Quotes
Ah! My postponed new-favourite part of the site! With these you can get into the mind of the oldest 22-year-old in the world...
Wood on Life
Our Babe on girls...
Elijah on Acting and movies
The Hobbit-Man on LOTR
Other Random Quotes from him
LIFE
GIRLS
ACTING + MOVIES
LORD OF THE RINGS
"If I were out there with kids my own age, I fear that they wouldn't like me, not because of who I am but because I'm an actor. It's scary-it's like you can't trust anybody......... (Elijah age 13)."
"I haven't gotten that far yet. I want to write some things for myself as an experiment. I don't want to limit myself in saying that I want to do a particular type of thing. I am open to everything, I am just interested in that whole process of filmmaking. Lighting, the visuals really amaze me, and to plan the visuals with something profound {On future directing)."
"Marriage is way far away from me. Oh yes, oh God yes, almost definitely. Marriage is so far off, I gotta have a lot of life to live, I've gotta have a lot of things to do. Marriage is something I want to do when I am in my 30ies {On Marriage)."
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.”
"...In the absence of love, there is nothing worth fighting for."
"I'm a normal kid, but normal is such an overused word. It's a facade, it's not real, it's virtual. Normal is what you make of it. If your life is good, that's normal for you. If your life is a constant plan, or a common way of life, that's normal, because you do it constantly." -- St. Petersburg Tribune, May 14, 1996
"Kids are supposed to have fun. They're supposed to do something that they like to do, because they don't have to worry about paying the bills and things like that. I'm doing something that I like to do and I'm having fun. Acting, for me, is normal. When you're doing something that you love to do, it's almost like you've created your own little childhood. I'm not being forced into it and I'm having a great time." -- Boston Globe, October 30, 1994
"I like everything." -- USA Today, April 5, 1993
"I actually got a crush on Anne Heche when I worked with her on Huckleberry Finn... it didn't work out."
"Yeah, you know, Salma Hayek I've worked with her, Brooke Shields, I've worked with her, I have their phone numbers... and you're gonna hate me even more cuz I don't call them!" (To Conan O'Brien on female co-stars)
"My older brother told me, 'Stay away from women', and I'm taking it to heart. I'm staying clear. It's kind of like a museum where they have those really cool paintings. They're behind the glass and you can look at them, but you can't touch them. That's what it's like with girls. I can get myself into trouble. And also it's hard because I'm an actor and girls might not like me for who I am. That's hard to deal with." -- Hollywood Online, 1996 (Curse words at Zach?)
"I think Leo is a really sweet kid... he's sort of weak and sort of insecure at the beginning. He's sort of different than everybody else, and I like that." (On his character Leo in Deep Impact)
"Child acting is a cut-throat world, which is pretty frightening and really silly in retrospect. But it's the parents who are evil. It is a really difficult world to live in if you don't have a base, if you don't have a strong sense of yourself. My mom wanted me to maintain a reasonable degree of normalcy and to enjoy my childhood. Family is so important. I rarely meet families who are as close as we are. I feel really blessed........"
"He is weakly, definitely weakly. Which is good, because I didn't really play anything like him before. I was very excited to mix it up and do something different. I had to play the insecure without the clichees, which all those alltype characters have connected to them. That was the challenge I and everyone else had as well (On Casey in The Faculty)."
