thinking... As you do these things...
...we're thinking whereabouts in the movie your voice could go.
Action.
[CHILDREN SCREAMING]
[COUGHING]
You know, that is a flavor you would have there.
I mean, the children would be upset, they'd be crying.
- They're cold, they're wet. - Please. Someone.
You've gotta have those textures so that you can have somewhere to go...
...and really finish a scene.
[CROWD SCREAMING]
JACKSON: And cut. Lovely.
Thank you very much, everybody.
[ALL CHEERING]
JACKSON: Thank you very much to all our extras.
Come on in.
MAN: You have to tell me why this is significant.
Because we may be seen in the movie.
Significant to us.
Yeah, we usually stand in for characters...
...and then wait until the camera and lighting are ready to go.
Then when they're about to push record, that's when we go and sit down.
Today, stand-ins get seen.
- It's a great day for stand-ins, isn't it? - A great day for stand-ins.
There...
JACKSON: It was one of those days that we put Jamie in a costume...
...and let him be an actual actor rather than a stand-in.
And no matter where the camera's pointing, 360 degrees all the way around...
...he's always there.
He made sure he was in every single shot that was filmed...
...which, you know, can be a problem in the cutting room.
He's in the back of every single shot.
He has managed to... See, we couldn't believe it.
- He's in the back of reverses, he's... MAN: There he is again.
And they must be twins or triplets because they... He's in several places at once.
The little bastard manages to get himself in front of every bloody camera.
Anyway-
I said, "Master...
...no!
GAGE: Yeah, I did have some experience with some of the Lake-town refugees.
They were all very nice people.
Can I kick out...? I'm worried about kicking people in the face...
...but can I really fight? He's a stunt... But everyone else.
[CROWD CHATTERING]
MAN: That's fine...
I'm happy to kick these two. They're bloody scary.
[ALL LAUGHING]
JACKSON: Everyone should... We should get the whole group starting...
...to turn on Alfrid. It just turns ugly, and people can be scowling at him, frowning at him...
...some of you can look like you wanna have a go.
It's almost... Even though the stunt guys are gonna go and grab him...
...a lot of the rest of you should look like you're moving in to sort of...
You're gonna pick up the bits that are left and tear those in half as well.
I like working with extras and having a lot of them...
...and they're all very excited to be here, some a little more eager than others...
...and there's nothing wrong with that.
MAN: Throw him in the lake.
[CROWD SHOUTING]
- Get off me! - Let him go.
Get off me!
My trousers!
[ALL LAUGHING]
My legs were being pulled in all sorts of directions...
...and suddenly there was a huge rip in the crotch of my trousers.
Now you're gonna show a photograph of that, which is gonna be hugely embarrassing.
[CROWD LAUGHING]
- What have you done to his trousers? - You've ripped my trousers!
Didn't deserve that.
These are Gucci.
Yeah, my trousers just completely split.
And then Emma came on and sewed my trousers up...
...all to the clock because we go quickly, because we're about to reset.
JACKSON: Should we just try shooting it and we'll get it right?
So then my trousers proceeded to split every take, then.
You stay away from me!
Stay away!
[PANTS RIP]
[CROWD SHOUTING]
BELL: There was four stuntmen designated to lift Ryan up...
...but the crowds were so into it that they started to actually pull him up too.
Extras being extras, overexcited...
...they've got a specific action...
...interacting with a real actor, so it's a big moment for them.
You know, another actor would "act" like you grab someone. You'd act it.
[CROWD SHOUTING]
These guys didn't really have that border between acting and doing it physically.
They basically destroyed the costume...
...even all the hair and everything...
...was just like being pulled. And I remember Makeup and Costume going:
"Hey, guys. You've need to go to be gentle on that."
[SCREAMING]
These extras, we had to pull them back a little bit.
They were getting way too excited.
JACKSON: And cut. Lovely.
[CROWD LAUGHING]
JACKSON: Well, look, thanks, everybody.
And a big thanks to all of our Lake-town citizens.
MAN 1: Look at that. MAN 2: Wow.
WOMAN: Victoria's Cross.
Ha-ha-ha. That's wonderful. Thank you very much.
When we went on location, I remember I won the Victoria Cross.
V.C. Victoria Cross. Because that's Victoria.
JACKSON: One of our crew members, Victoria Sullivan, she's a script supervisor...
...or continuity is what some people would know the role as.
As you stop, do that and turn back.
Victoria, who's the continuity person, gives a Victoria Cross...
...to the people who are very good at doing their own continuity.
It's something we all strive to.
Continuity, basically, is making sure that if you're holding a prop in one scene...
...and they out and they come back to you, you're still holding that same prop.
Is it the right way on the hands? Is this one at the top?
You have to be really on top of your game.
And sometimes it's weeks between shooting that scene and shooting the next bit.
You have to try and remember what hand was my sword in.
JACKSON: And action.
You wanna keep it looking seamless...
...so that when it's all out together, it looks right.
So that's, in a rough way, what Victoria would keep her eye on.
It's all about the cloak, or it's all about not seeing the button...
...or it's all about keeping the collar up or keeping the collar down.
- Yep. - Thank you.
It's hard to pinpoint bad continuity because we're hoping it never gets through.
We have to get out of here.
SULLIVAN: Of course it always does.
When you're watching a film, if the continuity's off...
...all you can see is that someone's hat was off in one scene...
...and then it's suddenly back on again.
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
And continuity can be very frustrating because you are really at the hands of the actor.
So to try to encourage the actors to think about continuity...
...and to help her at her job, we started to create an award.
The Victoria Cross came into being...
JACKSON: Action. - ...when Luke Evans...
...was doing a scene running across the rooftops in Lake-town.
It doesn't matter exactly how you did the thing, because we'll be on you.
- Just giving us that arm coming up each time. - All right.
And he sent a message through:
"Ask Victoria, did I hold the bow like this or did I hold the bow like that?"
And I think I was the first one to ever catch her out on a movie.
And Peter heard it and he started laughing...
...because he's always teasing me about continuity being for sissies.
Continuity is for sissies. Why don't we just shoot?
And he said, "Ah! You'll get a Victoria Cross from Victoria for asking that question."
Have a Victoria Cross that you can award actors who care about continuity.
Peter's very interested in things to do with the war...
...so he started telling me about the Victoria Cross.
British award for valor is called the Victoria Cross...
...and so we called this Victoria's Cross.
It's a medal of bravery, but from Victoria, it's a medal of consistency.
And he ordered the Art Department to make a whole load of Victoria Crosses.
They put Smaug on it...
...and they asked me what I wanted to put here.
And I had "continuity under fire."
It's pretty cool. Everybody loves it.
I love it.
Thank you, darling.
MAN: Who's gotten them so far? - Just a few.
- Only a few. - Yeah. But you were the first one.
I got the first manifestation of it.
Actually, I think it was Luke Evans that really earned the first Victoria Cross.
Luke earned it because Luke is a dancer...
...and Luke knows where his body is...
...and what he's doing with his body when he's giving his performance.
EVANS: I've always been a stickler for continuity.
Everything has to be exactly right, and it has to be the same.
I hate it if it's not the same, especially in movies.
- This is for you. - Aw.
SULLIVAN: Richard needs continuity to anchor him in to where he is and what he's doing.
So, of course, he became another favorite.
SULLIVAN: Another one. - No.
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
Mikael Persbrandt was really good at knowing when he turned...
...when he moved, when he looked up and down.
It's always... The intuition of the actor is usually right.
Yeah, I'm sure it is.
When I got it, I didn't have a clue what it was.
[LAUGHING]
PERSBRANDT: I love that.
JACKSON: I think the continuity factor maybe wasn't the most forefront of her mind...
...when she was pinning this medal on their chest...
...which she did herself, slowly...
...lovingly.
Yeah. There's a continuing theme, isn't there? Good-looking men that got them.
JACKSON: Luke Evans, Richard Armitage, Mikael Persbrandt...
...yeah, it was the sexy ones, basically. Let's be honest.
You won't get Victoria being honest about it, so I may as well be honest.
Well, it's really easy to decide who to give them to.
They've got to make me feel safe.
[SULLIVAN LAUGHS]
So I don't know whether or not really it was that serious.
I know at the end... About two weeks before the end...
...she says, "I've still got 20 of these awards to give out."
And she started to put them on very undeserving people.
I think even I got one, and I'm... I have no respect for continuity...
...which shows you how bad that got.
It sort of rendered the whole thing a little bit without merit, in my view.
SULLIVAN: Well done.
That's great. I like good actors.
And anyone that makes life easier deserves a Victoria Cross.
- That's amazing. - Fantastic.
Thank you very much.
- Thank you for deserving it. - Wow. Lovely.
I'm very proud, very proud.
- Can I wear it every day over my costume? - Yeah, you may. Oh, no, no. That...
- He didn't get a Victoria Cross, did he? - He did get a Victoria Cross.
Sorry, sorry. I forgot.
Nice.
THORIN: This Mountain was hard-won.
I will not see it taken again.
Near the end of block three, we started doing, you know, the Erebor scenes...
...like in the Great Hall.
VINCENT: We've had some of the biggest set builds...
...that we've had to do on this project in these last few months...
...which tests the salt of the crew.
No department ever got ahead of themselves or went, "Yep, we're done on that."
You know, costumes were always being designed.
So it's all a bit chaotic.
The amount of work was so intense and so much of it, you just don't stop.
Almost every morning of the shoot we're delivering the objects needed that day.
[WHISTLING]
TAYLOR: There was none of this taking wonderful photographs...
...in front of racks of armor...
...completed a year before production as we did on Lord of the Rings.
If you think about that time, there was incredible planning.
There were three and a half years of preproduction before we rolled the cameras.
YORKE: Peter never got a chance to prep these movies.
You can't... I can't say that, but he didn't.
The sequence of events that unfolded on The Hobbit never really allowed for that.
We had a couple of years with Guillermo working up designs, working up concepts.
And then because Guillermo Del Toro had to leave and I sort of jumped in and took over...
...we didn't wind the clock back a year and a half and give me a year and a half prep...
...to design the movie I was gonna make, which was different to what he was doing.
You have a director who has a different vision...
Totally different vision of the world we're talking about.
We started all over again from scratch and redesigned the movie for Peter.
JACKSON: Cool. - Yeah? Oh, good.
We were still shooting Tintin, and with little or possibly no preparation...
...we jumped straight into doing pre-vis for The Hobbit.
There was only a couple of weeks in between where suddenly I was back in a gimp suit...
...and playing Gollum for a couple of days...
...and a very tired Peter was coming in every day trying to put together the story.
Then Peter gets sick. He's gone for six weeks.
What that all eventuated in was a very short length of time.
Just a matter of a couple of months before we started shooting.
Which is impossible, and as a result of it being impossible...
...I just started shooting the movie with most of it not prepped at all.
And action.
Precious.
From then on, you're playing this huge chasing game...
...because Peter is shooting, he's doing his 21-hour days...
...getting three hours' sleep and doing another 21-hour day...
...with editing and everything else going on, and you don't ever get that prep time.
TAYLOR: You now have to plan on the go.
You're laying the tracks directly in front of the train...
...and that chased us all the way to the end.
When we were shooting the Erebor scenes, like, everything came to a head.
Hello!
O'GORMAN: As soon as we moved onto that Erebor set...
...there was a real acknowledgment of the finality of the filming process...
...because once we're in Erebor we pretty much stayed there, and that was it.
This was what the whole journey was about, was getting to this point.
Was getting to Erebor and reclaiming it.
And we'd managed to drive the dragon out and here we are. We're at home.
THORIN: Welcome...
...my sister-sons.
If the dragon's dead, then it means that everyone's coming.
And everyone's coming to the mountain and they want a piece of that gold.
And so every instinct in Thorin's body in that moment...
...is to get inside the mountain and do exactly what Smaug did and sit on top of it.
There's a scene in Erebor in the Great Hall where we're actually barricading ourselves in.
It's almost like a siege, and there's huge rocks everywhere.
I want this fortress made safe by sunup.
Thorin is basically whipping us into a frenzy by trying to make us go more and more speedily.
Bring more stone to the gate!
And there is a real feeling amongst us that he has completely lost the plot here.
You're starting to get a little bit concerned about his general mental health.
Which we all are, frankly, Richard.
[ALL LAUGH]
JACKSON: I mean, it's been a long shoot.
In the building of the barricade, you see properly for the first time...
...how immensely strong the Dwarves are...
...because they are moving boulders the size of foundation stones for buildings...
...as if they are packing cases.
It's like, "Yeah, next enormous boulder, please."
HADLOW: And it was like that was our day's work. You know, this is normal.
We're gonna block up the gate with stuff that no one else could lift except a Dwarf.
You know, which was probably about twice their body weight.
Oh, that's so heavy.
Some of the rocks were made out of limestone almost, like sandstone...
...so they had a bit of weight to them.
I'd rather have a really heavy rock than have to act a heavy rock.
[JACKSON SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
[ACTORS GRUNT]
[ALL LAUGHING]
Bring more stone to the gate!
Richard was going so hard that I actually wasn't managing to put them down in time...
...and I had to fend a few off.
Which was great for the scene because it was just like, "This guy is nuts."
It was fun. My goal was to knock him off his feet. I'm joking.
JACKSON:
BROPHY: Yeah.
And that was a chance for us to actually rebuild that wall...
...and a chance to use our strength to say:
"Right, this is our home, this is where we're staying...
...and you are not gonna get us out of here."
Come. Give us your answer.
Will you have peace...
...or war?
[HORN BLOWS]
[ALL CHUCKLING]
I curse the wizards who forced you on our countrymen.
Ian, save his life.
If, uh, Thorin's got Bilbo over there and I say:
"If you don't like my burglar, then return him to me"...
...it looks like it's an invitation to throw him down.
JACKSON: You're right. You're right. - I think perhaps there might be another...
One little contribution that I made beyond acting...
...was to keep reminding people that the essential writer was no longer with us...
...but he had left his wishes in these books that he'd written.
JACKSON: Oh, you got the book. - Oh, no.
[ALL LAUGH]
Never too late for the book. Never too late for the book.
McKELLEN: Now, of course, the screenplay writers...
...follow Tolkien's intention very closely indeed...
...so it didn't seem disruptive, I didn't think...
...for me to sometimes pull the book out of my costume and say:
"Do you know what it says here? Could we reinstate this line?"
Ian must go home and just read the book all night long...
...which is good, and it actually has benefitted us enormously.
Ian that day had done some research and read that chapter in the book and found the line...
The original line was:
"If you don't like my burglar, please don't damage him."
JACKSON: It's in the book? Okay.
GANDALF: If you don't like my burglar...
...then please...
...don't damage him.
Return him to me.
It's a line of dialogue that we didn't include for whatever reason...
...and he lobbies for it and he always wins those arguments. Always.
JACKSON: We're gonna replace a bit of Boyens with a bit of Tolkien.
I don't want that to go on the DVD.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Tolkien never won an Oscar.
I know. I know.
Well, that's right, Ian, and I hope that makes it on the DVD, and you'll be all right.
McKELLEN: I would have it there to just remind myself of the feeling...
...of the scene as Tolkien had written it...
...and let that infect perhaps the way I played it in the film.
THORIN: Curse you! - Aah!
Cursed be the Wizard that forced you upon our company.
We started with Thorin's side, so that was all on, you know, one set...
...getting all the Dwarves on the top of the wall.
And they were there all day up on the battlements...
...and we were there for eyelines and to say our lines.
The return...
...of the Arkenstone for what was promised?
Down at the bottom of the ramparts was a table with Ian and Lee and Luke...
...and a spread of party food.
Oh, yeah, we had a full-on crackers and crisps and grapes and cheese.
All that was missing was Pinot Noir. Ha, ha. We were very happy there all day.
And then we would look up and there were all these Dwarves along the wall...
...and they had like Volkswagens of costume, wind blowing in their face...
...and then there we are, heh, sitting there eating from our cheese plate.
Sort of fed the anger that the Dwarves were feeling.
I Will kill you!
Upon my oath, I will kill you all!
Your oath means nothing.
I have heard enough.
And then we did our side of that scene, where we stand below the ramparts of Erebor...
...and we're trying to negotiate a peace with Thorin.
I ride in on an elk played by a horse named Moose.
[CHUCKLES]
By coincidence, the horse he rode in, its actual name was Moose...
...which was kind of funny because we later on replaced him with an elk.
Moose is the biggest horse in New Zealand. Huge Shire horse. He's like 18 hands high.
That was his first time on set too. He shit all over the place, heh.
That's what I did on my first time on set.
I had this one day when I was shooting with him...
...where when I would say my line, he could feel it coming...
...and would start kind of moving out of his mark, and it would never fail.
I would say the first... What was the line?
I would say, um, "We have come to tell you"...
...and then he would start moving.
We have come to tell you...
...payment of your debt to the men has been offered...
...and accepted.
JACKSON:
Payment of your debt has been offered...
...and accepted.
JACKSON: To the same spot each time.
We have come to tell you...
...payment of your debt has been offered...
JACKSON: You can set your watch by it.
It's unbelievable, heh.
Moose.
To Lee's credit, he always tried to carry on with the scene...
...but I think there's only so far you can go...
...especially when suddenly Thorin's talking to a horse's ass.
JACKSON: Does he object to the dialogue?
[ALL LAUGH]
JACKSON: It's the word "offered." Can we come up with a different word?
Maybe he's objecting to the performance.
This is what happens when you guys can't control your horses.
We take them away from you.
[JACKSON & PACE WHINNY]
JACKSON: So, Lee, you should be doing:
[ALL LAUGHING]
We were demoted and also having to move like you are on the horse...
...so there were moments when we weren't on the horse...
...and we had to pretend we were. It happens a lot.
We had this great moment where we find all of the old Dwarven armor...
...from the time when Thorin and Thrain and Thror would have been there.
And it's very decorative armor. It's ancient armor.
JACKSON: And action.
We're going out to battle, so we're tooling up.
Everybody's getting things ready and we're grabbing swords.
Maybe Dori can be helping Ori with something.
BROPHY: Peter said, "I want you to work out...
...how I found the piece of armor that I'm going to wear...
...and how I picked the particular weapon." JACKSON: Action.
Master Baggins, come here.
