Gear Magazine Interview Dec.2002


Elijah Wood and I are discussing women over eggs at Lulu's and he drops this: "I feel that women aren't as attracted to me as I'd like them to be." In the silence that follows, I watch the smoke from the Indonesian cigarette cradled in his fingers slither up the sleeve of his beat-up corduroy sports jacket. His eyes, blue like the tip of an acetylene torch -- they're that blue -- shift around in surprise at this admission. "I'm oddly insecure when it comes to
women. It's kind of strange. I'm a really confident individual and I have a lot to offer. But when it comes down to it, I break it down and say, 'Ahhhh.' My friends say that's bull****. They're, like, 'There's so many women who'd totally love to be with you.' But for some reason, in social situations, I get really nervous."

A moment passes. I'm just looking at him. Eggs grow cold. "For _____'s sake," I say. "All you have to say is, 'Hi, I'm Elijah Wood."'

"I don't really play that card with women," he says. "I guess I could, but I'm really bad at that. I don't chat women up for that purpose." He allows that, yes, he gets approached, but, "I won't make it about anything other than just hanging out. I'll take the flirtation, but it doesn't really go beyond that." He meets both friends and girls in more "organic, chilled-out" situations, he says.

"A lot of guys judge themselves on how many women they've slept with. That's bull****," he says. "Sexual prowess is not a way to define yourself. Who cares? It's used to establish the pecking order in whatever group you hang out in. It's meaningless.

But back in L.A., Wood still prefers to chill at the house with friends rather than venture into the thumping house music at nightclubs. At one point in our conversation he goes so far as to say he doesn't like to party, but then retracts it. "Here's the thing," he says. "Of course I like to have a good time. But I hate clichés. Part of what I hate about the 'party' thing is that, as a young actor in Hollywood, it's expected. In New Zealand, we'd
go out to the bars on the weekends. We'd get back from the weekend and go into the office and the other people would say, 'So, did you guys go crazy this weekend? Did you have a ****ing crazy party time?' I was like... [annoyed] 'No.' I hated it because it was expected. It made me reject it all the more."

But he has to pick somebody up from the airport tonight, he says. A friend. "Who?" I ask. Finally it drops: his girlfriend. Franka Potente, star of The Bourne Identity and Run Lola Run. They've been dating for six months and he doesn't want to blather on about it.

"Though this part is weird," Elijah says. "One day we were at a hockey game in Canada and the next day we had our pictures in the paper. Another time we had lunch in Manhattan and it showed up in a magazine the next week. I've never dealt with that before. It's a whole new element in my growing type of
thing. It's weird and awkward and funny at the same time. But it is a violation."

So is Potente "The One," Is Wood thinking of settling down at the ripe old age of 21? "Thirties," he says. "I won't be ready for a long, long time." Hey, tales of celebrity cratering abound in these True Hollywood Stories-days and Wood recognizes that his next moves, in both private life and his career, will really matter. A wrong choice now could mean the difference between following in the path of Mark Hamill rather than Harrison Ford.

"What it means to be a man these days is lost," he says, suddenly focused. "We used to have men like Gregory Peck, heroes like Steve McQueen. They were men, but they were layered, they were sensitive. That idea has been
lost. Being a man's man; hanging out with the guys for football games; competing for sleeps-with-the-most-women titles -- that's all bull****. It has nothing to do with manhood. Too many men stand for being macho and nothing else. They're caricatures of men. Then there are the men who are girl thingies. They're too sensitive and whiny, and they don't stand for anything. There are too many men like that. That's just as bad as the other side." His own goal, he says, is to be his own man, sensitive and strong:
basically the kind of guy who doesn't give a **** what anyone thinks. That's a tall order for anyone in the entertainment business.

We made plans to hook up on Sunday morning, to pick up the new Vice City video game Elijah had pre-ordered. But as I rise from bed, hung over again, my cellular rings. It is Elijah. "I'm sorry, man," he says. Today he sounds hung over, too. "I can't make it. I had plans later in the day, but they've been bumped up." I sit back on the bed, no longer afraid of being late. He
always makes a point to be early to counteract the late-actor cliché?. "No problem," I say. All the publicity, I know, is boring. I ask If he had a good time with Franka last night and he says he did. They hung with friends and crashed at a house in Hollywood.

"Where you headed this morning, then?" I ask.

"Well," he says, laughing. "You won't believe this but..." He tells me, and I laugh too.

So, if you had the superpower and still wanted to be normal, what would you do?

Well, if it was Sunday morning and you were Elijah Wood, you'd be going to Disneyland.



Porti magazine Interview(February, 2003)
Translation

POR TI: It was where you met your girlfriend, Franka, wasn’t it? -

EW: That’s right, but she’s not my girlfriend anymore (he says blushing). After the filming it was so difficult to see each other, so we decided to end. And yes, I hope to find my soul mate soon. I long on falling in love!

POR TI: How  you are in the love matters? Shy, impudent..?

EW: Shy, but when I feel confident, I turn into a romantic hardhearted!

Nardwaur Radio Interview

N: And some of the girls-or people, or boys-were there many boys who came by to get your autograph at all, Elijah?

EW: Not many, thankfully.

Franka is now there.....

N: And now you’re here with Elijah Wood, starring in the movie ‘Try-

EW: Seventeen’!

