I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumours. I’m sure you’re all wondering what it was like to be cast as Boromir and just how much I had to go through to master the role. Well, here’s your chance to find out.
It took me a lot of time and effort to get into the character of Boromir, but luckily for me, my playacting was perfect for playing Boromir. The first thing that I did when I got the part was to start reading about Boromir in The Lord Of The Rings. After a couple of days of reading, I knew everything there was to know about him.
I then took a trip down to New Zealand and started learning how to shoot arrows with a longbow. This proved very difficult at first but after a few months of training with members of the NZ national archery team, I started getting better at it.
During this time, we also rehearsed scenes from The Fellowship Of The Ring with Elijah Wood and Sean Bean in front of an audience (mainly friends and family). This really helped me get into character even more because I was able to work on my acting skills in front of an audience that I would normally
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be in the movie, but when you’re faced with the decision to play Aragorn, who doesn’t want to play Aragorn? When you read a script and it says “Aragorn” at the top of the page, with all due respect to Viggo Mortensen, nobody thinks, “That’s me. That should be me up there.” But when I read Boromir… and certainly when I saw Boromir onscreen… he was very much like me. He was a warrior who wanted to use force to accomplish his goals. He had warrior skills that he wasn’t afraid to use—and sometimes those skills were the only way to get the job done. And so in reading Boromir on the page and seeing him in the film, I thought, “Yeah! That makes sense—that guy is just like me!”
The role of Boromir really was perfect for me because it allowed me to put all my experience as an actor into one character. In some ways, Boromir is sort of a composite of many of my favorite roles over the years, from The
The role of Boromir in the Lord of the Rings movies was an easy one to prepare for, as I had played it on stage before. There is little difference between stage and screen acting beside the camera angles etc.
The most difficult part was to get used to the hours you work on a movie set. On stage you work a couple of hours and then wait for your next scene. On a movie set it is more like: you call your wife and say goodbye, then sit around for two hours waiting for your scene, then do it in under ten minutes, then sit around again for three hours before doing another take. You repeat this for eighteen hours a day and after three weeks get very bored.
I’m a professional actor. I have studied at The Actors Studio in Los Angeles, California and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. I have been performing since I was five years old and have never considered any other career path.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous in my life.
I was a 22-year old college student and had just been called in to audition for a part in a film called “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” I had no idea what that meant, but my agent told me to go for it.
I went in there and met Peter Jackson, who was just so kind and welcoming. He asked me to read some dialogue with him, which was pretty daunting because he was doing all these different accents and voices. But we had a really good laugh so I left feeling like it wasn’t too bad—and that night they called me back and said, “We want you to come back tomorrow. We really want you to try out for this role as Boromir.”
So I went back the next day and met Peter again, except this time he had Fran Walsh with him, his wife and writing partner on the film. They asked me to read a couple of scenes from the script, so I did, and then they said, “We actually have one more scene for you to read today: It hasn’t even been shot yet. It
It’s easy to see why the role of Boromir in The Lord of the Rings was such a good fit for me. I have often been asked what it was like to play this part, and I always reply that it was exactly like being me.
My Boromir is brave, loyal, true to his word, a little impetuous, and quick to anger. If he has a fault, it is that he loves his country too well. He doesn’t want power for himself; he simply wants to defend his people from attack. In fact, if you haven’t seen the film and are wondering who to root for in The Lord of the Rings, here’s my advice: root for Boromir.
When I read the book as a teenager, I remember thinking what a cool character he was, and wishing that Tolkien had written more about him. But when I first heard that Peter Jackson was going to make three films of The Lord of the Rings (an idea which seemed crazy at the time), I never imagined that I would be playing Boromir in them: Elrond perhaps (who is essentially an older version of Boromir), or Faramir (who is essentially a younger one).
I remember watching ‘The Godfather’ and thinking, ‘Oh, I could have done that.’
-Marlon Brando
I watched ‘Lord of the Rings’ when it first came out, and thought: ‘Oh, I could have done that.’ I realize now that I was wrong. I could never have played Boromir. But it wasn’t always so clear to me.
Now that I’ve been in the business for a while, I can look back on all those years of struggling and see why my big break never came. There’s a reason most actors don’t get anywhere. It isn’t their fault; they just don’t know how to sell themselves. But I’ve learned some things from my failures, things you can use to ensure your own success as an actor. This is what you need to know:
1) Get into character before the audition.
The best actors arrive at auditions in character for the part they’re auditioning for. You want to give them a taste of what you’d be like if they hired you. If you’re auditioning for a movie about a powerful CEO, say, show up wearing a suit and smoking a cigar. If it’s an action movie about a marine, wear camo
I was a little nervous about being in London for the premiere of The Two Towers. I knew I was going to be surrounded by hundreds of rabid Lord of the Rings fans. But I also knew that I would walk away from the experience with a whole new appreciation for Tolkien’s epic.
The first thing I discovered upon walking into the theater was that, despite what their advertising had led me to believe, this was not a film about two towers.
And then we saw some elves running around. There were no elves in Fellowship of the Ring. So why are they in The Two Towers?
This is not just a nitpick; there are many other examples of this kind of thing throughout the film:
– Arwen (Liv Tyler) shows up later in the movie, even though she has yet to even be introduced in the books. That’s right, she’s just there to romance Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen). But isn’t Aragorn supposed to be entering into a relationship with Eowyn (Miranda Otto)? Isn’t this an important plot point? Why isn’t it included?
– Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) has a lot more