It was principally that moment between Thorin and Bilbo where he gives him the mithril vest...
...and we had to do a lot of what I would call pantomiming in the background...
...which led to a lot of hilarity, of course...
...because in those sort of situations, actors divide into two groups:
There are actors who take it very seriously, who give themselves a back-story:
"Why am I in the armory? Why am I picking up this spear?
What am I thinking about the battle ahead?"
All of that is processed and then expressed in the deep background in the scene.
And then there's the second group...
...who treats it as an opportunity to just **** about.
[LAUGHS]
Having little petty arguments: "I don't want that."
"Where did you get your armor from?"
Get off. Stop ******* with my ****, Jed Brophy.
MAN 1: We look like a bunch of turtles. MAN 2: That color really suits you.
MAN 3: I think I got the best armor.
MAN 1: I didn't go to the bathroom. MAN 2: Have you not been yet?
Oh, my God. I think I'm gonna have to go in the armor. I don't think I'm gonna make it.
Yes, all of this went on.
JACKSON: Action.
- Bifur. - Ah!
My character has an ax in his head and he had to find a helmet he was gonna bust a hole in.
William Kircher decided that he was gonna be hammering a helmet in the back of shot...
...but it kind of kept sort of almost hitting us in the face...
...so we decided we have to get rid of the hammer, so we kind of stole the hammer.
And we would hide it as a joke, heh, to see if he could find it.
I'd go to my place, it's not there...
...which makes you look like a complete tit because you've gotta...
Running to grab something that isn't there and you think:
"Oh, God, what am I gonna do now?"
So he had to end up sort of hitting the helmet with his own hand.
Aidan Turner was hiding my stuff. Aidan Turner.
The set turned into school. It was just like being back at school.
And there were people you went to school with who were like William...
...and there were people you went to school with who were like Aidan.
And, uh, I leave you to decide which one you fit in with, heh.
[ALL CHANTING IN DWARVEN]
An e-mail went around: "We're gonna be at the town hall tonight...
...you know, doing some Dwarf chants, you know, for the score. Come by if you can."
We got together with the sound editors, music team, dialogue...
...all the editors of Park Road down to the town hall to add our voices to the Dwarven choir.
WOMAN: So who's got the best Dwarf singing voice out of you guys?
Dave does.
Eh, it's debatable.
[READING IN DWARVEN]
They were proper "Dwarven" sort of words, I guess.
[ALL CHANT IN DWARVEN]
Can I just get an idea of what would be the loudest you could do?
I went, "One, two, three," and everyone just went:
[ALL CHANT IN DWARVEN]
And it was just like, whoa. Ha, ha.
[ALL CHANTING IN DWARVEN]
[CHANTS IN DWARVEN]
You know? It's nothing, you know... Didn't have to hold a note, so we were good.
[ALL CHANT IN DWARVEN]
They didn't want well-trained and well-heeled, they wanted mongrel.
Maybe imagine, you know, you're All Blacks and I'm a Wallaby and you're looking at me...
[ALL LAUGHING]
And you're gonna give it your all. Here it comes.
[ALL CHANTING IN DWARVEN]
Very good. Your national team would be proud of you.
[DWARVEN CHANTING PLAYING ON SCREEN]
- Whoo! - All right!
I'd love to hear just that as a piece of music...
...and put it out and give royalties to the Sound Department. That would be nice.
And then there's the Christmas record, of course.
I have been blind...
...but now I begin to see.
I am betrayed.
Dragon-sickness.
I've seen it before.
I wish I had been able to talk to the Tolkien scholars about dragon-sickness.
I'd have a few questions for them.
I think one of Tolkien's deepest feelings is about the corrupting effect of gold.
It creates greed and what Tolkien called "dragon-sickness."
The idea that gold that a dragon has brooded on carries a curse...
...it's a theme Tolkien was especially drawn to.
It shows up over and over again in the old Norse material...
...and in old mythologies, and Tolkien was very familiar with them.
There are several sagas where warriors are changed into dragons...
...because of their covetousness and their love of gold...
...and the one with the greatest parallel to Thorin Oakenshield...
...is in the Icelandic Hen-Thorir's saga.
And Thorir...
...so very close to Thorin, is a Viking chief...
...who leads his companions to steal dragons' gold.
Once he had the gold, his comrades notice that he's changing...
...that he's becoming greedy, bad-tempered and difficult to deal with...
...and in the end he's turned into a dragon.
So this whole notion of too much greed will turn you into a dragon...
...constantly crops up in Norse tales, Icelandic sagas.
It's about the corrupting effect of gold.
It creates miserliness, stinginess, refusing to let go of anything...
...and, of course, flying into a complete rage...
...even if you lose one tiny, infinitesimal fraction of what's yours.
I will not part...
...with a single coin.
Not...
...one...
...piece of it.
I remember saying to Fran they should share a line, Smaug and Thorin...
...and she said, "Yeah." And then we had to think of it.
And it became... I loved the "I will not part with a single coin. Not one piece of it."
One of the most significant things for me was being able to go into the sound studio...
...and watch Benedict voicing the dragon.
I will not part...
...with a single coin.
Not...
...one...
...piece of it.
And so I was able to watch Benedict and just pick up a few of his sounds...
...and hissing sounds that he was making...
...and the physicality that he was using to voice the dragon.
I will not part...
...with a single coin.
And you can hear the almost sibilant S of the dragon coming out...
...and the head turning this way and that as he says it.
It's the echo. It's the serpent within him.
And when we process his voice to sound like Smaug...
...it really ties in Thorin to the dragon-sickness...
...and the gold treasure and the dementia he's going through.
[IN DEEP VOICE] I will not part...
...with a single coin.
To Bilbo's horror, Bilbo has lost his possible friend...
...you know, to the madness of greed.
[GASPING]
Towards the end of the shoot when we did the scene where Thorin is swallowed by the gold...
...it was very much an organic process. It was a little bit abstract.
I remember reading the stage direction, and it was a just a single line that said:
"Thorin sees his reflection in a plate and the dragon looks back at him.
He realizes what he's become." That was it.
I kept thinking, "How am I gonna shoot that?"
It looked okay on the page, but how do you actually do that?
In the space of, you know, a minute and a half...
...however long the scene is, he has to go through a very intensive rehab...
...and come out of it sane again.
And I should also say he's all by himself too.
He's not actually on a therapist's couch, he's just alone...
...and he's gotta have this solo rehab in the space of a very short time.
JACKSON: You're seeing the truth of who you are.
Let's just see now. Take your time.
It's a hard thing to dramatize, and the only way to really do it, I think...
...is to get inside his head and to actually make it very surreal.
We tied some ropes around my feet, and they built like a catwalk with a slope.
The idea was that he was gonna just be walking through gold coins...
...and slowly get deeper, and he was gonna be sinking into it.
And then as I got to this ramp, I was genuinely trying to get to the top of the ramp and couldn't.
Get to the top. Get to the top. Quickly. Go to the top.
[GRUNTING]
And I could get my fingers to the top, and then they'd yank me back.
[YELLS]
I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was just sort of shooting material.
I knew he didn't know. Ha, ha.
It's the sort of scene that we'll ultimately take what...
The best of what Richard gives us and re-edit in postproduction.
At one point, you know, some previs had been done...
...around Thorin losing himself in the piles of gold in the treasure hall...
...and we were nervous about that because those gold simulations...
...as we knew from the Desolation work that we'd done, you know, in the treasure hall...
...were very computationally expensive simulations to run.
They take a certain amount of time.
And I just had lost my confidence in how well these digital coins were gonna look...
...and so suddenly I was beginning to get very nervous about that.
So you pretend to... You're still thinking about it, is what you tell people...
...and you just try to push it back as long as you can...
...hoping that at some point at 3:00 in the morning...
...you're gonna wake up with a good idea. Hoping.
We sort of painted ourselves into a corner, really...
...but it forced us to actually make the scene better.
Something to remember, we have a hell of a great thing up our sleeve...
...that we didn't know about when we wrote these scripts.
And I didn't even think about it, but we've got from film two...
...that room where the statue was has got a golden floor.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I thought, "What a great image to have him walking on this solid-gold floor."
- That's right. - That would've hardened flat as glass.
I thought, "Jesus. Why aren't we using that? That's cool."
Then he walks on this flat floor, there's no coins around...
...and he looks at these reflections, and maybe the thing starts to slump...
...and he's trying to get out and it sort of swallows him.
The sheer weight of Thorin's depression is enough to bend the surface of that gold.
JACKSON: He has a sense of realization, and he gets split in half...
...into sort of two Thorins, and he sees the bad Thorin get consumed...
...leaving the good Thorin.
If only rehab was that simple.
But it wouldn't make for such good reality TV, so, hey.
Towards the end of block three, we were getting crunched...
...for producing these sets, and the turnaround on them was very tight.
We're 12 days out from end of principal shoot.
We're averaging, I think, a big set like this every two to three days.
We've got seven more, I think, to do in that 12 days.
The pressure affected the Art Department the most...
...you know, because they're building all these amazing big sets.
As we got to the end of shooting in Erebor...
...Peter realized that, you know, he was never gonna get the time...
...to actually put the thought in that he wanted.
We started working out ways of getting around this, beating it.
The Art Department made me these models of the pieces of Erebor set...
...that they had built for the previous scenes in the other two films...
...and so each evening we looked at what the script was for the following day.
And we'd rearrange these elements on a big table.
Like a battle plan, except you're not changing the soldiers, you're changing the architecture.
Let's put that bit there, let's put a wall there, and that sort of thing there.
So I kind of designed the set the night before.
And tonight when we wrap up, gonna look at the script for tomorrow, heh...
...and I've gotta design the set for tomorrow, heh.
Early evening here at the moment. We're going through the night.
You wouldn't know from one day to the next what sort of space you're gonna make.
We'd go from libraries to dining halls to giant foyers to long halls...
...day after day after day.
I don't think a single day went by where a studio light was ever switched off.
I mean, there were some sets Peter was seeing for the first time on the day...
...because they were still being painted and finished.
I was arriving on set, and the set painters were painting it.
I'm not saying just doing small details. They're painting it.
And it's like an hour before crew call, and you're going, "Hmm..."
And then at the end they just come up to me and go, "Fresh paint over there."
[LAUGHS]
JACKSON: That's it. So only just gone on.
I know, I did the same thing yesterday.
The paint was still wet on the set, and then it was shot that day...
...and then in the afternoon we were striking it...
...and so I joke about the fact that we were striking the set while the paint was still wet.
The pressure of not having as long a preproduction period...
...as, you know, Peter might like...
...you know, was something he was constantly having to run ahead of.
And that period of how much ahead he was did get tighter and tighter as the shoot went on.
And at a certain point you were just showing up and he was like, "Okay, right now...
...I don't know what we're doing."
When you're going onto a set, very complicated, and you're winging it...
...you've got nothing to go on, no storyboards, no previs.
You've got these complicated scenes...
...and you're just making it up there and then on the spot.
If I was a director that hadn't had that 25 years of experience doing this in the past...
...it would've just been almost impossible.
We would just tell the crew to take an extended lunch for an hour or so...
...because I wanted to just get my head completely clear and be able to plot it through.
I spent so much of The Hobbit feeling like I was not on top of it...
...with the fact that I hadn't much prep and I was making it up as I went along...
...and even from a script point of view...
...Philippa, Fran and I hadn't got the scripts written all the way through to our satisfaction...
...so that was a very high-pressure situation.
When you're in the momentum of a film, you know, day after day you're shooting...
...week after week you're shooting, what you're lacking is time to think.
I don't have time to think for half an hour if I'm on the set...
...because in that half an hour I've got 30 people coming up to me asking me questions...
...so I can help everyone else but I can't help me. I don't get the time I need to think.
It's just so much to think about, the details of each day. It's relentless.
You know, we shoot for a long time.
They look up and see the dragon lean to the right.
I was able to wing it right up until the point that I had to start shooting this very intricate battle.
I couldn't wing that, really. I did need to know what the hell I was doing and have a plan.
[ALL GRUNTING]
[ROARS]
- And cut. MAN: Cut it.
SERKIS: We'd started to basically shoot the Battle of the Five Armies.
We were beginning to just bank a whole load of fight elements.
But the actual battle itself was a mystery to us. We didn't know what we were doing.
SERKIS: Nothing had been formulated at all...
...so we were sort of waving around in the wind, really.
Simply because I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
I mean, there's no magical answer for it, and that's the truth of it.
We had allowed two months of shooting for that in 2012...
...and at some point when we were approaching that...
...I just went to Zane and Caro, our producers...
...and ultimately talked to the studio and just said:
"You know what? Because I don't know what the hell I'm doing now...
...because I haven't got storyboards and prep in this three months that we've got this battle...
...why don't we just finish earlier?"
SERKIS: And then there was a call from Zane, saying, "Andy, can I meet you?"...
...where he said, "Look, Andy, um, I just wanted to tell you...
...that Pete's thinking that we're gonna revisit this next year."
And suddenly, very suddenly, we were finishing a few weeks earlier.
Okay. All right, folks, so we have a plan.
It was absolutely the right decision.
You know, I think that the second unit were quite shocked.
TAN: You know, it was a bit of a downer for the day...
...but I think everyone understood the decision behind it...
...and no one wanted to shoot something that wasn't ready to be done.
It's a little bit bittersweet, but we've all had such an amazing time.
- It was fantastic. - Thank you.
Very good. Very good. Well, we've just finished, uh...
...the Battle of the Five Armies in two days.
No, I'm only joking. Of course we haven't, because we have just started it.
The Battle of the Five armies is going to take months, we now realize.
And so what that delay, any delay, gives you...
...is it gives the director time to just clear his head...
...and actually have some quiet time to sit and just wait for those bits of inspiration...
...to come about the battle you've got coming up...
...and start to really put something together.
I remember coming in, and there was Peter in the hall with the sides...
...just looking at something...
...and I said, "Oh, sorry, we'll come back." And he said, "No, no, no. Carry on."
So we started moving things sort of around him...
...and the next thing, Peter puts the sides down and jumps in and starts moving things with us...
...and gets hands-on.
It was obviously a pleasant distraction for him, I think.
JACKSON: I had a plan in my head, moving the battle...
...that literally was a weight off my shoulders...
...and by next year I'd have figured it all out and I'll know exactly what our battle needs to do.
GANDALF: The king is dead.
CROWD: Long live the king!
- Ha, ha. Welcome, Bilbo. - Thank you very much. Thank you, my liege.
Welcome to Erebor.
Bring up the bling.
[SNORING]
- Oh, gosh. OLSSEN: The Battle of the Five Armies...
...was originally to be shot at the end of principal photography.
So by taking the battle, moving it a year later...
...it really helped to take the pressure off everyone, particularly Peter.
It, you know, cut his workload in half, which gave everyone a bit of breathing room.
But I'm actually enjoying this right now.
All of that kind of pressure that I'd been under for so long...
...you get to that point where you realize, "I know what I need to do now...
...and pretty much know what I'm gonna shoot from this point forward."
So you can afford to sort of, heh... You can afford to relax a little bit and just think:
"Well, I might as well just enjoy this last patch."
McTAVISH: There was a moment in the counting room...
...where PJ was obsessively counting every jewel in the Dwarves' hoard.
I remember standing behind him, looking at him, thinking:
"Why are you doing that?
They're not real."
They were shooting a scene in Erebor where Thorin holds up a necklace.
The White Gems of Lasgalen.
PACE: Because he had a shot in mind...
...when Thorin kind of throws the necklace to the side...
...and the gems would kind of spray towards the camera.
We had these big bowls of mixed diamonds...
...you know, with all sorts of different things in there.
We were all really busy, and he could see that, so he asked me to set him up a table.
And Peter spent the morning sorting through all of these gems...
...to get only the little tiny white ones.
It's something I enjoy doing. I could do this all day long.
It's good. Thousands of them.
He is having a good time. He loves it.
JACKSON: They're nice.
PACE: And everyone sees that.
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
Especially in the last few weeks, it became a real sort of a family...
...almost, with the crew.
JACKSON: All right, we should just shoot this. - We shall.
There is to be a great feast tonight.
Songs will be sung. Tales will be told.
We shot our farewell to Bilbo towards the end of principal photography.
KIRCHER: And it was actually a strange feeling.
We were coming to an end time of actually working together so closely.
And this was the culmination of a very, very long period of time...
...where you got to know a group of people very, very well.
And that you had made something together that you were proud of.
You cannot get as close as we've all got on a film like this...
...and not feel something.
These guys have been my brothers, my kin...
...for the last 18 months.
I think everybody felt like that.
JACKSON: Okay, guys, this is bittersweet. You've come to basically say goodbye to Bilbo.
I get emotional now, thinking about it, because...
Oh, boy.
It was like suddenly we realized that this was coming to an end.
And we knew that Martin was gonna be one of the first guys to go.
And honestly, it was like saying goodbye to Martin.
It wasn't hard, put it that way, you know, to be emotional about it.
I'll slip quietly away. Will you tell the others I said goodbye?
You can tell them yourself.
I have to say, Martin was, uh, astonishing in it.
Really great performance.
If any of you are ever passing Bag End, uh...
...tea is at 4.
There'll be plenty of it.
You're always welcome.
Don't you bother knocking.
He's a very generous actor, both on and off camera.
A lot of actors, when they're doing their lines when they're not on camera, kind of drop out.
They're just feeding you the line just so you can hear the line and respond to it.
"Oh, you've got my shot. Fine, I'm off." Not Martin.
FREEMAN: You help, you know. You help each other in whatever way you can.
And so I was just sort of saying, half as Bilbo, kind of half as me...
...what an amazing time it had been.
BROPHY: The camera was over his shoulder and on us.
And when he did his farewell, he cried.
And it was really hard to keep together.
FREEMAN: Well, tea is at 4. Uh...
I can barely look at you, I'm afraid. I'm sorry.
You know how I feel about you, and I'm not really able to say it.
But I hope I see you again one day. All of you.
So come by, don't bother knocking.
FREEMAN: I was kind of saying different things to them every take.
Just because I thought, well, I'd better make it fresh and interesting each time, or something...
...otherwise it'll be really boring by take three...
...and they'll really be having to squeeze out any tears, you know.
Make sure I've still got my silverware when you come to Bag End, please.