N: (to EW) You like sandwiches, don’t you?

EW: I-I love sandwiches, how does he know?! (laughter in the background)

N: What type of sandwiches do you like? Like, I love cheese.

EW: I know you like cheese. You know, I love Club Sandwiches, those are my favorite.

FP: With my salami-

EW: Well she, she made this fantastic thing, the salami bagel with, basically it’s margarine, uh salami and a-a toasted bagel. Unbelievable.

FP: We all enjoyed the salami bagel.

EW (to FP): I think you should patent that.

N: Now one day on the set of ‘Try Seventeen’ I understand Blondie visited.

EW: This is true.

N: And what exactly did Blondie do, Franka, there with uh your friend Elijah Wood?

FP: She ****** kissed him. And I wasn’t there you know.

(someone in the background): That bitch! (FP laughs. background laughter is heard.)
N: I mean, right now you’ve got a movie coming up after this ‘Try Seventeen’ with Matt Damon?

FP: Yeah, ‘The Bourne Identity.’

N: Now what’s this about the sex scenes, the sex scenes being edited out of the movie? How dare they!

FP: You-

N: I want to see you in a-

FP: You and your papers! There’s actually, you know what, I don’t know, there’s no sex scene though. There’s a kissing scene-

N: I heard it was edited out! I wanted to see you have sex with Matt Damon!

FP: I want to see that too! But we never shot it! *laughs* (background laughter)

N: Oh damn!

EW(sounding irritated and JEALOUS): I-I-I have no comment on that.

N: Elijah Wood-

EW: I don’t particularly want to see that, so-


CBC Radio Two Radiosonic show with Elijah Wood and Franka Potente- April 2002


GL: Okay, great. And I hear that that you have been frequenting our local independant record shops quite a bit. *scary Elijah laugh*
EW: It get's around.. I think I have.. It's something that Franka's had to become very used to because every weekend I have to have my time for CD shopping.
GL: Really
EW: Yeah.
GL: Like how many do you buy a week?
EW: Uh...
FP: Twenty for me, ten for you. *GL makes an'is that so' type noise* Yeah, I'm lucky, I get everything.
EW: I buy her a lot of records.

GL: I saw you on the Academy Award there with uh, is he sir yet?
EW: Sir Ian McKellen. They apparently flashed to me 15 or 20 times, which is really bizarre. I don't know what I was doing up front.
GL: I can't believe.. I was sh..
FP: You were looking good, that's why. *Elijah laughs*


People.com - Nov.2001

Q: You're a private person, but being an actor, attention is obviously paid to things like whom you're dating.

A: Yeah, yeah. I find that the media attention on people's relationships is kind of annoying and disgusting. I don't want that to be a focus. I'm single at the moment, which is difficult 'cause I sort of enjoy the companionship of a lovely female. It's also difficult because the life that I lead due to what I do makes it difficult as well because there aren't many outlets to meet people, and the traveling and sort of not being home all the time, it makes it kind of hard.

Premiere Magazine Sept. 2001
I put this here because it is one of my all time favorite Lij incidents.

Wood eagerly bites into a steak fajita just as five teenage girls with long eyelashes and dangling earrings nervously approach him at La Salsa, a fast-food Mexican joint in Santa Monica. Wood’s eyes widen. “Helllooo,” he chimes happily.

One of the girls thrusts a video camera at him. “Would you mind saying something for the camera?” she asks. Her friends twitter. Wood faces the camera, closes his eyes for a moment, and then says, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility is being superior to your former self.” The girls stop giggling. They thank him and leave the restaurant while Wood repeats the line, which he picked up off a Radiohead website. “Don’t you think that’s true?” he asks, not noticing the girls now standing outside the window and quickly descending upon another cute boy, who wears a tennis visor and mugs for the camera. “So much time is wasted on trying to be better than others.”

Back On Topic....

And yet the friendships he made on Lord of the Rings—especially with his fellow hobbits, Astin, Boyd, and Monaghan—will be different. “I’ll always be close with those guys,” Wood says. “They are like brothers.”


AOL Chat Dec. 2001


Question: Our female audience members will never forgive me if I don't ask this next one. Do you have a girlfriend?

ElijahW LlVE: Unfortunately, I don't. I'm a hopeless romantic and it's quite painful to not have a relationship with a girl. Sadly, I'm single.

 TOPP magazine Interview(February, 2003)

Is there time for a girlfriend when you work so much?

-No, not now anyway. I do date from time to time, but no girlfriend.

-Many magazines wrote that you dated Franka Potente for a while?

-We have never been a couple. But it really doesn't help saying anything. People write what they want anyway. But I think she is a great girl and a great actress!

-How does it feel that the entire world suddenly is interested in who you date?

-Hmmm...It's strange. Sometimes it feels like your privacy is being invaded. that's not a good feeling. Then it doesn't help saying anything, because people will believe what they want. But I'm not gonna complain, I just have to learn to ignore it.

Is it true that Peter Jackson gave you the ring from the film? Or at least one of the seven that where made?
Indeed, I have one. I'm verry careful with it. The ring I'm wearing now looks like the one in the films, but I bought this one in New York. I got a text engraved in it: "If it doesn't happen now, when will it?" In hebrew. It means that you need to grab the opportunities that come along. Go for it!