Middle Earth Challenge, Day 25

Actor’s Sayings

So, this is probably the post that has given me the most trouble, as I haven't watched any behind the scenes stuff from The Lord of the Rings since the extended editions first came out - and I never have been the extra-features junkie that some of my younger sisters are. (Casts a virtual eye towards one sister in particular.) However, Dominic Monaghan's story about John Rhys Davis taking a bunch of the cast out to dinner sticks in my mind as being one of my favourite bits:

"John Rhys-Davies… took us to a restaurant. And it was when we’d only just started to get to know John. And we sat down at this huge, long table, and he said, “I think I will order the food for tonight.” And we said, “Oh, ok, on you go John.” And you know, we were having a conversation, and the waitress came over, and John ordered food that would probably have fed 35, maybe 40 people. And there were about 12 of us. And he just said, “We’ll have nine lobster and 15 shrimp, and 12 red snapper, 15 filet mignons, and some grilled mushrooms. I’ll have 12 onions and a wild boar…” You know? All this kind of stuff - just like, “Pheasants, and grouse, and - do you have partridge? Bring the partridge.”

It is just so Dwarvish of him! Gimli, if the opportunity arose, after all the questing was done, and Middle Earth back to itself again, would no doubt have treated visiting erstwhile Fellowship members to such excesses of hospitality... And wild boar? Really? Are there restaurants that serve that still? And if they do, is my mental image of a rather medieval concoction, with an apple in its jaws at all accurate?

Oh, yes, and there was the bit about the body of Sean Bean. I am not sure why, exactly, it was not possible to just put make-up on the man for the funeral of Boromir scenes, but for some reason, Weta Workshop was asked to produce a "lifelike dead Boromir". The resulting prop looked so uncannily like Sean Bean, that some poor, unsuspecting technician stumbled upon, and asked worriedly, whether they ought to get Sean a drink! (At least we know someone cared.)

And then, of course, there is this bit:

This amused us so much that for a while, whenever a helicopter would  fly overhead, we would all wave our arms around like that, and feel very pleased with ourselves.

And that is all. If you are interested in finding out more about the Middle Earth Challenge, click here.