Don't want you nicking off with any of it.
[SNIFFS]
FREEMAN: I used to be scared of you, Dwalin, you wouldn't believe it.
Feel free to drop in and eat me out of house and home, yet again.
That's not an instruction, Bombur.
He was so great, and he was just looking at us right in the eye.
And, yeah, it was... It was a big scene.
I think if you let a bit of real life in, I think it's quite telling, I think.
It was quite sad. Quite a sad little scene.
"Here lies Thorin...
...son of Thrain...
...son of Thror."
- Morning. MAN: Morning.
This is my finest work.
I've learned my lines, I know the blocking.
Even dead, he still doesn't shut up.
Dead Dwarf, heh.
O'GORMAN: We were placed on plinths.
And we were just lying there, you know, like: Like, dead.
And then the Dwarves were, you know, saying their goodbyes.
We were saying goodbye to these three characters.
Although they were lying...
...possibly asleep, on these blocks.
I know Dean was asleep.
- How's it being dead? ls it all right? - It's cool, yeah.
- It looked quite relaxing. TURNER: It is relaxing...
...until you feel like you're gonna fall asleep, and then you scare yourself.
- How's my double chin? - Oh, I can't even see it, mate.
That big fat beard covers your fat face, thank God.
[CHUCKLES]
We will give you a dignified death.
Yeah, all right. That's bloody perfect.
- Okay, lunchtime. - Ha, ha, ha.
It's an interesting, urn, turn in the story, I think.
You know, for The Hobbit, Tolkien, when he came up with it.
It's an interesting way of ending the book.
In that, you know, three characters, and the lead character...
...they die.
Three of them don't come back.
The weakest.
The worst fighting family in the world.
Yes.
All three of them go. You won't last, you won't last, you're definitely gone, heh.
- It's ultimately his own fault. - Yes.
- Well, just bad fighting. - Yeah.
Tell you, that was true, though. Thorin, this great warrior.
Thorin, Kili, Fili. Gone.
The Irish, they're in the bar at half to nine.
I always imagined Dwalin just looking in utter contempt...
...at their dead bodies.
Somehow Peter didn't want that.
He wanted emotion.
- Why? Why? Why? Take me instead. - Aah!
McTAVISH: Just huge loads of snot.
No!
[SNIFFS]
Peter was playing this quite sad haunting music throughout the scene.
And it was really lovely.
JACKSON: I remember going to Tony Johnson, our sound recordist...
...and getting him to dig out the one piece of music that I'd used in the past...
...for this particular type of scene, was Puccini's "Humming Chorus."
So you've got Puccini's "The Humming Chorus."
Which is quite a gentle, sort of sad kind of piece.
BROPHY: It's a beautiful piece of music.
It kind of soars, and it drops, and it's got a cadence to it...
...that gets you into a kind of a rhythm, which is a rhythm of loss.
JACKSON: According to legend, Puccini was sitting at the shore of a lake...
...somewhere in Switzerland...
...and way in the distance, in the middle of the lake, he saw a boat capsize...
...and he saw somebody drown.
And he immediately sat down and he wrote "The Humming Chorus"...
...to emotionally deal with what he'd just seen.
- He didn't bother trying to save him? - Ha, ha.
I think he was inspired to write some music and was a bit too busy.
- I'm not judging. - Don't put the camera down, Puccini.
[CHUCKLING]
Maybe he should have helped...
...rather than standing up there and write...
"Stop writing music, Puccini. Put your shoes on. We need help."
There's three old Washerwomen ******* trying to drag 12 sailors out.
Good to see that Puccini was such a humanitarian.
JACKSON: I don't whether it's true or not, but... Ha-ha-ha.
BROWN: The other part of the scene was where Gandalf...
...presented this eulogy to the rest of the Dwarves.
Originally, we had Gandalf eulogize them...
...really, because I think partly we wanted to set up the notion...
...that the Dwarves were letting go of Thorin...
...and acknowledging the new King Under the Mountain. Which is Dain.
JACKSON: And action.
The king has come unto his own.
Under mountain, under stone.
That stuffs pretty hard to beat, when you're having a funeral eulogy...
...to a much-loved figure spoken by Ian McKellen.
It's pretty hard to top that. Ha, ha.
Send him now unto the deep.
Unto earth, eternal sleep.
Under mountain, under stone.
ALL: Under mountain, under stone.
I mean, that's what he's about. Sharing his thought and emotion with you.
I mean, he does it with Shakespeare, and he does it with Tolkien.
Through all the lands, let it be known.
The king is dead.
Is everybody shouting "Long live the king" afterward?
JACKSON: They should, shouldn't they? - They should.
JACKSON: As you raise your weapons, you say, "Long live the king."
Long live the king!
ALL: Long live the king!
I think we were saying "Long live The Hobbit" as much as we were saying "Love the king"...
"Long live the king," because...
...you know, it'll be with us forever.
And I feel very lucky to have been on the journey.
EVANS: By that final week of principal photography...
...we know each other so well, you know.
We found the things that make each other laugh.
[ALL LAUGHING]
We know how to get through a 15-, 16-hour day and keep our spirits high.
So putting Lee Pace, Ian McKellen and myself...
...and Martin Freeman in a tent together...
...you know, you're just asking for trouble, really. Ha-ha-ha.
- Yeah, just do one kind of thing. - Yes, yes, yes.
Like that. Just like that.
- Can you be my hand double? - Heh, absolutely.
EVANS: I think I'd asked Lee if I could have a pair of his Elf ears that he'd used...
...that he wasn't gonna use again. Because they were new every day.
Imagine how many Elf ears they must have gone through. God.
So I said I wanted a pair.
I can hear so much more.
MAN: It's really quite good. - Yeah, that's it.
Now, so questions are, basically, Lee, where you're gonna be.
I mean, you could be sitting sipping wine on a chair.
It's so funny. All I do in this movie is sit.
I sit on my throne, I sit on my chair in the tent, I sit on my horse.
But Luke, I think, has never once sat down.
- During the whole film. - During the whole film?
[ALL LAUGH]
He's going through windows, he's running across rooftops.
He's always active in this movie.
Well, I don't know. You can be. I think you'd be pacing around.
You'd be a little bit more anxious, I think. Sitting down wouldn't do.
Sorry. Sorry, I know you would've loved a day of sitting down.
But, heh, it's a good try. That was a good attempt.
MAN: Thanks, guys. Still rolling. - ...des Arts.
And three, two, one. Action.
McKELLEN: ls gold so important to you?
Would you buy it with the blood of Dwarves?
It will not come to that.
- This is a fight they cannot win. BILBO: That won't stop them.
You think the Dwarves will surrender? They won't.
- They will fight to the death to defend their own. - Bilbo Baggins.
GAGE: He's a spy!
- He's a Dwarvish spy. MAN: Sorry.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Ryan's better, let's thank God for that.
Yeah, Ryan's better.
Welcome back, Ryan.
- He's moving boulders. JACKSON: That was good, Martin, for you...
There was somebody else...
...who will remain nameless, whose name starts with "Ryan."
I think we really got on. We really had a laugh. And he likes to beat me up a lot, so, heh...
It's almost like an ear-clip, isn't it? It's almost just like a:
Oh, sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to... Ha, ha.
I didn't mean to do that.
Poor, poor Ryan. My God.
- Okay. - That's why it's better.
He's a Dwarvish spy. I wouldn't trust him, sire.
Let him be.
No, no. Let him through.
Dwarvish spy, indeed.
- Do I look like a Dwarf? - No.
FREEMAN: It's my longest project by a long way.
I haven't done anything else approaching that amount of time.
I don't know many people who have.
Let him be. Let him through.
Dwarvish spy indeed. Do I look a Dwarf?
Not in the least.
JACKSON: That was actually quite good.
Actually quite good.
Can we have a look?
JACKSON: Can you have a look? Yeah, sure. In 2013.
[LAUGHS]
Oh, no, you can have a look now.
Yeah, okay. It's good.
I didn't feel like I'd wrapped yesterday.
You know, I was just gonna go, and Caro said:
"Look, say something, because otherwise people will think it's weird.
They'll want to acknowledge the fact that this is your picture wrap."
Thanks, guys. Thank you very much.
And I thought, yeah, this is sort of momentous...
...but I can't blow it all now. You know what I mean?
Like, if I do my crying scene now, I'll have nothing to do in pickups next year.
So I saved it up and was very conservative.
All right, see you later, folks. I'll save up goodbyes for later.
[ALL LAUGHING]
- Don't wanna wear them out now. - Yeah, we hate goodbyes.
- We all hate goodbyes. - Yeah, yeah. See you later.
At the end of photography, like always, you basically wrap...
...one key actor every day.
All right, so we're just going to say a temporary farewell to Lee.
So there's your chair back.
Chairs can be purchased at the door on your way out.
ALL: Ha-ha-ha. - That old joke, it always works.
And that's for you to practice with.
That's heavy.
Is that what I think it is?
That is unreal.
[CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
And don't forget to bring it back next year.
- We'll need it. - We'll need it for pickups.
- You need it for the filming? - No, it was a joke. It was a joke.
Thank you, all of you. Loved getting to know you.
It's been an incredible experience.
So this is my last day on the set of The Hobbit.
I'm just about to walk up the stairs to find an army of Elves have entered Dale.
Here we go, and action.
The children, the wounded and the women come first.
What news from the night watch?
All quiet, sire. Not much to report.
Lovely. Good.
That is Luke and Ryan's last shot in 2012.
[CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
EVANS: Yeah, it's over.
I'll get emotional if we talk about it too much, but it's been an amazing job.
Amazing experience.
JACKSON: Thank you very much.
I've loved every minute of it. Every minute.
Yeah, I've gotta go back to reality now.
I'm not sure whether I'm ready for that, but, uh...
Luke, it's been an absolute pleasure to work with somebody from Wales...
...being of Welsh extraction myself. - Yeah, that's true.
I haven't quite learned that...
- You've got time. Ha, ha. - I've got time.
Luke's trying to teach me the longest place-name in Wales.
Which any good Welshman has to learn.
So I've got a bastardized version of it.
Oh, it's all right.
Not bad, not bad.
I had to... I have to improve. I have to improve.
When you're with people for, like, a year, in film, it's very unusual to do that.
Ahem. And so I feel like...
Well, I don't feel like, I know. I know I'm leaving a family behind here.
So that's quite nice.
- Thank God. - Hang on, I'll...
- Oh, wow. This the real thing. - Well, yeah.
Wow. Thank you, guys.
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
MAN: Just get that set. Zane's face upwards so he's not upside down.
- Ready to go. - The wheel would always be...
...preceded by music.
Tony.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKER]
He took the wheel very seriously, Zane. And so I had to take the music very seriously.
[CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
Okay, and now another wonderful weekend of Wacky Wheel of Wonder!
Yeah!
"Hobbit hijinks for $200."
JACKSON: Just to spice things up, I think Zane came up with the idea...
...that on a couple of the spots that it would land on...
...it was like a trivia question had to be answered...
...and then you would win the prize.
And there was Beatle trivia, Tolkien trivia.
So the deal is, you keep your radio on and the crew will try to help you.
Ian McKellen has been touring a one-man show around New Zealand...
...to raise money for a theater in Christchurch.
What was his first stop on the tour?
In the Naki, Stratford.
Yes.
[ALL CHEER]
But Zane really quickly realized what was going on.
[ALL LAUGHING]
I've noticed that some people have been cheating...
...because they come up here and answer questions with headsets on.
[ALL LAUGH]
And earpieces. So everyone will now be checked...
...for an earpiece before they get a question.
I mean, I had to keep my mouth shut with the Beatles trivia.
Unsuccessfully at times, if I remember rightly.
Over men and horse, hoops and garters.
- Lastly through a hogshead of real fire. - Goddamn it.
[CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
And then it kind of took a life of its own.
Peter got on board and got very excited about this.
- And was like, "I'll throw some prizes in." - There are a few new prizes on the wheel.
Courtesy of Sir Peter Jackson and company.
There were trips to Sydney.
[CROWD CHEERING]
A luxury lodge stay for the weekend.
It was all, like, whoa, we're taking this to a whole new level now.
It just got out of control.
[CROWD LAUGHING AND SHOUTING]
It had a few contentious moments over the course of time.
Some people, um... Yeah, some people won, ha, ha, more than once.
Eric. VFX.
Eric, VFX.
- Again? - Eric from Visual Effects.
[CROWD LAUGHS]
Eric would win almost every week. It was ridiculous.
People were getting angry.
[CROWD BOOING]
[LAUGHS]
Every time a name got drawn, I heard, "I hope it's not him again."
Oh, no.
- Eric. WEINER: Eric.
[CROWD CLAMORING]
There is no justice in the world.
I won a night at a nice hotel.
WEINER: Night at the Museum Hotel.
If you ever win anything again...
I won two different trips to Sydney.
[CROWD CLAMORING]
WEINER: His second weekend in Sydney.
And I actually won Stephen Fry's stash.
Which, when Stephen Fry wrapped, I ended up with all his leftover booze.
[CROWD LAUGHS]
And then we came towards the end of filming...
...and there was this wonderful moment where Peter and Zane...
...really wanted to, you know, have big, kind of blowout prizes stuck on the wheel.
On that Wacky Wheel there was a label for north south, east and west...
...and we didn't know what that meant.
Oh. Oh, yeah. These are kind of fun things...
...but if you get one, you won't know till the end what it is.
And everybody kind of wondered what was going on.
It's like, yeah, just wait. Just wait.
Dave Shaw.
[CROWD CHEERING]
- Spin the wheel. WEINER: There you go.
And then he wins west.
JACKSON: West. WEINER: West.
Don't lose it.
And so they basically kept spinning it until someone had won north...
...someone had won south, someone had won east, and someone had won west.
Bruno.
[CROWD CHEERING]
I got north.
So they called everyone up and revealed what those prizes were.
I will start with, uh...
- With south. - South.
Congratulations, you have two tickets to the world premiere of The Hobbit.
November 28th.
Thank you.
That person won two tickets for the world premiere...
...of The Hobbit in Wellington.
All of us went, "What? That's an amazing prize."
- East. - East.
I am happy to give you an unexpected journey to Tokyo.
[CROWD CHEERING]
TOHO Cinemas.
- Holy hell. - West.
Two tickets to New York.
[CROWD CHEERING]
And you could tell I was thinking, "North, north, north.
Like, what is it gonna be?"
Two tickets to London to the London premiere of The Hobbit.
Thank you very much.
So it was, like, the four big premieres. And this was us like, "Whoa. This is crazy."
That's amazing. Plane tickets, plus the premiere of The Hobbit, all paid by Peter.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Excuse me, sir.
- This the final call sheet? - Yes, it is.
WEINER: Alrighty. - For principal photography.
WEINER: You gotta make sure Peter signs this.
- Thank you, sir. - Thank you.
YORKE: Hi. - Hi, Brigitte.
Okay, I'm just gonna write, um, a farewell...
...to some of the crew who are finishing tomorrow as well.
It might take a while.
We can fast forward this bit.
There you go. Still leaves room.
Yeah, that's just enough. Peter might have a bit of room.
Peter, I got the final call sheet for you. If you'd like to sign.
- Right. - You can sign it wherever you like.
Thank you very much. Ha, ha.
Cheers.
Last day.
- Two hundred and 66 days. - We're still standing.
Think how many hours we've stood on these concrete floors.
We've been shooting for two years, so we got to know a lot of people very well.
We saw some of the people more than we saw our wives, partner, kids.
It's gonna be quite sad for me to leave. I've nearly slept with everyone in the office...
...so it's gonna be a bit hard.
Don't know if I'll ever do another job that's that long, really.
Staying within three meters of Angus.
Three meters.
For 3000 hours.
Probably more of an achievement than actually doing the 266 days.
MAN: So, what's kind of the mood on set today?
YORKE: People were looking forward to finishing...
...but then they also knew we were gonna be coming back for work in the new year.
So they knew it was coming to an end, but not really.
Don't be lulled into a false sense of security.
Ha-ha-ha... Oh. Oh! Ooh.
A last move.
Coming through.
We have just walked into F stage here. And we're about to do our last scene.
Eighteen months ago, this was the stage that we started in.
When you look into this big empty space...
...and you think about all the different sets that we've had in here...
We started with Gollum's cave. We've had Thranduil's wine cellar.
We've had treasure chamber.
We came together in this stage, and we're going to, uh...
We're gonna part in this stage.
MAN: Look out.
I remember the lighting crew coming in and circling into the stage.
[CROWD APPLAUDING]
[CHUCKLES]
Do it again.
- I'm gonna miss you. - I'm gonna miss you, man.
- Peter stole my job. - Ha-ha-ha.
Mark A.
That's easy.
You actually get paid to do that? It's so simple.
- Not very much. - No, no. Ha-ha-ha.
[BURPS]
Okay, and action.
Wait. Beorn, wait! Listen to me. You must listen to me!
PERSBRANDT: You wizards.
You were sent here to protect Middle-earth.
To guard against the return of evil.
You have failed.
All right, and cut.
So how was that, boys? Any camera problems with that?
I'm not sure about that one, though.
JACKSON: No?
Well, unless anybody has anything else they wanna shoot...
...I think we should call that a day. Thank you.
[CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
[CHATTERING]
JACKSON: You're grabbing the other thing? WEINER: Yeah.
JACKSON: Yeah.
And I just wanted to ask Andrew to come forward to take possession...
- Oh, yeah. - ...of a... Of a slate...
...that was expertly clapped.
- Excellent work, yes. - Yes.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you very, very much.
[CROWD CHEERING]
Well, obviously I just wanna say thank you to everybody.
Our incredible cast, incredible crew.
Seems like a lifetime ago that I had to do this speech at the beginning of the shoot.
Oh, God. That was a long time ago.
Um, you know, as a director, it can be kind of a lonely job.
Um, you know, at times you feel like you're by yourself, trying to solve problems.
But then everybody steps in and suddenly I realize I've got this incredible support.
And all of you guys have got my back and you're behind me.
And for that I'm incredibly grateful.
Thank you.
[CROWD CHEERING]
WEINER: Well, I hear there's bubbles right next door.
[CROWD CHEERING]
Whee!
[CHATTERING]
- Champagne. - Cheers.