"I was living in Iowa where I was born. I was about six years old, when my mother was watching a tv commercial one day, and it popped into her head that I´d love to do this. 'He loves life, he's got a ton of energy, it's a great channel for energy." (On how it all began)
"If there's a challenge, something different and unique, I'm definitely open for it. I don't want easy roles. I want a role that creates a hurdle, an obstacle. Hopefully, you can jump over that and say, 'Wow, I did it. Let's go on to something else." -- St. Petersburg Tribune, May 14, 1996
"I'm not a dark person or anything, but it would be a challenge to be someone who's messed up in the head" -- Entertainment Weekly, November 25, 1994
"I think God gave me a talent to use for the positive and to do an horror movie would be, like, overstepping my bounds. If I was to do a horror film, I wouldn't want to be paid. It would be like a vacation, because you don't really have to use your acting skills." -- Entertainment Weekly, November 25, 1994
"["The War"] was not only fun and challenging, but I loved the message of the movie, which is that in the absence of love, there is nothing worth fighting for. That message is very important to me, because there is so much violence in our world these days. The message of the movie really makes sense, and I think it's very, very important for kids to see. Adults will understand the message, but I think it's too late to change anything; they're already too set in their ways. But kids still have a chance to change things, and that's why I want them to see it." -- Orange County Register, November 8, 1994
"Acting, if you have the right idea about the whole situation... can help you grow as a person. I've become smarter as a person. I've had a better education - with tutors. In a way, it can be a very positive thing." -- USA Today, November 4, 1994
"You've got this power, a good power. Like, let's say you have this idea, films can so influence people. Look at Oliver Stone. Look at 'JFK'. He took a film about his opinion and made a film about it! And made people watch his opinion! That's amazing! If you've got a view, a message that needs to be said, you can make a film." -- USA Today, November 4, 1994
"I guess when people think of me, they think of drama because that's mostly what I've done. That's what sets us apart. Not that he's [Macaulay Culkin] better than me or I'm better than him but that we each have our own things." -- Boston Globe, October 30, 1994
"[The failure of "North"] doesn't affect me. I do a film. I do my best. I try to promote it the best I can, I see the film and that's it. I don't wait to see if it becomes number one. If it bombs, it's no tragedy. I'm done with the film, so I don't think about it." -- Boston Globe, October 30, 1994
"I'm kind of better behaving than Huck Finn, let's put it that way. The worst kind of lying I've ever done is keeping things from people." -- USA Today, April 5, 1993
"I love it here. [In LA] I'm glad I made the choice. (Acting) is a fun thing to do and you meet such nice people. I'm very fortunate." -- Hollywood Reporter, August 13, 1992
"I really liked being an imaginary friend [in "Dayo"], because I got to wear a lot of different costumes. I got to be Robin Hood, a jockey, a space man, a helicopter pilot and even Elvis!" -- "Dayo" press release, April 1992
"["Radio Flyer"] is probably one of the best movies I've done, because it's a good role, and I get to work with dogs and with Dick" [Donner] -- Premiere March, 1992
"It's scary! It's scary..." (On how big LOTR is)
"My God! Middle Earth does exist!" (On comming to NZ)
"I lived in New Zealand for 16 months, this was my life (on lord of the rings trilogy)."
"It is a long time (on the 16 months working in NZ),and the great thing is we actually became a family, and the fellowship that is represented in the film, became a real fellowship, I mean I've made some of my best friends of my life on this picture. I'm so blessed to be a part of this project." (on LOTR)
I was working in Austin, Texas, on 'The Faculty,' and that's where Harry lives, and he often visited the set because he was friends with Robert Rodriguez. [Knowles in fact had a cameo in the film as one of the titular alien-possessed teachers. -- Ed.] And one day he came up to me, and he was like, 'Dude, they're making 'Lord of the Rings' as a feature. You gotta play Frodo!' And the news was really exciting, but they weren't casting for it at that point. It was just kind of in the news. I first heard about it from him, [but] I actually wasn't approached to audition for it until nearly a year later (on auditioning for Frodo)."
"I'm a TOY! This is the coolest thing in the world!" (On being an action figure)
"There were a lot of strange, new experiences for all of us in this movie, so it was just one of the many after a while. But it was certainly bizarre, especially to have a picture [taken with me and] my smaller self. I remember one day I noticed this kind of bin, and inside the bin -- I opened it up -- there were all of the Hobbit faces. And we took a picture of it, because it was so bizarre! It looked so eerie! Because nothing was filling the faces. They were just these blank expressions........ (on Hobbit Masks)." (That picture is on the extd. FOTR dvd)
"Frodo has an amazing amount of trust in Gandalf, and anything that Gandalf would ask him to do, Frodo would know that it would be for the best (on Frodo Baggins)."