You know, I'm a reasonably sentimental person, so I don't particularly enjoy these sorts of days.
You get a sense that it's, you know, the last day that you're gonna spend with friends.
So it's a chance to really reflect on what we've been through...
...over the last 18 months, which has been a hell of a lot.
I kind of feel like I've changed a little bit in the last 18 months.
I feel like I'm a different person now than what I was when I started shooting this.
I don't know. It's been a... It's a strange day.
You can't really put it into words.
WEINER: Thank you all very much.
WOMAN: Yeah! WEINER: Fantastic.
MILSOM: Dale was built and designed...
...to encompass the battle from The Battle of the Five Armies.
[JACKSON LAUGHS]
It's a lethal... It's a lethal weapon.
EVANS: But when we finished principal photography...
...for good, or what we thought was "for good"...
...we hadn't done any of the battle in Dale.
We did these relatively small sequences in the scheme of the movies.
JACKSON: Lovely. Thank you very much. We can out, then.
Fantastic, folks. Thank you very, very much. It was really well done.
YORKE: After we had finished principal photography...
...everyone knew that we still hadn't even touched the Battle of Five Armies...
...and that we still had all of it to do.
We knew that in a year's time we were coming back.
So we had to do a lot of wrapping up and preserving...
...this huge set piece as well as we could.
And there it sat on the top of Mount Crawford for over a year.
SERKIS: So after Peter finished principal shooting...
Of course, at that time it was only gonna be two movies at that point.
Then as we broke up and went to Comic-Con...
...it was announced that it would be three movies.
From the very beginning of this project two and a half years ago...
...a third movie has always been in discussion.
At the end of the day, you end up with a film that's too long.
Um...
[CROWD CHEERING]
Because we went to three movies...
...it did require us to expand some of the storylines...
...and to resolve some of them in slightly different ways.
That's all being worked out now as we speak.
You know, a battle is a whole little movie unto itself...
...with a story, a narrative, and a momentum, and characters interweaving plots and things.
And finally I had my preproduction time that I never had at the beginning.
And I had almost a year to have more thinking time to figure out the battle.
Oh, it's all very nice, isn't it?
By then, of course, we had a lot better idea of where the big battles were gonna take place.
There was a lot more information.
MILSOM: It was cool revisiting Dale.
You sort of felt like it had been a bit lonely up there by itself for the year...
...until we came back in the pickups in 2013.
We're just pulling off all the coverings right now, getting it ready to go.
We revisited Dale and shot the hell out of it, basically.
[ALL GRUNTING]
JACKSON: There you go. It's gonna be exciting.
I would be dead if this was real. I would be the first to go.
Everyone came back refreshed and ready to work, you know.
Everyone was sort of re-energized, and they knew it was the end.
Okay, good morning, everybody, welcome back.
That unless someone decided there was gonna be a fourth film, this was it.
- Yo, we're back, look out. - Yeah.
- All right, let's shoot. - Time for some action.
Right on, right on. Let's do this.
You know, pickups, you generally think of:
"Oh, we just need to pick this shot up here, and this shot here."
You need Hobbit hands, you get Dan Hennah.
FREEMAN: These felt not so much like pickups.
Because it was like, "Christ, we gotta do the Battle of the Five Armies in this time"...
...which is bigger than most movies, you know.
Pickups this time, we were actually shooting scripted drama scenes...
...with lead cast for the whole time.
Would it stay his madness?
No, laddie.
Plus we shot the dragon at the end of film two. We shot Bree.
JACKSON: Let's go, let's go, let's go. Shoot, shoot, shoot.
So in many ways that pickup period was the most intense...
...in terms of what we had to accomplish.
JACKSON: Bats! Bats, bats, bats...
And there was a sense of trepidation.
Because Peter is kind of known for extensive, ongoing pickups.
Okay, let's shoot it, guys. Shoot it, please.
LILLY: And he's fearless that way.
He makes no apologies for making the best film that he can make.
That is his attitude, is:
"Whatever I have to do to make the best film I can make, I'm gonna do it."
We were comparing people's tales of Lord of the Rings.
And how long that end battle took.
YORKE: On The Return of the King pickups, I mean, we would meet to shoot for six weeks...
...and we shot for 22 weeks, so...
And they were saying, "Well, in Lord of the Rings...
...the battle alone was a four-week shoot.
And we're not even there yet. We haven't even started the battle yet."
And so, yeah, we were all talking about it.
The speculation went on. We're gonna be here until the end of the year.
We're gonna be here until the end of the year.
BROWN: Literally every day, everyone was going, "Do you realize how much we've still got to do?"
You know, time is ticking.
Time is ticking.
BARD: Fall back to Dale!
GANDALF: To the city!
Now is the hour of our doom.
We have but one question before us:
How shall this day end?
It definitely felt like you had to sort of galvanize yourself for the final push, you know.
Any man who wants to give their last...
...follow me!
[ALL SHOUTING]
The battle of Dale was epic in terms of numbers.
We've set a New Zealand record...
...in terms of the amount of stunt people hired for one particular project.
Action!
[ALL GRUNTING]
When we were shooting Dale, I had a crew of about 130 stunt guys.
We've got the biggest stunt contingency ever.
Do a 360 pan.
Yeah, check it out. It's crazy here.
We've been rehearsing and working out little sequences...
...that we can actually put anywhere on the set.
I'd shoot them and offer them up to Peter.
- I like that. - Okay.
WONG: We had charges from the Orcs.
We had charges from the humans.
We had stand-offs, we had clashes, we had retreats.
A lot of the stuff that we had on Lord of the Rings...
...like Pelennor Fields, was all based around large, expansive areas.
What we've never really had, or not had much of...
...was house-to-house, close-quarter battle.
The battle was so tight that there was nowhere to move...
...and it looked like pure mayhem.
It was just wall-to-wall people just struggling to stay alive.
JACKSON: And cut.
You know, that was really where we did a lot of stunt action.
We did a lot of live-action filming in the Dale set.
The tone of this fight is fighting to the last man.
It's not victory, it's not:
[JACKSON GRUNTS]
Hold on, not that fast, okay?
Because we really didn't have any Dwarves there.
So scale-wise, it was only easier to deal with...
...because we had humans, we had Orcs and Elves.
So scale-wise, everything was on par.
Which meant that we could do a lot of the action live at Dale.
[ALL GROWLING]
There is this one scene where we enter a square in Dale.
And all these Orcs just come running at us.
[ALL SHOUTING]
There's no CGI at all.
The adrenaline was pumping that day, I have to say.
[AIR HORN BLOWS]
Do you want Billy and Tim?
I got pulled aside by Carol, and said:
"Hey, Billy Jackson's one of the extras today.
We wanna give him a couple of fight beats."
It was really intense. You just have to, you know...
...really try and pretend like you're there.
JACKSON: And, Billy, give us a good neck slash at the end there.
Really put a bit of elbow grease into it. I'm sure Vinnie won't mind. Here we go.
And three, two, one, action.
Cut.
Yeah, he certainly clobbered one of the stunt guys hard enough where he bends the sword.
Yeah, I bent my sword, I was hitting it so hard against the Orc shield.
That was great, Bill, what you were doing...
...and you're not so bad, Luke, either.
[JACKSON LAUGHS]
We had a Main Unit with Peter directing.
And then we had a Splinter Unit with Christian Rivers directing.
And they had a pretty high work rate.
There are all the fight beats that you need to actually just tell the story.
So we used to do a lot of those fighting beats and things like that.
It was always an adventure...
...because you didn't really know what you were actually going to do.
You know, sometimes on the Splinter Unit, we'd have a very loose brief.
I mean, Pete would... Up on Dale, Pete was just like:
"I need shots today of Orcs winning, Lake-towners losing."
And we'd sort of shoot these little separate vignettes all over the place.
[GRUNTS]
The problem is, and I'm sure everybody ever says...
...anybody who has to fight an Orc will tell you the stories...
...that you know you do a lot of stunt training.
You're fighting these great stunt guys, and you know which one you have to fight next.
"Yeah, it's you, then you, then you, then you, and then you, and then you."
And then all of a sudden you get on set...
...and they all have full prosthetic faces, teeth, black blood coming out of their mouth...
...eye contacts, they can't really speak properly.
I can't see it.
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
They'd all come up to me, "Luke." I'm thinking, "I have no clue who any of you are."
- Who's that? Who's in here? - It's Andrew.
Oh, right.
EVANS: And then you have to start looking at their costume...
...and working out what distinguishes this Orc from that Orc.
So I found that quite difficult.
I'm gonna go... Just go for a slice, man.
[GRUNTS]
[WHIMPERS]
See this here? Look at this.
Now, in The Lord of the Rings, people were wearing this.
This is metal chainmail. This is about five kilograms of metal...
...that I'm carrying around in this shot.
Weta is famous for creating this chainmail which wasn't as heavy.
It's, like, made of sort of an alloy, or plastic, or something like that.
Unfortunately they'd run out of it when I got to New Zealand.
But they had plenty of the heavy stuff.
So they made my chainmail in the real stuff.
How great was that?
- God bless you. - This is like carrying a baby around me.
Oh, Jesus.
The chainmail costume that they had for him was one piece.
And it was very, very heavy.
And then I'm asking him to lead a big charge up the stairs, killing Orcs.
And in the middle of it, I had choreographed a nice dive roll for him.
I mean, he's looking at me like, "You're kidding me, right?" Ha, ha.
[ALL SHOUTING]
WOMAN: How many times have you had to do this particular fight sequence?
Ten times, and every time, my jump's a little shorter.
Everything is a little shorter.
See, I just get better every single time, so we just sort of work opposite.
- Because you've been trained by the best, boy. - That is true.
[BOTH GRUNTING]
[CREW LAUGHING]
JACKSON: We'll block it, and just... Just do this:
[JACKSON WHINNIES]
And just sort of block, if you wouldn't mind, Ollie.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Monty Python. - Exactly.
JACKSON: And just go, "Neigh." Okay, good.
McKELLEN: Legolas Greenleaf.
And you...?
- Hi. - Hello.
LILLY: Very nice to meet you. - Welcome to the film.
I don't have my hat on at the moment, but when I do...
JACKSON: ls it new? - It's blue and pointy.
- Jesus Christ. - Oh, God.
Cate Blanchett last year, and now Evangeline this year.
Something is very wrong with the world.
- Go horse. - Go on.
We rode in there on a horse, me and Tauriel.
Gandalf!
We did a sequence in the studio that led in to that.
Just for safety reasons, we put them onto a barrel, on a fake horse.
I popped my cherry on the fake horse today.
Evie's sitting behind me, shooting arrows off the back.
We were told to sort of exaggerate the horse-riding movements.
We were both moving in rhythm.
It really looks like a "love story," if you know what I mean.
A physical love story between the two.
It looks like she's riding me hard and fast. Ha, ha.
- And it was kind of funny. - It looked like elf porn.
And of course, it went viral and ended up online.
I was glad it ended up online because, ha, ha...
...it needed to be put to some bad 1970s porn music and taken advantage of.
[LAUGHS]
Sorry. Ahem.
So we had to sort of mix it up. It was like:
"Well, maybe the front of the horse does something different to the back.
Because otherwise it really looks like..."
Lube me up, darling.
[LAUGHS]
There is a second army.
Bolg leads a force of Gundabad Orcs. They are almost upon us.
Gundabad.
We shot for three days with Ian McKellen in Dale.
And there was the whole "Gandalf staff" incident.
I shouldn't even say. I shouldn't even talk about the staff.
Gandalf actually had two staffs in The Hobbit.
We wanted to have a totally new staff that he would arrive in the story with.
And Philippa had mentioned that Gandalf being associated with fire...
...like his ring is a ring of fire.
So actually used a flame as a kind of a model for the look of the top of the staff...
...as if it were a flame turned to wood.
There's a point in the story where Gandalf's staff is destroyed by Sauron.
And shortly after that, Radagast gives him his staff and says, "Take this, you'll need it."
RADAGAST: If what you say is true...
...then you'll need it more than I.
I hand it to Gandalf.
And he takes it into The Lord of the Rings. Off he goes.
MILSOM: That is the staff that you see Gandalf with in The Lord of the Rings.
That's where he gets it from.
But nobody knew that when they were watching the film, that that was mine.
MILSOM: Once Gandalf had that staff...
...throughout the battles that happen, it would slowly break off pieces.
I mean, they can just fall off as he's banging Orcs with it.
Because he spends so much time kind of bashing Orcs, heh, with this thing...
...that twigs can kind of break off, and it can actually become that kind of final staff...
...just through a process of wear and tear.
MILSOM: So by the end of The Battle of the Five Armies, there it was.
There was the staff that he has in Fellowship of the Ring.
So it was like a nice evolution.
Anyway, we shot the scene for three days, and he had the wrong staff.
My lord, dispatch this force...
...to Ravenhill.
I turned up with my old staff, which had been destroyed.
Well, that wouldn't do.
And I don't know who pointed it out to me, but someone was more on-the-ball than I.
Gandalf didn't figure it, I didn't figure it.
The other 33,000 people watching didn't figure it.
Until Peter finally tweaked and went, "He's got the wrong staff."
And we realized Peter was right.
- Yup. - Yup.
The prop guy that day was having a bit of an off day, obviously.
One of the Art Department guys... I won't mention his name.
- ...Matt... - Matt.
...gave him the wrong staff.
Epic continuity error.
One of the very few errors.
Heh. One that Peter did care about.
Hopefully they'll fix it in post.
Hi, VFX.
[CHUCKLES]
We actually had to go back and replace... Digitally replace the wrong staff...
...with the proper staff in every shot.
I still get apologies from Matt.
GAGE: Abandon the cripples!
JACKSON: And reset.
BOYENS: We needed some more elderly people to be extras.
So I just decided, well, it would be great if we went to one place where they all were.
And then if we needed a whole bunch of them, we could bring them out together.
My name is Arthur Avis from the Summerset Retirement Village at Aotea.
On my left, we have Earl Cunningham...
...David Bowie, and John Keown.
He's the good-looking guy over on the far side.
Ron Dunbar, he's a computer expert.
And our snooker champion, Rick Smith.
It was a fantastic casting experience, actually, because we went to their village...
...and had a bit of a chat and got to meet everybody.
So it was a fantastic way to collect extras.
Hollywood, here we come.
Off to kill some Orcs.
And they all came together in the Summerset Retirement Village van.
And what was really sweet was we just drove them straight through the set...
...all the way, right up to Wardrobe and Makeup.
You know, these extras were hand-delivered in their own van...
...and they felt really, really important, because they were.
JACKSON: Action!
It was a really demanding scene that we shot where they charge out of the Great Hall.
The first thing that they encountered was actually two flights of steps.
And all of a sudden, we were looking at these stairs, going, "Hmm."
We had people there right up into their 70s and 80s.
MAN: We had Dorothy. She was probably the eldest extra on the set.
Eighty-six, I think. Something like that.
And she became the Queen of Extras, I think is what she was called.
WOMAN: I get treated like the queen around here.
Oh, I'd like to have been an Elf.
- An elf? - Yes. Ha, ha.
- We'd make good Elves. - I know.
They don't have any old Elves.
- You're all right doing that stunt? - Yeah, yeah.
RIVERS: Charging through as fast as you can. Lots and lots of screaming and gusto.
We're good to go.
RIVERS: Action!
They came charging down the stairs, up and over steps, through fountains.
But they were troupers.
[ALL SHOUTING]
RIVERS: Okay, cut.
They're absolutely brilliant. And nobody got injured.
[GRUNTING]
- Oh, you're going down. - Ha, ha.
I'd like to think we are kicking your ass...
...but that ain't happening. - Uh-uh.
We absolutely go into battle with them, and it's fantastic.
And I get to kill an Orc, which is a great triumph.
RIVERS: Got lots of energy, lots of energy, Orcs. Lots of aggression, Lake-towners.
[GROWLS]
[ALL GRUNTING]
[GROWLING]
RIVERS: Three, two, one, action!
[ALL SHOUTING]
RIVERS: And cut. MAN: Cutting! All right.
- It's just like American gridiron. - Exactly.
Yeah, the Lake-towners are turning the tides on the Orcs in Dale.
It's a resurgence of the Lake-towners.
Alfrid, towards the end of the movie, of course, he is a sniveling coward...
...and only concerned about wealth.
At this point, you may have noticed I'm dressed as a woman...
...in order to... Heh. Yeah, pan out.
It's like, "Alfrid, your slip's showing."
- You know. - Yeah.
We were trying to make this bra, basically...
...that would then hold all these coins, and these coins are really quite heavy.
- Right, I'm stuck. JACKSON: ls it, then? It'll fall down.
BUCK: So we'd stuff it, and we'd get it big, and we'd go and show Pete.
And he'd say, "It's not big enough. I want bigger."
He says, "I want Diana Dors."
- I'm top-heavy. - Yeah, a little bit.
Bosoms full of gold.
It's about breasts of gold.
It's about the titties of gold.
Boobs full of gold. Ha, ha.
BARD: Get up.
Normally the light would get to a certain point, and you had to really stop...
...because the light dropped too low for the camera.
However, we did decide to keep going. We were on a roll.
And so Andrew started pulling out lights, and we kept filming and kept filming.
JACKSON: Action.
Halfway through a take, I'm like:
"Do we have pyros on this shot?"
[ALARM BEEPING]
Is it a smoke alarm?
"That's a lot of smoke. That's a lot of smoke."
Bit of a fire.
Then obviously a very well-oiled safety team kind of swing into gear.
They go rushing off to find how extensive it is.
[SIRENS WAILING]
MAN: We quickly realized it was actually the generator...
...was supposed to feed all the power for all the lights...
...that actually caught on fire.
JACKSON:
MAN: After the fire brigade extinguished the fire, we made sure that everything was safe.
There was still smoke going on.
You know, there was literally, like, huge, billowing smoke...
...coming out of the back of the set.
EVANS: I think Smaug is sitting behind that wall, puffing away.
I think he's sitting there.
Obviously it was all being taken care of and nobody was in any danger.
But it was nice to hear Peter say, "Do we have to evacuate?"
And then someone to say, "No, it's blowing in the other direction."
And then for him to say, "Okay, then, rolling."
- All right, shall we shoot? I mean... - Yeah, why not?
We just carried on on the other side of the set...
...while there's plumes of black, ominous, Smaug-esque smoke...
...floating up behind Dale, you know.
It couldn't have been more perfect. Heh.
Peter and Carol was like, "Okay, is everyone safe? Nobody's hurt?
The set is safe? Thank you, guys.
Just let's cut that siren and keep shooting, please."
And I think within 10 seconds...
JACKSON: Here you go, and action.
...we cut the sirens and then we were shooting again.
Peter was like, "Well, that's perfect even as a background.
Maybe we should just turn the camera, and just have that smoke...
...going on in the background. That would be perfect."
JACKSON: And cut. That was a great one.
Let's do one more. That was a terrific run. That was terrific.
In The Battle of the Five Armies, and also in the Extended Edition...
...we have just one scene with an acorn that Bilbo has...
...that originally was gonna pay off in another scene in Dale.
That, at the moment, is a bit of a stand-alone gag in the movie...
...where Thorin catches him looking at something...
...we're supposed to all think he's been caught with the stone.
JACKSON: We wanna see you reach down. We don't wanna see what comes out.
ARMITAGE: What is that?
In your hand.
Show me.
I picked it up in Beorn's garden.
So Bilbo's got this acorn that he's gathered on his travels...
...that he knows is kind of a totemistic thing, that when he gets home, he's gonna plant it...
...and something beautiful is gonna come out of this hell.
It's a moment when you see Thorin nearly come back from his madness...
...and it's because of the simplicity of something that Bilbo's done...
...to just capture this little acorn in his pocket, because he's thinking about home.
You've carried it all this way?
I'm gonna plant it in my garden.
In Bag End.
And so the acorn became, therefore, a symbol of Bilbo's life, basically.
Is he gonna live or die?
Is the acorn ever gonna get planted back in the Shire, or is it not?
It's like, um, you know, a lone pine, the Battle of Lone Pine in Gallipoli.
In Gallipoli there was a solitary pine tree where the Battle of Lone Pine happened.
The Australians got a seedling from the one pine tree that was there...
...and that pine tree is planted in Canberra in a memorial.
So pines are a dime a dozen, but, you know, that came from Lone Pine.
The acorn was supposed to be two beats.
It was supposed to be a beat where we introduce the notion he has it.
And then the second beat was one that was taking place in Dale...
...where Bilbo decides that he's just gonna dig a hole right there and then in Dale...
...and plant the acorn there.
What there is, is a sense that you will die, but life will continue.
McKELLEN: And are we going to see, later in the film, the sapling?
Well, you remember that tree in The Lord of the Rings? It's that tree.
Which one?
[ALL LAUGHING]
It was a new scene that had been written, I think, that day...
...where I reach Gandalf through the crowd scene of people.
Gandalf!
The causeway has fallen. The Elves still hold an open gate.
Not for much longer.
This really feels like this is the end, this is the end.
Yeah, at this stage of the battle, they think that all is lost.
Get some bowmen up into those towers.
There are no bowmen left.
I let myself imagine this city restored.
We would take what had been destroyed and rebuild it.
We would wash away this sadness.
And the streets would once again be filled with life.
Full of hope.
No, no, no. Come now.
Don't despair.
- What would you have us do? - Huh?
Do?
Here.
I'll show you.
BARD: Bilbo.
Yeah.
What is that?
That's a promise.
Underneath all that blood and dirt, there is a chance of new life.
It may sound hopeless, it may sound foolish...
...but, really, what else can you do?
When faced with death...
...what can anyone do?
You go on living.
Mm?
Bilbo knows, or he thinks he knows, at this point...
...he's not ever gonna make it back to Bag End.
This is as far as I'm gonna get. I'm not gonna get home.
So let's just plant this simple acorn here.
EVANS: In blood-soaked soil...
...in the middle of all this brutality...
...there is this very delicate, fragile, poignant moment.
FREEMAN: And I have a memory, a sort of sense memory, I suppose...
...of there just being blood in that soil...
...and putting the acorn in there...
...and there was blood on my hands and blood on the earth.
There was something right about that, that I was planting this life...
...and a beautiful thing, in the midst of this horrible blood everywhere.
JACKSON: Cut there. That was terrific.
That was starting to feel good, Luke? That was great.
It's very prophetic and very beautiful, and so, yeah, it's been a very lovely day.
Yeah, good day to remember.
So the fact we never used that scene in the cut...
...that then implies that when he arrives home into the Shire, into Hobbiton...
...he still has that in his pocket, he's able to plant it in his garden.
As soon as we finished shooting that shot of Martin showing the acorn...
...I went to him and I said, "Can I have the acorn?"
I'll take the acorn, thank you. That's gonna be...
I'm gonna plant this in the garden...
...and one day... - Watch it grow.
It might be growing somewhere right now.
MAN: In Peter's garden? - Yeah, yeah.
One day, it'll grow.
And every time I look at it, I'll remember.
- Thank you. Thanks. - Thank you all.
Thank you, good night.
BILBO: Remember everything that happened, the good, the bad...
...and how lucky I am that I made it home.
[SINGING] And the road goes ever on
BILBO: You see, the Eagles are here, Thorin. Hmm?
The Eagles.
BLOOM: ls this the second or third movie?
Is this two or three?
- Oh, it's three, is it? ls this three, yeah? WOMAN: It's three.
It's three. There you go.
- It's that easy to be confused. MAN: Action.
I really came back to do pickups and I shot pretty much every day...
...either on first or second unit, doing action sequences...
...and stuff that was linking the character and the stories.
I have a great sequence hanging upside down from a giant bat.
Your head height is about the same as the Ores...
...and you got your knives and you're slicing them...
Slicing as I go.
...As this thing's kind of go crazy through the Orcs.
DAVIS: Peter walked in one day...
...and explained how Orlando was gonna be hanging upside down...
...under this bat and he was gonna shoot Orcs.
Rather than the bow, we'll do the knives, you know, which will look bloody fantastic.
Brilliant.
RIVERS: I thought him hanging upside down from a bat...
...was kind of the dumbest idea I'd ever heard of in the entire six films.
And I was just, "Oh, God, this is gonna look so stupid."
Hey, Christian, keep that in there just so you've got an inspiration.
This is a moment for my 13-year-old son.
Flynn, when you are 13, you will love this.
We start off him hanging on some makeshift rings...
...that was going to simulate the claw of the bat.
JACKSON: Even out and pull left.
And now, to your right. You'll see something to your right.
Yeah, you're gonna fly down there.
So I'm sort of hang gliding and seeing the battle below.
JACKSON: Cool. Now, yeah, let's try and swing those knees up.
Du BOIS: It was actually quite physical for Orlando.
He had to pull himself up, kind of do a flip.
I could probably do that.
Next thing you know, we're calling our riggers in. We have to put this guy in a harness.
This is why I have a T-shirt saying, "I do all my own stunts."
[BLOOM CHUCKLES]
RIVERS: And then, of course, it's Orlando and he pulls his blades out and just:
[RIVERS MIMICS WHOOSHING]
Then he's actually twirling them in his hands while he's upside down...
...and it was just the first take, I was like, "Oh, okay. Okay, maybe this doesn't suck." Heh.
BLOOM: Being wired and hung upside down, the blood rushes to your head.
And you're, like, making fight moves and connection points thinking:
"Okay, well, there's an Orc coming in here," you know.
- It was insane. JACKSON: Okay, cool, drop him.
MAN: It's good, yeah? JACKSON: I think you've got it.
- Yeah, just a little flurry. I think that's cool. - Okay. Cool.
Pete put it in the film, and I'm so happy that he did, I was wrong.
The audience loved it.
BLOOM: That's one of those moments when as an actor, you go to the cinema...
...and you think back on what you did...
...and you see the magic that the visual effects guys have created...
...and you're like, "Wow, I had no idea it was gonna be that cool."
BOSWELL: Here we are today, doing the sequence between Bolg and Tauriel.
She puts up a really good fight with some Orcs and with Bolg...
...but she gets knocked around.
It's actually more scary if, bang, another one, bang!
Another one, you know, it's like kind of... It's more relentless.
[ALL GRUNTING]
Your ears are melting from the sweat. You feel how sticky they are?
- Oh, my God. - I have melting ears.
I'm sweating them off in all of my stunt work.
WONG: Evangeline was good enough, and she had to rehearse...
...we were confident in her ability enough that she did all the fighting.
- You like beating up the boys, don't you? - Ha, ha. I do.
All right, okay, let's shoot.
Stand by and action.
There was one kind of major mishap with the stunts.
Um, and it was my fault completely.
Somewhere around Orc 4, I think.
There's a moment where Tauriel was supposed to evade a blow to her head...
...she ducks it, and there's an Ores' fist coming at her head at full force.
You're coming in and somebody... You gotta duck, it's like this, you know, like...
- Whoa! JACKSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It should be cool.
And, of course, one take I forgot to duck.
[ALL GRUNTING]
His fist went straight into my head at full speed.
And I almost KO'd. I was seeing stars and I was starting to kind of swoon.
And Peter's calling from the tent.
Are you good, Evi?
LILLY: Phew.
[CHUCKLING]
I was like, "Yeah, I'm fine, let's go again. Let's just go again, let's just get going."
And I just remember thinking, "Oh, my God, you cannot pass out.
There'll be so much shit to pay if you pass out.
You have to stay on your feet."
From then on, of course, the great thing was...
...all the stunt guys were, like, giving me high-fives and patting my back...
...and they were, like, "Okay, you're one of us now.
You took a hit for the team."
[GRUNTING]
One of the scariest, you know, gut-wrenching days for me...
...was the stunt fight component of the battle between Bolg and Tauriel.
I mean, that was the first time I've done stunts that big.
- Smashes her head into here. - Oh, evil. Yeah, okay, bang.
WONG: And he picks her up. Picks her up and then throws:
- Throws her there, which knocks her out. - Oh, yeah.
We're actually designing a fight for an Elf to potentially lose.
We've never had an Elf lose a fight before.
And that was done by my incredible stunt double Ingrid.
We've been rehearsing this scene probably for about a week and a half now.
And they've devised this system that kind of slams me into the wall...
...but catches me at the very last second.
So I slam into the wall but I don't slam through the wall.
- Okay. - Good.
MAN: You guys okay? - And three, two, one, action.
That's just one of those moments when your first instinct is, "Oh, shit."
MAN 1: Ingrid, are you all right?
Du BOIS: All of us were completely silenced. MAN 2: Yeah.
MAN 3: Come down here.
I personally thought that she broke her back.
- Same again. - Can I have a look at you? Here we go.
The smashing against the walls, it hurts a little, yeah.
MAN: Action!
When you know you're gonna get hit a certain way or you land a certain way...
...you can put your personal protective gear on.
Unfortunately, with the Elves, they have very slim costumes.
Quite streamlined, quite sleek, quite corseted.
There's not a lot of room under there for padding.
So this is the bomb.
It's this crazy gel stuff that was actually invented for figure skaters...
...and it has saved my spine so many times.
And this, whilst being elbow protection...
...also doubles as chicken fillets for the weekend.
I learned quickly, you don't do too many of those takes.
You are always running just with the human body and people get tired.
MAN: And cut.
She put her life and limb at risk, because that was a pretty dangerous stunt.
It's how we roll.
I'm not here for the kudos.
- Aren't you? - Yeah, I am, actually.
MAN: Moving the tree and reinstating the ground.
I love this set because it smells like home.
It smells like Canada.
Pine trees.
Du BOIS: All right, thank you. Here we go. Steadicams ready?
Let's bring Orlando. Thank you very much, sir.
My last scene that I shot would have been the scene with Orlando Bloom...
...where we're walking through the wreckage of Lake-town.
These Ores were different from the others.
They bore a mark I have not seen for a long time.
The mark of Gundabad.
Gundabad?
LILLY: Today, being my last day on set...
...Team Evangeline is wearing the official Team Evangeline sweatshirts...
...with the official Team Evangeline logo on the back.
"Team Evangeline, leave the self-absorption to me."
It was a running joke that, you know, "It's all about me, guys.
It's all about me," because on a film set...
...you've got all these fantastic experienced people...
...who are running around and doing things like tying up your corset.
And it's just such a ridiculous thing that I had to make fun of it all the time.
And so my team was walking around set that day with these sweatshirts on...
...and everyone thought that my team had made these sweaters to make fun of me.
And they were like, "No, no, she made them to make fun of herself."
No, no, I think it's awesome. I think it's great.
It is good.
- She can take the piss out of herself. MAN: Yeah, I love people like that.
WOMAN: Yeah. Ha-ha-ha.
I ride North. Will you come with me?
To where?
To Gundabad.
MAN 1: All right. Let's out.
All right, thank you very much, guys.
And it is Evangeline's last shot on The Hobbit.
[ALL CHEERING]
MAN 2: All right.
Thank you.
So once I wrapped, me and my team, we poured some champagne.
And then I was called over to the unit where Peter was working.
LILLY: Oh, what's this? - I can hold that.
LILLY: Thank you. Should I open it...?
[ALL LAUGHING]
- This better be what I hope it is. JACKSON: It's a ribbon.
That's a ribbon.
LILLY: Not this.
Ooh. It is. Ha, ha.
[ALL CHEERING]
They gave me a pair of Tauriel's pants which I have worn out to the club since.
They're really great on my ass.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Fantastic.
They were really sexy.
And they gave me a set of Tauriel's daggers.
- Oh, you know what? - Yeah.
You know what's so great about this is, urn, last time I left...
- Yes? - ...and you guys didn't give me a pair of these...
...I just stole a pair. I said, "Well, I should I have a pair, shouldn't I?"
- So now I have my very own real pair... - They're real, yeah.
- These are metal. - They're metal, yeah.
- I've never seen a metal pair. - No.
This is brand-new.
Watch out, Peter. Watch out, I had champagne.
It's been a long time since I've found a place where I felt like I could express myself...
...and be the best version of myself and in New Zealand, I've found that.
MAN: Yay, Evangeline.
Ho! One, two, three, Team Evangeline. Whoo!
Sorry, buddy.
This is all a gag.
This is the last day. "What can we get him to do on the last day?"
Give us a version of it like you're leaping high in the air.
Right foot, yeah.
And then, okay. Now, let's have a look.
Ow. Ha-ha-ha.
We told you not to bite.
We're making me look beautiful to kill Bolg. It's been a long time coming...
...and he's finally gonna get it.
Don't stab yourself in the nuts, for God's sakes.
Oh, look at that. Dead-on.
I believe that was my last shot, like, stabbing his pea-brain as Pete called it.
JACKSON: That's good. That was a good stab. - And he goes, "Okay, I'm gonna get this again."
- Okay. - You know what I mean? A slightly different...
...kind of timing to it. Anyway, just line up. BLOOM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The coup de grace.
There's a couple of gags I wanted to play on Orlando.
One is that Lord of the Rings." Fellowship theme that Howard Shore composed.
Such a great theme.
You want the:
[MAN HUMMING]
- Yeah. - All right. Thanks, guys. Standing by to shoot.
And I secretly asked the Sound Department to cue up that Fellowship theme.
Didn't tell Orlando.
And they were trying to find it because nobody had it.
Can't believe it's just Peter and Fran...
...the whole crew of The Lord of the Rings and nobody had the ****ing track.
- The actual soundtrack. Can you not actually...? - The Lord of the Rings...
- Maybe it's not on iTunes.
JACKSON: Hang on a second. We just got an issue. Hang on.
[BLOOM WHISTLING]
I think Orlando was wondering, "What the hell is going on back there?"
Because we're like, oh, you know.
- Go to The Lord of the Rings... - This guy right here, 85 people right now.
On double time, waiting for this guy to find the ****ing song.
And it was hilarious, because we had to find it on YouTube.
- Yeah, he knows to go on the three, two, one. - Is it going three, two, one...?
JACKSON: It goes on the two. MAN: It goes on the two.
I got it.
MAN: A marker.
Three, two, one. Action.
["LORD OF THE RINGS" THEME MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]
Go. Go on. Go.
JACKSON: And I think he really got into it...
...because he just about drove the knife into the head and twisted it...
...and moved, all with the beat of the music.
It was a little heartbreaking to have the music and have that whole thing go on like that.
- It was kind of cool. MAN: Hey, thanks very much.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
That's why we had to wait...
...because we were furiously downloading it off of the Net.
It was great, I was like, "Ah." Memories come flooding back.
JACKSON: So that's Orlando's last shot, guys. Ridiculous.
Last shot as Legolas.
MAN: Orlando.
[ALL CHEERING]
I got Orcrist on wrap.
- No. JACKSON: Yes.
Do I get the beast?
[BLOOM ROARS]
The steely.
I got Orcrist and I got my quiver, which was very cool.
No.
MY quiver.
Oh, God. Love you, thank you so much.
Coming back to New Zealand, it's interesting because I've had this amazing journey...
...since this whole thing started.
And some of you were here when we were 10 years younger, 14 years younger.
And the thing that's always struck me was just the spirit of New Zealand, the people...
...all of you guys, it's sort of something that I'm so grateful...
...to have been able to come back and experience again.
And I hope it'll stand me through for the next 15, 20 years...
...or hopefully, more because the genuine truth and reality of all of you people...
...is just something that the rest of the world only gets to experience mostly...
...through watching Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit.
And that's great. Thanks to you, Pete. I love you all. Thank you so much.
Courtesy of Orlando, there's some beers for everybody somewhere around here...
...and a bunch of Burger King. BLOOM: Yeah, beers.
It was something that Viggo used to do, actually.
Viggo was very good at buying beers...
...and making sure that, you know, you show your appreciation.
So I certainly took that from him.
- Do it kind of... I mean, you can do... - Okay.
Each time I do it, you can do something a bit different. Okay.
RIVERS: I remember on Orlando's last day...
...Pete doing the "They're-taking-the-Hobbits-to-Isengard" thing.
They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard.
Saruman.
One of the things that came out of Lord of the Rings and Legolas...
...was this spoof online of me taking the Hobbits to Isengard.
And somebody had done, like, this really cheesy funny music...
...then cut me in and out.
[SINGING] They're taking the Hobbits To Isengard-gard-gard-gard
And so we just decided to do like a little continuation of that with him...
...joining in with the edited piece.
They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard
To Isengard, to Isengard, to Isengard
They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard
Isengard-gard-gard-gard
I think the beers already came out by the time we were filming it.
- What did you say? - The Hobbits, the Hobbits
The Hobbits, the Hobbits, the Hobbits
To Isengard
To Isengard, to Isengard, to Isengard
To Isengard, to Isengard
BLOOM: I love doing that stuff, you know.
Any time I can take the mick out of myself, I'm bang up for it.
If you can't have a few laughs, when can you?
For all intents and purposes, that was my last thing as Legolas.
Which is kind of ironic and kind of cool, really.
Ugh. Producer's been filming? Not a good way to start the day, is it?
OLSSEN: As we got towards the end of the shoot...
...some days, very ambitious targets were set for what we could achieve.
It's gonna take place here.
OLSSEN: Like the day that we were to shoot both the Bilbo-Thorin reconciliation scene...
...along with Gandalf and Bilbo's final scene, just the two of them.
And that day stretched on...
...and on as we attempted to achieve both of those things.
ARMITAGE: The final moments of Thorin's life...
...that's one of the scenes that you think about from the minute I went in to meet Peter...
...with the potential to play this role because it was very moving to me when I read the book.
It's a very slight rewrite on the scene as it exists in the book.
We moved it from Dale to a more personal place...
...which is on the battlefield so that the two characters, it was just them...
...and also that Bilbo could hold on to the notion that maybe he could save him.
ARMITAGE: I remember the day we shot it...
...and I just asked if I could just lay on the ground...
...and I didn't want anyone to come in and touch me and do makeup checks.
And they did. They left me there on the ground.
We lay Richard down and dressed the snow right up to him.
And the last thing I did was put a big pool of blood...
...coming out from underneath him.
You know, it was just one of those scenes where you step back...
...and you look at the monitor and you feel really content.
It looked like a painting.
ARMITAGE: It was kind of spiritual.
I just lay there and looked at the roof of the sound stage and listened to all the sounds.
FREEMAN: It was one of those scenes where people are quite hushed around it.
Because it was two and a half years whatever after we started shooting...
...it's the end of this character's journey.
It was kind of given some weight, I think, on the set.
We won't thresh the wide shot too much.
We'll just do, you know, a half a dozen takes, give you guys a chance to experiment a bit.
Yeah.
Ultimately, I think that they wanted it to feel as real as possible...
...so that he didn't have time.
- Bilbo. BILBO: Lie Still.
No, don't move.
I'm glad you are here.
ARMITAGE: When the characters don't have time to say what they need to say...
...that creates great drama.
BILBO: You're not going anywhere, you hear me? Do you hear me? You are going to live.
I take back my words and my deeds at the gate.
And it was kind of the culmination of their very rocky friendship, you know.
They've really been up and down the mountain with each other...
...you know, figuratively and literally.
ARMITAGE: The most difficult words for Thorin to say to Bilbo were:
"I'm sorry that I've led you into such peril."
It took me right back to the very first scene that I shot with him in Bag End...
...and the disdain with which Thorin held the Hobbit...
...yet their whole success has rested on this seemingly insignificant person...
...which is what I think Tolkien is writing about.
I think it's the whole reason Tolkien wrote these books.
It's his need to express that the simplest single person...
...can somehow effect big change.
I think that that's captured in that one moment...
...when Thorin apologizes and says thank you to him.
You did what only a true friend would do.
Forgive me.
I was too blind to see it.
I am so sorry...
...that I have led you into such peril.
I remember at the beginning of the day saying to the Sound guys, "Please, just get this."
[GASPING]
Lie still, lie still. Lie still. Don't move. Don't move.
ARMITAGE: That fine trembling sensitivity that the voice has...
...in those very emotional moments would've been almost impossible to replicate...
...after the fact.
[PANTING]
I'm glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin.
Each and every one of them.
It is far more than any Baggins deserves.
JACKSON: That's the point that you know that you're gonna end on good terms.
And when he gives it to you, you can kind of relax and fade away in that last speech.
- Beautiful. - Yeah. Okay, cool.
ARMITAGE: "Will you forgive me before I die?" I think that's really the peak of Thorin's journey.
Farewell...
...Master Burglar.
Go back to your books.
And your armchair.
Plant your trees.
Watch them grow.
If more people...
...valued home above gold...
...the world would be a merrier place.
No. No, no, no. No.
Thorin. Thorin. Thorin.
Thorin. Just one more moment.
Just wait one more moment.
The Eagles are here, Thorin.
Hmm? Hmm?
The Ea...
It's quite sweet.
- Thank you. - All right?
- That was great. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was very, very good.
I made a little wooden cross to mark the place where we shot the scene.
And over the course of the day, um, some people have laid tributes...
...which I think you should take a look at.
This is the grave of Thorin Oakenshield, who is also now known as Thoza.
There's been some really nice flowers made with some cable ties.
And I don't know what this is made of, but it says, "RIP Thorin."
ARMITAGE: By the end of the day, people would come and lay little things, little tributes...
[MAN SOBBING]
...uh, on the cross which I found very moving, but that's the Kiwi way.
- Anyway, that's that. WOMAN: No.
There's an important little scene where Bilbo and Gandalf have to reunite...
...and we didn't have much time to film it...
...because it was sort of the end of the day and a long day.
It was Ian McKellen's very last day.
He was literally booked on a plane back to England the following day.
And as it was, by the time we knocked on his door to tell him to come to set...
...it was, like, 11:00 at night.
I'm sorry.
JACKSON: Everyone was exhausted. We'd been filming since 7 in the morning.
Quite honestly, everyone wanted to get home.
But we also wanted to make a good thing of this last scene.
Originally, that scene had dialogue in it, and, you know, it was a lot longer.
JACKSON: We got on set and we looked at this dialogue...
...that Philippa and Fran had written. Not bad, but the three of us were talking...
...and somehow collectively, it was, "Well, we don't have much time.
Do we really wanna say all these words?"
And then Ian says, "Oh, there won't be anything more powerful than silence."
I don't think there should be much comfort in this.
- No. - This is...
- No. McKELLEN: There are no words to say...
...because there are no words to say. - No.
On the battlefield:
- "Oh, it'll be all right, sonny." - Yeah.
- It's not. - I think it's two...
...almost stone-faced people. - Yes.
How do you sum up what's just happened...
...and who we've just lost in a great one-liner or whatever between me and Gandalf?
I think that might be all right if I'm looking at you.
But you're in your own...
I think the less we do, the better.
And so we just shot the scene without any words being spoken...
...because for them it's all about the emotion.
JACKSON: Ian? - Yeah?
You know what this is the finish of, is back in Bag End at the beginning...
...where Bilbo says, "Can you promise me that I'll come back?"
- Yeah. - And you say:
No.
And if you do...
...you will not be the same.
It's one of my favorite scenes to do, and it's one of my favorite scenes in the film.
Because of its, uh, lack of words, actually.
Sometimes, some of the best-written scenes don't have dialogue in.
Know what I mean? It's still good writing.
You know what I mean? Because it's economical writing.
That was nice. That's nice. That's good.
McKELLEN: Suddenly, out of the very quiet scene of us just sitting there...
...we were aware that the studio was full of people...
...who were waiting to say, "well done" and "goodbye," really.
Du BOIS: Everybody wanted to be there.
I mean, everyone wanted to be there for his last take as Gandalf.
I felt like I wanted to be there just to see it because he might never put that hat on again.
MILSOM: I mean, thinking about it at the time that this is it for...
...one of the most well-known sort of characters in movie history, really.
This is not just the last time Gandalf is doing a scene in The Hobbit.
It's the last time he'll be in Middle-earth.
So it was a huge thing.
This is honestly the last of these films.
[ALL LAUGHING]
With me in it, anyway.
- Yeah. - No, no, no.
It is the end of a long journey, which began, for me, in last century, 1999.
JACKSON: Ian was the iconic Tolkien character, Gandalf, the Wizard, the hat and the robes.
He's the icon of these movies.
Soto see him shoot his last shot...
...wearing that costume and wearing that beard and hair...
...and to know that he was never ever gonna be seen in that costume again...
...you can't help but find those days very, very powerful.
Okay. Here we go, Ian.
This is your last take as Gandalf.
Action.
McKELLEN: The filming of these films has been a huge part of my life.
Because of the friends I've made.
And the distances I've traveled and the time I've spent.
JACKSON: It's so powerful that you can't actually put words to it.
I mean, what can you say that really adds up, you know, to 13 years of experience?
Good and bad, and funny and sad, and, I mean...
...you know, you can't, I mean, you just can't.
[CHATTERING]
[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]
Come on!
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
JACKSON: And it's something that he knows what that was like, I know what it was like.
A lot of the crew know what it was like, and that's how it will always remain...
...just as a life experience for us that can't really be put into words.
Okay, so let's give Ian a big round of applause, everybody.
[ALL APPLAUDING AND CHEERING]
[MOUTHS] Thank you.
JACKSON: Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai.
Again?
Again.
- Yes. - Thank you very, very much.
Thank you very, very much. And a lovely scene to end on. A lovely scene to end on.
McKELLEN: When I'd finally finished...
...there was a moment of recognition and celebration...
...and relief, mingled with regret that it was over.
But mission accomplished.
- Yep. - Right.
- Hand over the pipe. - Otherwise, I'll be selling them.
[JACKSON LAUGHS]
McKELLEN: It isn't just the "Oh, no more Gandalf for me."
It's saying goodbye to all those colleagues.
- Good. MAN: Nice.
- Is it good? WOMAN: It is good.
McKELLEN: I don't feel I've said goodbye to Gandalf...
...because I'm constantly reminded by people who have enjoyed the films...
...that Gandalf is alive and well.
Although, quite where he is at the moment, I don't know. Heh.
Up to mischief somewhere.
- Good to see you, guys. Welcome back. - Whoo!
- Rock on. - Yes, yes.
HUNTER: I was really excited to get back.
And, you know, it was a short spurt. Wasn't gonna go for months.
And, you know, really keen to get back and to do some fighting.
BROPHY: And everyone had stayed in training.
No one let it go. Everyone knew we were gonna have to come back...
...and be ready for those pick-ups. MAN: And action.
McTAVISH: That was the real balls-to-the-wall, hard-yard stuff.
ARMITAGE: I felt like when Thorin was in fight mode...
...that I really became the character...
...and I was kind of waiting for him to emerge onto the battlefield.
But like the character, I was forced to wait for that moment.
THORIN: Will you follow me...
...one last time?
MAN: You good?
Okay, nice, and get yourself stable.
And you good? And action.
One of the last hand props that we were asked to build was the Horn of Erebor.
JACKSON: I want to herald the arrival of Thorin and the Dwarves...
...by having Bombur step up onto the parapet and blow an enormous big Dwarf horn.
[JACKSON MIMICS HORN BLOWING]
TAYLOR: It was realized it was needed very, very late in the piece.
So we actually had to deliver it in a matter of a few days.
Peter just wanted some giant crazy looking horn thing that... Yeah.
We explored some different ideas like to have it made out of metal...
...and, like, it's an animal horn which I think it ended up being some giant behemoth creature.
The scale of maybe the beasts of burden...
...that towed Grond up to the front gates of Minas Tirith.
Mona and I have been carving the horn.
So Bombur blows in there. What sort of noise do you think it makes?
[MIMICS HORN BLOWING]
Yeah, that amplified a thousand times.
So in the next...
...three minutes, it goes off for fiber glassing...
...and Mona and I will put a layer of epoxy resin onto it.
We finished it maybe an hour before it was needed on set.
Normally, we would make extremely light copies...
...meaning that something as big as that, it was almost the size of a mini car...
...you would be able to pick up with a single hand.
HUNTER: This is bloody awkward.
Very sadly for Stephen, that was not to be the case.
They didn't have time to make a lightweight version. This was fiberglass.
So it was quite heavy.
It was bloody heavy.
I reckon I can get this in my hand luggage on the way home.
DAVIS: This thing is huge.
We quickly set up some wires to help support this, um, massive horn.
I decided I was actually going to try and hold most of the weight myself.
Though it was a little bit heavier on my hands...
...it gave me control of where my center of gravity was.
JACKSON: Hey, Stephen, how are you, sir? - Good, mate.
HUNTER: It was a special day.
You know, I got a great close up and it was quite an emotional scene.
Peter came up to me and said:
"Look, you know, do you need some tear things?"
And I said, "No, no, I got this, you know, I'll use my acting.
JACKSON: Okay, we are rolling.
So when you're ready, Stephen.
Just long emotional notes.
Long emotional notes.
[MIMICS HORN BLOWING]
Okay, good. Thank you.
Okay, that's great. Hey, well done, Stephen. Okay.
TAYLOR: I loved it. It made for a great moment...
...and in the film, it was such a heroic moment.
[HORN BLOWING]
[BELL TOLLING]
JACKSON: The intention at one stage was to create this armor...
...and that's what they would go into battle with at the end.
We just thought that they should... Within Erebor...
...they should adopt a much more regal attitude.
I mean, Thorin is the king, but the others are knights essentially.
Like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table...
...they're all his warrior knights.
So we wanted to create that imagery.
Regal armor is an outstanding work of art.
Fearsome and beautiful, just beautiful.
Richard Taylor and his genius crew from Weta came along with the armor...
...and, boy, it looked good.
O'GORMAN: And the first impression when you see us...
...that's an amazing work of art, really, that I get to wear.
Then you put it on, you're like: "I can't actually do anything."
Oh, this is so comfortable. Wow, it's like pajamas.
I can't wait to move around and see, can I fight in this?
Because it doesn't look... You know what I mean?
It was sort of difficult to move around with the cloak and everything...
...but I loved it so much.
I remember a lot of people saying, "We can lose it if it makes it difficult to move."
And I remember being adamant.
No, I really wanna wear this for as long as possible.
Clearly, we made the mistake of showing...
...that we could cope with the heavy costume in film one.
So that was almost like a gauntlet being thrown down to the Costume Department.
After each fitting, they must have gone:
"I just had a fitting with Graham McTavish. At the end of it, he was walking.
Get back to the drawing board. I wanna see that man crushed."
So they decided to give Dwalin...
...a light utility vehicle to wear.
If I fell over in this, that would be it.
The rest of the Dwarves would just be standing laughing at me.
Thank you. Thanks very much. Oh, sorry. Sorry.
I disabled the cameraman.
Where someone like Stephen Hunter was kind of encased inside a tank.
Bombur's armor, it's like a small boat actually. Um, that kind of goes around him.
- You were splendid. - Thank you.
I feel sexy.
No, it wasn't real armor, it was lightweight.
But, heh, it wasn't lightweight.
Weighs a bit. Weighs a bit, doesn't it?
HADLOW: The only way to rest when you're off set was to lie down in it on a mat.
And I just, fwomp, and fall asleep in it.
And of course this was originally the armor that we were going to do the battle in.
I couldn't have fought in it.
You've got a lot. It doesn't look restricted at all, really.
That's it.
You couldn't actually lift a weapon.
Couldn't lift your arms above your head.
No, I can't.
MAN: And it quickly became apparent that this was not gonna be practical.
It was a great day on set when the decision came...
...that the Dwarves were gonna shed their armor.
I understood that we needed to see our Dwarves...
...that we had followed for the entire journey...
...and burying them in armor...
...where you really only see this part of them was a little bit unsatisfying.
McTAVISH: They knew that what they were going into...
...when they left Erebor to join the battle...
...was essentially a suicide mission.
So why did they need to wear all this protection?
It's just gonna slow them down.
You know, you're gonna go to your deaths, really.
I mean, you want to.
You'd rather go to your deaths and help your fellow Dwarves than sit here like cowards.
If you decide to do this...
...understand you may not return.
MAN: They just get rid of defense.
They cast it aside, so that they're light...
...and they're able to move quickly and do what they need to do.
They're gonna throw off all this sort of...
...pomp and ceremony I suppose and just make it more raw and gritty.
Get rid of that armor. Let's get down and dirty.
When we were told about this casting off the armor for battle...
...from a design point of view, I could work closely with Bob Buck...
...to create a stripped back version so they took off all the heavy components.
The garments you see them wearing...
...was actually what they're wearing underneath all the plate armor.
That's the stripped down version is what they run out in...
...because that was a more practical way in which these guys could actually even fight.
Yes.
[SCATTING]
That's really light and I can fight in it I think.
So, uh, yeah, it's, urn, a nice way to die in this.
Peter's rationale and ultimately a very, very good one...
...is the Dwarves going into war...
...with their chests bared.
Lead on.
And there's something extraordinary beautiful in that.
And there's something very powerful in it.
There you go. You've gotta get rid of all your armor.
Richard Taylor is in tears over in the corner.
- Yeah... - The camera is over there.
Maybe he's wearing all the armors.
Well, he's wearing all the armors, he just put it all on.
JACKSON: You look at a still photo of those guys wearing that armor...
...and it's absolutely superb.
It's as good as you could ever hope it to be.
I mean, it was the greatest suits of armor ever made for a motion picture.
It's not untrue.
TAYLOR: But Peter has to make those hard decisions...
...because if it doesn't work for the story then it doesn't work at all.
And that's why these things get cut away and the film's better for it.
[DWARVES YELLING]
I remember the day when we shot the scene where the Dwarves emerge from the mountain.
We were very aware that this was a very iconic moment.
MAN: Finally, the Dwarves are going out there...
...and delivering the first blows of the fight.
Pete had laid down this enormous kind of mud track in a soundstage.
I remember glancing over it, Graham McTavish and Jed and all the other lads...
...and it was such a good feeling.
Richard said:
"I know you've been waiting to do this thing for two years and here we are.
Let's get it done."
They were ready to run as well. They'd all been waiting for a moment like this...
...where they could finally show some heroism.
This is the moment we've been building up to, the three months that we did in boot camp.
The training, we did all the way through it.
The fight training and physical training with the stunt guys.
All of that was focused in that one moment.
We've waited two and a half years for this charge.
We have.
ARMITAGE: And I've just told Peter to close the dock doors...
...because, uh, some of us are worried, we might keep running and never come back.
- Yeah. Yeah. - They do.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - This is it.
It's goose bumps. Hairs on the back of my head were standing up.
This is probably the most exciting day I've had in a long, long time.
This is gonna be awesome.
Here we go. Okay, guys, you're going to war. Let's hear the Dwarf battle cry.
Come on, wind yourselves up.
[ALL YELLING]
We'd all start doing the Dwarf chant and pumping each other up.
[ALL YELLING]
It's a bit like doing the haka before a rugby game. That's what it felt like.
[ALL YELLING]
JACKSON: Here you go. Three, two, one. Action.
[YELLS]
[ALL YELLING]
- Come on, you bastards. - Ha-ha-ha.
JACKSON: Give me a sword and shield.
Yeah, we lifted the roof off with our yell that morning. It was fantastic.
The thing you have to remember about film is it's forever.
Once you've committed that to celluloid, that will last longer than you live.
And you want to make sure that when it comes to the moment that it's being recorded...
...you are giving every ounce of your energy and concentration into that moment.
And that was a moment where we did that.
- Ha-ha-ha. - Great.
- This is awesome. - Ha-ha-ha.
You know the scene that we've been waiting two years to shoot...
...I think that was my stunt double.
I can do it now if you'd like.
Like charge at the camera.
[YELLS]
McTAVISH: When we leave Erebor and the wedge hits the Orcs for the first time...
...we choreographed with all the fight guys and stunt doubles...
...a very intricate sequence.
It went from V formation to a criss cross formation...
...and so to show that these guys knew each other so well...
...that they were a tactical fighting team.
It was a dance.
There's a rhythm to the way that the Dwarves fight as a team.
Look, they're having a go at Fili and Kili.
Oh! I bet that hurt. Ha-ha-ha.
Look, there's Dwalin.
Watch out... Oh, too late.
- We should do some fighting. - Come on.
[YELLING]
[GRUNTS]
[LAUGHING]
Marky Lee was Bombur's stuntman there.
And he jumped in the air and double kicked a guy in the chest.
I'm kind of just breathing out as he lands on me.
I feel like one of those cartoons...
...that just... flattens...
...and you gotta pump me up.
Oh, Jesus.
JACKSON [OVER PA]:
[CREW LAUGHS]
Fantastic. It's all part of the job.
So, you know, we're doing our serious fight.
This is the pinnacle of our boot camp training and it's a very serious matter.
Work it up, Dwarves.
And then, the stunt guys come in...
...dressed like big cartoon characters from a theme park ride.
Yee-ha!
They looked hilarious actually.
The stunt team had helmets on with tall snorkels on the top.
- Noodle high-five. - High-five.
Snorkels.
We put these noodles on their heads because that's the actual height of the Ores...
...because of course our guys are Dwarves.
And so in relation to our dwarves...
...the Orcs are gonna be 7 and a half foot tall.
O'GORMAN: That was to keep our eye lines up.
You wanna look naturally at someone's eyes when you're doing the fight...
...but actually you have to raise it up.
When you're ready, boys.
Come on, we're gonna **** you up. Green is so last season.
Get out of the way.
We are cutting a swathe through you bastards.
[DWARVES YELLING]
JACKSON: And cut.
I'm sorry. Just too powerful.
See you maybe a bit later during the week. We don't know. We'll know on Thursday.
Kiss me.
- Love you. - Love you too.
Actually there was a note on the call sheet yesterday, which said "caution."
"Any Dwarf may be called at any time for anything."
So we're in the sort of last stage of just ticking off all these little moments.
Big day today. This is it.
Biggest day in Bifur's life.
We should have a prize for whoever comes up with the best thing.
We've gotta come up with a great way for Bifur to lose the ax on his head.
MAN: Oh, okay.
The prize for this challenge that he issued...
...was a frozen chicken for some reason.
MAN: It's not a very good prize. - No. Not if you're vegetarian, no.
And we all ran back to our desks and to our workshops...
...and just started spinning ideas...
...and trying to come up with that that moment that might live in the film.
This is a, um, quest for the prize.
That was our list there. We ran out of ideas.
[CREW LAUGHING]
JACKSON: Everybody's trying to win the frozen chicken.
I think eventually Peter must have won his own prize...
...because he came up with the idea of the head-butt.
Their heads kind of just... collapse.
- And it's like a moment... - Yeah.
A moment of tug of war. Who's gonna win, you know.
We'll keep the chicken in the freezer just for me.
It was just amazing to get to the set one morning...
...and then he had come up with this brilliant scenario.
Bifur does a head-butt right into the bloody Orc.
So now you've embedded your thing into the Orc's head.
So it should be like a rugby scrum and you better go over the cliff.
You and him, Bifur and Bofur end up on their backs on the top there.
And there is gonna be a line of dialogue for you.
The big question was not actually the physical sequence of the fighting, it was like:
What am I gonna say?
I'm waiting for his line.
But I'm hoping he's gonna either come out normal...
...or even worse than he was before. It'll be one or the other.
I didn't know I was speaking until lunchtime.
So I had to sort of, okay, I'm gonna get back in to my accent again.
Because I didn't use it for a year and a half, ha, ha.
Today is the day where they both actually get to speak in English...
...for the one and only time in the movie.
- You know where you can stick that? - Yeah.
- You know where you can stick that? - Ha-ha-ha.
It's pretty exciting to actually hear them speak.
You know where you can stick that. You know where you can stick that?
You know where you can stick that.
You know where you can stick that!
We had to give William Kircher some moment alone...
...because he was so excited about his sequence.
You know where you can stick that? You know where you can stick that?
MAN: And William was on a different plane on that day, I think.
[WOMAN OVER PHONE]: You know where you can stick that?
You've got one line in the whole trilogy, you're gonna, you know...
You wanna make it count.
Face it. My character has an ax in his head. I've carried that through the films.
And to be able to say a line after so long of speaking in Dwarvish, and not saying a lot...
...it was a very, very exciting day for me.
By Durin, you've lost your ax.
[WHIMPERS]
No, he's not.
There you go, cousin.
And it's the first time that Bombur speaks.
And the only time that Bombur speaks.
- Thank you. - He did it beautifully.
She stood by me weeks and weeks and weeks.
Two and a half years ago.
Two and a half years ago, weeks and weeks of basically trying to sound like Jimmy Nesbit.
- All worth it. - All worth it in the end.
- Good on you. - And we'll ADR it next year.
- Okay. - You know it.
The chariot sequence is just a gag-filled chase sequence really...
...that does fulfill the purpose of getting them up to Ravenhill.
But it does it in a very long and elaborate, ha, kind of way...
...which is really just a bit of indulgence.
It is very indulgent, I have to admit as a filmmaker, but it doesn't mean it's not fun.
In the final days of the film in the workshop...
...we thought we had run our course.
We naturally thought that this was going to be CG and we were lamenting the fact...
...that we were having to wrap up everything. There wasn't anything left to do.
And then we got the phone call.
Zane Weiner gave us a call and said:
"Hey, guys, do you think you can build the chariot for us?"
And it was the last thing we were asked to do.
[CHUCKLES]
You know, this is a kid's dream come true...
...building a chariot for Dwarves that has weapons on it...
...and it's hard to imagine that anyone on our crew didn't get involved...
...because it was such an exciting thing to make.
The fact that our swansong in the two trilogies of Middle-earth...
...was being offered the opportunity...
...to build something physical and pretty epic was really special to us.
We're eight days in. We've got another three or four days up our sleeves.
Oh, my God.
I mean, I've been amazed by a lot of things in that place but that just blew my head off.
- Wow. You must have such fun. - This is great.
This is fantastic. This is like a dream job. It's like building a Dwarven hot rod.
- Yeah. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
McTAVISH: Hold tight, lads!
Hold on!
So here we are on the set of Top Gear Middle-earth.
So far we've taken a Fiat Punto and we've done some minor adaptions.
Obviously we put on some new wheels, extensive chassis modification...
...and also mounted a front cannon.
Give me!
We're really hoping that we're going to get from Wellington to Dargaville in record time.
Nothing to worry about. Go back to your homes.
When I found out that I would be at the front, on this massive crossbow...
...shooting at trolls and Wargs, I couldn't wait to do it.
Oh, yeah!
The joy was palpable.
I guess he was supposed to be looking angry but he was just like:
- Yeah. - For him it was like, "I get to do this."
And I know that Graham will buy that chariot toy.
As soon as it comes out, Graham's gonna buy it.
When his wife and kids go to sleep, he's gonna get out and be like, pew, pew, pew!
I just know who he is. He loves that stuff so much.
JACKSON: Sharpening.
Focus on the Orcs ahead, everybody. Orcs ahead.
Peter's direction from behind the monitor that day was especially funny.
JACKSON: Balin, blades. Balin, blades.
"Fast. Yeah, they're chopping up. Now you're chopping their heads off."
JACKSON: Chop, chop, chop.
"There's a troll! There's a troll behind you!"
[GRUNTING AS TROLL]
Coming down. Smashing, smashing. Nice.
[GROWLS]
It's, um... His enthusiasm rubs off, you know?
JACKSON: Chop, chop, chop. - That was good fun.
[LAUGHING]
Well, we got a script delivery from Philippa and Fran.
- Hot off the press. McTAVISH: Oh.
Peter dutifully came out, read it out.
"Graham, you're shouting out. 'Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it."'
And Kili says, "Where?"
This is Philippa and Fran.
And you just yell, "Aim for..."
"Aim for his jambags."
- Oh, my God. - Yes. Yes. Yes.
Please, God.
"Aim at his jambags."
And then... And then you're up there aiming.
And you yell back, "It doesn't have any jambags."
[ALL LAUGHING]
Oh, my God.
I think we should run those lines a couple of times...
...just to get it out of the way.
JACKSON: Action.
[JACKSON GROWLING]
- Come on, shoot it! - Where?
Aim at its jambags!
It doesn't have any jambags!
JACKSON: Okay, let's cut. Good.
Lunchtime. Going to lunch.
I go over to Philippa who's having lunch, sit down...
...and the first thing I say is, "Fantastic. Love that line."
"Which line is that, darling?"
"The jambags. Aim at his jambags. Genius."
And she said, "Jambags"?
It's "yambags."
Wow. Great.
Fran and I were trying to come up with a euphemism for a certain part of...
...what we would imagine would be a normal anatomy on any male species.
We found an old archaic term...
...which we thought was hilarious called yambags.
And I went back and told Peter.
And I've seen him laugh a lot.
But that's one of the moments that I saw him laugh the most.
He could not stop laughing. He thought this was fantastic.
I think jambags are better.
Much more descriptive.
You know what you're talking about with jambags.
It doesn't have any jambags!
- Duck! - Kili!
And action.
[GRUNTING]
Yeah, there was an awful lot of swords in hand and a lot of fighting.
I, of course have a stunt Bilbo, Brett.
He helped me on the sword fighting, fitness, all that stuff.
BRETT: Working with Martin has been amazing.
He was good at remembering choreography...
...and, uh, did all the fight work, and a lot of gags actually he did himself.
Spin. Break it.
Brett is very, very positive, and I found him great to work with.
He's kind of had backgrounds in other things like in Thai boxing and stuff like that.
So not only could he **** you up...
...but he's still a really nice bloke.
Do you know what I mean? He's very un-warrior-like in that way.
He's not like a tough guy but he is... He's a very tough guy.
Yeah, I really liked him very much.
I mean, he was always very... Just up for it.
Flogging. Getting a lesson.
If I see a table tennis table anywhere, I want to play on it.
It's like crack. Okay, if I see this table, I have to play.
And it was a good little workout.
- Horse *****. - 17-20. Come on, come on.
Stay with it.
My make-up artist Georgia, she didn't like me playing...
...because of course within 10 minutes, I'd be shvitzing like buggery.
And it would be undoing all of her work...
...and bits of prosthetic ears would be coming off...
...because the sweat would be taking the glue off, et cetera.
And I would... Like a schoolboy, look around and see if Georgia...
Because I'm quite scared of Georgia.
And I'd look around and just sort of see if the coast is clear, and I'd go and play.
I'm not bad, I'm not bad. And I'm determined.
Lovely shot there.
He refused to be beaten.
Oh, no, it's okay.
I mean, is there nothing he can't do?
Oh, that makes you sick, doesn't it?
It's great how you let him win.
I know, it's very important that we do that.
- I was told before... - They did that on purpose.
It's called The Hobbit. He should win.
JACKSON: And action.
FREEMAN: I remember filming the acorn scene very well.
That was my last scene, that was my last day.
JACKSON: Action.
THORIN: What is that?
In your hand.
CUMBERBATCH: That's fantastic, Martin.
Now, if you could just pretend that you've got your little winky in your hand...
...we can call it a wrap.
It's like This ls Your Life.
Oh, I know who that is. It's, um...
Oh, it's the guy who plays Smaug. What's his name?
- Oh, he's fantastic. Hello. CUMBERBATCH: Hello.
Thanks, buddy.
I always like jobs ending. I always love it when a job ends.
Especially when I've loved the job. I want it to end.
I want it to be over before it goes bad.
You know what I mean? Like before it has a reason for me to not like it.
JACKSON: I think we're good.
And that is a wrap on Martin Freeman as the Hobbit.
Yay!
Thank you. Thank you.
[CREW APPLAUDING]
- So that's it. It was a wonderful experience. - Thank you, Peter. For me too.
Thank you very much, folks. Thank you so much.
I'm tempted to say thank you and goodbye...
...but as we all know, it may be Au revoir...
...but in case it is goodbye, thank you so much.
It's been an amazing two and a half years.
And, yeah, I couldn't bring to words briefly enough, what it's meant to me...
...but rest assured it's meant an awful lot.
So thank you very much. Thank you.
- It's been our pleasure having you. - Thank you.
FREEMAN: They like giving presents, that lot.
You know, they're big soppy people, really, and I like that about them.
That's beautiful.
He's made me slightly better looking.
Look at that.
I'm a very unsentimental person when it comes to work.
And this wasn't really hitting me much.
You know like the magnitude of...
...it's my last day, you know, it wasn't really hitting me.
Until Graham McTavish, who plays Dwalin, came over and said:
"It's been really nice..." His voice started to break. I was like, oh, crap, I'm gonna go.
It came out of nowhere. It was really... It was really strange...
...and then it does suddenly hit you that:
Wow, I came here two and a half years ago with these people...
...and we've gone through a real thing together, you know.
See you, mate.
It was such an honor, man, and pleasure.
And from the Stunt Department...
...we have a hoodie for all your...
...hitting the deck.
But you basically did it all and came out unscathed.
It's been an honor, mate. It really has.
[CREW LAUGHING]
And a wave, a wave, a wave.
JACKSON: Thank you.
WOMAN: On the last day, everyone was in a very joyful mood.
[SCREECHES]
You know, they didn't need to look for the light at the end of the tunnel, they could see it.
Whoa!
Wee!
Well done, dear.
- Happy last day. - Same to you.
So 14 years of Tolkien, finishing today.
'98... 1998, I started...
MAN: You don't look any different then. - I know, I know. I know.
I feel a little different.
We're on. Peter will show up soon and we'll crack into it.
Last day. Hi, Diane.
DIANE:
"Our shoot day starts at 8.30 a.m...
...and is supposed to finish at 7:30 p.m.
I suspect we'll be working late. Whenever we work a long day...
...I joke with the crew that I'm just softening them up...
...for when Jim Cameron shows up in Wellington."
WOMAN: Where was it? DIANE: It's on Facebook.
Peter Jackson's Facebook page.
That's how we find things out.
JACKSON: I was awake about 4:00 in the morning.
Sol lay in bed thinking, "The last day. Oh, my God."
There was all those emotions going through. And I just, you know, thought:
"Well, why don't I just give myself something to preoccupy myself with?"
I think the first thing I did was filming my cat...
...who was saying goodbye to me on the way out the door that day.
[LAUGHING]
That's brilliant.
WOMAN: He's just getting dressed now and he said, "Same place...
...and I've got a blue shirt and a white shirt. Yeah, and green pants."
- Yeah. DIANE: And brown shoes.
At least he wears shoes now. I shouldn't... Cut.
[LAUGHING]
And I just thought it's a way for all these fans that have been following our movies...
...and the progress of our movies...
...you know, this was something that they can all just sort of participate in real time...
...or as close to real time as we could possibly do it...
...on the progress of our very, very final day of filming a Tolkien film.
[JACKSON READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
It's our very last day and all we have to do is that.
Actually, no, that's a lie because then there's that.
Hang on, hang on. That's more of a lie, because...
And once we've done that, we can have a few drinks and go home.
Yeah, well, the last day, um, Peter was shooting Thorin's death...
...while I was shooting Fili's death and Kili reacting to that.
And we also had to shoot Dwalin trying to get to Thorin before he's killed.
There's all these really emotionally charged scenes on the last day.
A lot of people were probably sad.
There was a lot of people who were actually glad and excited it was their last day as well.
It ended up being a really quirky day, you know?
There they are. There's my friends.
See, this is the kind of trouble that we need to get rid of.
Yeah, here they are. They're very naughty. Ha, ha.
[SQUAWKING]
WOMAN: You just missed, the penguins were here again.
WOMAN: No, there was two sitting on the stairs. - Right.
It was just a happy environment on set.
And, you know, generally it always was...
...but obviously, everyone was pretty happy to have made it to the end.
How could you resist? I mean, we had an ice lake right in front of us.
Watching them, watching them, watching them.
Stab through the fire.
It should be like you're pinned.
And then, suddenly, he's gonna explode out.
We've been piecing together the final moments of Thorin's battle with Azog.
Every single beat has to be choreographed...
...so that we can keep it safe and I don't get smacked in the face.
We did have an incident yesterday...
...where I managed to hit myself in the face with Orcrist...
...and it split the prosthetic.
[GRUNTING]
JACKSON: Are you okay, Rich?
ARMITAGE: I'm good. I just hit myself in the face with the sword.
ARMITAGE: And our on-set medic was convinced that I needed to go to hospital...
...because the skin had split and he thought that I might need stitches.
MAN: I think you're bleeding. ARMITAGE: Am I?
ARMITAGE: And we got to a point where I said, "You do realize I'm wearing a silicon face?"
And he hadn't realized that it was a prosthetic...
...which Kath Brown, the prosthetics artist, was very pleased about.
MAN: And action.
You guys need to shift your weight from side to side.
Because otherwise, it just becomes a bit of a dog's breakfast.
[GRUNTING]
ARMITAGE: Every job I've ever done...
...whenever there's a huge fight sequence which is remotely dangerous...
...they always leave it to the last couple of weeks.
I'm convinced it's because they're worried that they might actually kill the actor...
...and so if they do, they've still got the movie in the bag.
The thing about Richard that you have to understand is he gives everything.
[YELLING]
He had been doing this for like two weeks.
This battle was incredibly physical.
He was wearing unbelievably heavy costume.
ARMITAGE: The character for me was bedded into the ground so I needed the weight...
...but then, at the same time I would prefer to have been wearing a pair of Speedos...
...to fight in, but it wouldn't have looked the same, would it?
He also had the flu.
He wasn't well.
If it was a normal situation, he would phone in sick.
Probably stay in bed, and try to get over it.
Three, two, one. Action.
I know that Pete wasn't well in those last two weeks either.
His body had succumbed to the workload and he was suffering from a cold.
So both of our energy levels were being tested.
JACKSON: But I just thought, "God, I can't be sick at the same time as Richard is sick."
So I tried to really rev myself up, you know, to try to help him as much as I could.
ARMITAGE: You have to go deeper and deeper at the point when you are the most exhausted.
And both of us, I think, recognized that in each other...
...and were driving forward so it was relentless.
Okay, Rich, and three, two, one. Action.
ARMITAGE: We've managed to replicate the idea that when two people fight...
...they slowly lose their energy and the last moments are a real slog...
...and trying to get that fatigue into the body, which I really haven't had to act.
So, um, yeah.
[YELLING]
Excellent. Here we go. One more for luck.
MAN: The defining last day.
This one, this is the one.
- Just like the end of days. - Where's that first guy coming from?
- It's the end of days. - You know, the book of Revelations.
- The very last page. - Ha, ha.
JACKSON: With Thorin and Azog fighting on the ice...
...originally, we wanted to somehow have not just Thorin abandoned by everybody.
[GRUNTING]
And so we did a bit where Dwalin was seeing Thorin in trouble fighting...
...and trying to fight to get to him and not quite getting there in time.
Dwalin is Thorin's most loyal Dwarf compatriot.
MAN: Action.
McTAVISH: And so I would fight my way through a hundred Orcs...
...even if I died in the process.
And that was Dwalin's thinking in that scene.
He's still clinging onto you so you give him another one and then...
MAN 1: So we had to design this whole fight of him just gunning it.
He's not even caring about what's behind him because he's trying to save that guy.
Thorin!
MAN 2: Unfortunately, for Dwalin this day, it came down to the day...
...he had lost his big ax and this was a man who was never...
Nothing was gonna stop him.
[GRUNTING]
McTAVISH: And we liked the idea of it being that up close and personal.
And with a knife, you're like that close to the guy. Just went, whoosh.
[SHOUTING]
You know, if anyone's ever had Thorin's back more than anyone else, it's Dwalin.
And Dwalin's fear, the thing he feared the most was failing.
Thorin!
It would've been in the movie and was intended to be...
...but it's hard and it's always dodgy to have a character failing.
If it had worked, it was an explanation as to why Thorin's not being saved by Dwalin...
...who's up there with him.
Well, I can see why Peter hasn't put it in the film because no matter what...
Unless Dwalin dies, he fails.
Thorin.
[GRUNTING]
Thorin!
[GRUNTS]
No.
- And cut. MAN: And cutting it.
McTAVISH: I'm really glad that that was the last thing I shot.
It was very powerful for me.
All right, that was Graham's last shot on The Hobbit.
[ALL APPLAUDING]
McTAVISH: You'd gone through all of this, and for it to finally end on this tiny moment...
...where you know that when somebody shouts out...
...that's the last time you'll hear that on the set of The Hobbit.
That's it. It's done.
And there's a little part of you that just goes:
"Can we just do it once more? Just once more.
Don't close that door on me.
Don't turn the lock and say you're not allowed in anymore."
And it was kind of like a blow.
Like a physical blow.
- All done? McTAVISH: Yeah.
Jeez.
Sorry.
- I'm sorry. - Cool.
Good.
- Yeah. - I'm sorry.
It was fun. It was a great scene to end on.
- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I knew I'd get like this.
Oh, dear.
Well, we haven't started to drink yet so just...
- It's been such a pleasure. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Same here, same here.
When we wrapped, Peter would come and take a selfie.
My nose in the way.
It was a bit like, "Now I'm having my photo taken. Okay.
Oh, I'm still crying."
You know, it's a mixture of exhaustion, emotionally spent elation, disorientation.
It's a bit like that moment where somebody gives birth...
...and there's always somebody there to take a photograph...
...of the poor woman who's just given birth...
...and they always look kind of like:
"What?"
- See you very soon. - Thanks very much, everyone.
MAN: Hey, buddy.
McTAVISH: I'm gonna start crying again. MAN: You're an emotional wreck, McTavish.
You know that?
- See you, man. - You'll be the same.
- I know, I know. - You'll be the same.
- And you. - And you'll be there to capture it all.
- I'll see you for a... MAN: Ha, ha.
McTAVISH: Well, a lot of the guys had already been wrapped...
...so people like Jed, and Mark, and John, et cetera...
...we all agreed to meet at the Roxy for drinks.
MAN: We were all so excited but really emotional.
Now, I remember taking photos of Stephen Hunter...
...and Graham McTavish and Jed, saying, "You're a rock star, you're a rock star."
And they would do like a catwalk down to the studio.
And then we get there and all the makeup guys were starting to party early...
...and were just going around saying goodbye.
MAN 1: This is Jack here, our friend- MAN 2: Hey, what are you doing in there?
MAN 1: How do you feel about the wrap party?
I'm gonna be there in about 20 minutes anyway.
So, yeah. Cheers. See you guys there.
We're out here. Wrapped, man, 2013, The Hobbit. Let's go, baby.
It's been awesome . Thank you, everybody. Thanks a lot.
I'm off.
MAN: There was such energy.
If you could bottle that, I'd love to have that every day.
It was just real excitement.
- Hi, there. - Happy last day.
Hey, happy last day.
- Yeah. JACKSON: You just gotta force it up.
- The race is on. - The race is on.
- All right. - All right.
JACKSON: Whoever wins is probably gonna drink all the beer.
Yeah, but it's a little... But it's unfair.
It's unfair because we'll be done and then we'll have to wait for you to say it.
That's our life.
- You know what, I think we should go again. - One more.
You didn't quite... You know, it's good. One more.
So on the last day, main unit and splinter unit had a race to see who could finish first.
MAN: Action.
Noise!
Stay here.
Search the lower levels.
I've got this.
Okay, and cut.
Last line on The Hobbit.
Dean O' German. - On The Hobbit?
- I get the last line. - Whole thing, whole thing.
Yes, it's coming to an end.
[GRUNTING]
ARMITAGE: Even at that late point in the filming...
...where people usually start to panic about what they're gonna get...
...he was still up for an experiment.
And I wondered if you actually pick up the block and just throw it...
...and he catches the block and then you just step off of the edge and, whoosh.
And just... It would look kind of cool. I don't know.
I'll sell it in the eyes.
- It's the windows to the soul they say. MAN: Go.
Look at you. Ha, ha.
And then, body which will just be a shape. Whoosh.
And it's there that you see it's your brother.
MAN: Action.
[MAN YELLING]
And body.
Right, cool. Okay, moving on.
Oh, ****ing Serena.
- That's how you do it, Bruno. - Yes.
That's how you do it.
It's the end of 771 days, almost, two shots to go.
- Fantastic. - Two shots to go.
It's not usual that on the last day...
...you get to shoot the actual emotional climax of the story.
Usually, you know, it doesn't happen this way that you get to do the end at the end.
That's sad. I wish the ending was different.
I feel like just changing it again.
I gotta talk to Phil and Fran about that.
MAN: Yeah. That's good. That's good.
Pete wants you to land quite unceremoniously.
I was actually playing dead in my last shot.
Look at this mangled body.
You were a heartthrob in the first two movies. You know that?
You're a ****ing wreck now.
MAN: In a weird way, my death's been mirroring the end of the shoot for me.
It was definitely easier in terms of understanding that the project was finished.
Because if I'd been filming like a scene from Bag End...
...it doesn't have the same feel as the final scene of the final movie.
Yep, yep, it's done. It's a wrap on the day.
All right, thank you very much guys. It was the last shot on The Hobbit.
MAN: It feels really strange, I don't believe it's over.
I feel like I'm gonna get a call tomorrow saying, "We'll see you next week."
I feel sad. Yeah, I feel sad.
This thing is gonna, ooh, unh.
And you're gonna ride it up.
All right, lovely. Let's shoot.
All right, guys, listen up. Let's walk into it. Steadicam shot.
JACKSON: The last shot. We're neck and neck.
I remember, it was a sort of touch-and-go...
...as to, was it gonna be a main unit shot be the last shot...
...or a splinter unit shot be the last shot?
Great. This cut was good, so one more.
Action.
We're like on tracks. We're gonna beat main unit.
There's no doubt about it.
We can do it, splinter. Come on.
- And reset, that was great. MAN: Resetting.
MAN: Aidan knocked it out of the park.
He did this wonderful performance and he was like, "It's gold."
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the last thing. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MAN: It's ****ing awesome.
That's great. That's in the movie, boys.
So we dial Peter and we go, "Hey, we've got the shot. Can you just review it."
No, they're not looking for approval.
MAN: Five minutes passed, and we kind of look at each other, going, "Hold on.
He's probably doing that on purpose."
All right, so they're rolling over there so Peter's gonna call in a few minutes.
It's convenient for him so he can wrap his unit then watch us, and wrap us.
I had the advantage because Christian, he has to do what I tell him to do, see.
So if he looked remotely like he was gonna get to finish first...
- ...I'd just tell him to shoot a different shot. - Yeah, okay.
And roll.
That's all right. We've got a note about the fringe.
Do you wanna talk to Fran?
Okay.
MAN: This note came back that they didn't like...
...the way hair was falling across his forehead.
We were like, okay, how do we fix this? What's wrong with it?
All right, going again by the sound of it. Action.
And at the very, very end, we did the last take with what Peter wanted.
- Great. - Taken out of the time, we gotta make a shot.
MAN: But at that point, Peter was focusing on main unit.
[GROANS]
ARMITAGE: I remember Philippa, Fran and Pete...
...waiting for the moment of how do we kill this character...
...and how do we make it a significant death.
You know, it's like the moment when Thorin understands...
...that the only way to kill Azog is for himself to die.
And in a funny kind of way, he's at peace with it.
You know, ridding the world of this being was more important than his own life.
I think, Rich, it might be fun to experiment with...
...seeing you realize that your only option...
...you've gotta just get that sword out of its trap, as it were...
...and by doing that, you're gonna get it in the chest...
...but you've got a chance to get back at him.
JACKSON: It's an interesting... Because there's no dialogue.
There's no way of describing that choice or what has to happen with words.
The challenge for Richard as an actor...
...is to actually have to have all those thought processes playing over on his face.
If the audience doesn't see it reflected in the character's eyes...
...those decisions being made, they'll just think, "Well, he..."
The character just died, they don't know why he died.
So we fought for that precision.
[GROANS]
It's okay.
I think we can squeeze one last one on the mag. That was a great one, Rich.
Let's just do it straight away. We'll squeeze one last one in.
- I'm gonna buy this one if it's good. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- No, it's a good thing. - By the time we...
...call this done. Okay, here we go.
- And three, two, one. Action. - As soon as... Yeah.
[GROANS]
Try pushing.
- And realize. - That's awesome.
[THORIN GRUNTING]
It's okay. It's okay.
[YELLS]
And roll.
It's okay. We're gonna run out, but we got the good stuff.
Awesome.
We're good. We've run out, but we got it, Rich.
Okay, well done. We're done.
[ALL APPLAUDING]
- They're clapping. - Did they wrap?
I don't know. They're rolling but they're on their last shot so...
- What's the ****ing plan? - What's the clap all about?
MAN: I don't know. - Are they showing my playback inside?
Don't do that.
MAN: One more take with Aidan, I really couldn't see much of a difference.
We've seen it through, Fran and Pete were like, "Oh, it looks great. Beautiful, done.
Come on through for a beer." Like, really?
- Okay, that's a wrap. - Yeah.
And thank you, everybody. Thank you very, very much.
I don't know what else to say really.
WALSH: I've never seen anyone so exhausted in my entire life.
But in a good way.
You know, and he was still emotionally in that moment...
...I think for a good half an hour after.
ARMITAGE: I was a little bit delirious and then, I actually wanted another take.
In my head, I was like, "Pete, can I just have one more'? I've got another one in me.
Can I just do one more?" But we were done.
- Thank you. - All right.
Thank you, mate.
JACKSON: You expect to have some big, profound emotional reaction at a time like this.
You know, you think, "Wow." But you kind of just...
I mean...
It's, um, 10 past 11.
Know what, I didn't get a wink of sleep last night.
Not one minute of sleep.
So I'm in a kind of a jetlagged, weird stupor, so there's... I'm a bit numb.
Yeah. It's all good. It's all good.
I'm going off to get a drink.
[ALL CHEERING]
Apparently, I suddenly realized I've got to say some words...
...and I don't actually know what to say.
You know, we have been through this experience together.
And I think we should feel very proud of the film.
I mean, I'm truly excited about the postproduction on these next two films...
...which doesn't always happen.
Because sometimes you finish your shoot...
...and think, "Jesus, I've gotta try to make a movie out of this stuff."
Well, don't tell anybody.
But this time around, I'm really excited.
I think we've shot some great stuff and...
MAN: Yeah. - Yeah.
And, you know, all of you have been fantastic to work with...
...and we have been through this experience together and no one else has.
We all are.
And thank you so much.
Thank you all.
I think we have one official tribute, which is to invite Jamie up who...
Jamie has a very personal presentation to make.
Jamie Wilson, he looks after, you know, the armor and all the weapons at Weta.
He got this gift and he called Zane who's the executive producer...
...who's just the coolest guy.
He's a big Steelers fan. He's just, yeah, you know.
Zane Weiner, the producer, and I have a, some might say, a checkered past...
...which stems back to the days of the Lord of the Rings...
...where we played a few practical jokes on each other.
Come up on the stage now. Come on.
I can take it, Jamie. Dish it out, buddy.
Most extraordinary thing was when Zane is presented with a look-alike Zane doll.
[ALL LAUGHING]
That was incredibly life-like and just a little bit spooky.
And even a little bit wrong. Ha, ha.
Complete with white sneakers and stonewashed jeans and a sweatshirt...
...which is Zane's customary uniform.
It was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.
The whole party was upstaged by this little weird puppet.
Everyone needs a little Weiner.
And I think he's probably still cuddling it to this day.
He probably has still got it with him. It's his little mini-me.
You're about to see a blooper reel and so... We have a couple of things to ask you.
[ALL LAUGHING]
I remember screening a gag reel to further humiliate the actors...
...and for the crew to have a good laugh.
Oh, you... You... Ahh!
Kill them, not me.
Who did you tell about your:
[SPEAKING GIBBERISH]
Run quickly.
Let me think. Let...
- Are you all right, precious? FREEMAN: I am.
- Do you want a hand? FREEMAN: It's only my pride.
It kind of kept coming back to me trying to catch a mug.
MAN: Catch. Now, catch. Catch.
Oh, shit.
MAN: Yeah, that was great.
And also, we were presented with our gifts.
Oh, yes!
McTAVISH: We all got a beautiful painting of us in character.
[ALL CHATTERING]
MAN: And also, we were given...
...the most beautiful photo of all of us in full Dwarf gear.
MAN: I was not expecting anything. The gift enough was to be part of this trilogy.
But now, I have a fantastic photo of all of the Dwarves...
...on our last day of shoot with Ian, Martin and Pete.
MAN: And it was chosen because it did sort of capture the spirit of the company.
Sort of like kind of a very rough enthusiastic love towards each other.
Oh, your suit's off.
MAN: To now say, I was one of the Dwarves in The Hobbit...
...which you say with immense pride.
We went through the most incredible experiences together as a team of people.
And so now we'll always have that bond.
They never said anything about this when we signed on.
MAN: I wasn't ready for it to end. And if you asked me to start it again tomorrow...
...in a click of a finger, I'd be there.
The hair? No. Burn it.
McTAVISH: It's like when you're with a child, when you say, "All right, we have to stop now.
We have to go inside for dinner, we're not going to play that game anymore."
They say, "Let me just do it once more."
And that was very much running across my mind.
I just thought, "I can do it again."
This is the best part of the whole job.
Rough day at the office today, Morn.
For me, watching those crew turn up every day without any of the glory.
- Thank you. MAN: They're not on screen, but they turn up.
And they're incredibly cheerful.
I mean, that's three years of very, very early starts and very late finishes.
MAN: I'll miss that community of walking in for breakfast and hundreds of people filing in.
And knowing but not expressing that you're all in this thing together.
You know, a feeling of community.
I'm sure there's no need to be concerned.
I wanna write the theme tune, sing the theme tune.
Yeah, just had a little incident with a spider.
I knew I'd make some friends but I think the big...
The surprising thing was just how close we'd all get...
...and how much I'd miss it once it was over.
MAN: Well done. - You are just like him.
This wardrobe is a menace.
I think I can remember that.
JACKSON: It's been hard work, but you've won. So you're adrenalized.
Story of my life.
ARMITAGE: We talk about Thorin and Azog's last fight...
...but in a way, everyone on that set was having their own last fight.
Their last push to make their work excellent.
MAN: We knew that it was the real end of the physical shooting...
...and so it's quite emotional because we almost worked three years on The Hobbit.
You know, and the main thing that I'll remember from the shoot...
...is all these memories that are not on camera but behind camera.
It's not until I walked back through and I was standing on the set by myself...
...and just had that moment reflecting when you're back there and you're looking at it...
...and you sort of realize how many hours you spent in there.
Just also how privileged you are to have been a part of it.
JACKSON: The shoot was a long one, but it was a great family. It was a great team.
WOMAN: We've always had the support of this incredible crew.
They went on the journey with us.
They really did. They signed up and they went there.
They went there and back again.