"They actually go bad, if you let them have too much air after awhile, they start smelling like urine..." (On his hobbit feet)
"My agent called me and said, 'Look, they're casting 'Lord of the Rings'; Peter Jackson is gonna direct it, and you should go in and put yourself on tape', [But] the idea of putting myself on tape in a casting office wasn't particularly attractive to me, mainly because I wanted to try to convey my passion for the project and for the role, and going into the casting office against a white background and being put on tape did not seem at all conducive to what I wanted to portray. So I [decided to do] my own tape, which I'd never done before, but I figured that this project deserved my own interpretation and my full attention. So I got a voice coach and worked on my accent for a little while, and then a few friends of mine got together and we went up to the Hollywood Hills after getting some costumes at Western Costume, and we shot the scenes like you would a film, [with] various angles and things. And we went that night to the Miramax offices and borrowed their Avid machine and edited it together, and the next day I brought the video into the casting office and I kind of let it go, just knowing that I'd put my best foot forward in terms of getting the role, and I would see what happened. And it all went from there {On the audition tape)."
"It was pretty accurate! It was kind of ghostly. But it was also quite cool as well, because we all got to stand back and watch people of real Hobbit size walk around and, essentially, they were Hobbits. (On his rubber mask)."
"The Hobbit feet were great initially, but the novelty did wear off. I've never worn that many prosthetics before, it was an incredible work of art, a defining feature. We started at 5am and had to stand for an hour and a half while they applied them, so we did get tired after awhile. My feet were the sweatiest so it would melt the glue and they would fall off after awhile."
"Everyday we get up, come into work, put our Hobbit-feet on and off we go together, side by side, every step of the way." - Elijah on him and Sean Astin
"It was more than a bit strange, seeing somebody four-foot high, walking around not only dressed as me, but wearing a mask of me!" - Elijah on his scale double
"I didn't really call friends. I slowly but surely grooved into being home again. I connected with more Lord of the Rings folk at home than with other people. Dom came to my house, we watched about 25 movies and just ate food, and it was the best." - Elijah on coming home from NZ
"Actually we're more than mates. It transcends friendship because we became so close, so early, and spent so much time together. We're family. Everyone embodied their characters in ways that were similar to the book. I mean, Dom and Billy are Merry and Pippin in real life, in the way they interact. Even Sean Astin, who plays Sam, was very protective of me. He'd help me out and watch my back. So many situations mirror those of the book... it's quite freaky." - Elijah on Dom, Billy and Sean.
"The tattoos are in various places. Some are on people's shoulders or arms. I have one just below my waist. Orlando has one on his wrist. We all got them as a function of our passion for working on this project. It was such a profound life experiance, we wanted to mark it with an emblem or a symbol. It's a symbol that stands for nine. We were holding each other's hands, it hurt so much." - Elijah on the tattoos.
"The Fellowship became a reality, We made some of the best friends of our lives. We went through ups and downs together as a single unit. I learned how to surf - we all learned how to surf. We took vacations together. It was so special and profound."The nine actors were known to rally together to lobby for certain aspects of the production. "This is not just a film, not for anyone involved. It was life for us," says Wood.As if to prove that point, all nine got the No. 9 in Elvish - which looks a bit like two curly m's - tattooed on their bodies. "We're going to be intrinsically linked for the rest of our lives anyways," says Wood. "It made it permanent."
"It is a deep relationship, and difficult to describe. In one way it is a master/servant relationship, becasue Sam comes from a different class and wants to serve Frodo and be there for him becasue he is very, very loyal. But more than anything, they are best friends. Despite all of the efforts of wizards and warriors, it is this one friendship that eventually enables Frodo to carry out his quest. Quite simply it is love. It is that unconditional love that says, regardless of what you do or where you go, I will always be there for you." - Elijah about Sam and Frodo.
"The Hobbits tended to spend their free time together, so the closest friends that I had on the movie were Billy and Dom and Sean. And Orlando the Elf, who happened to join us as well, much to our dismay. No, he's a good guy. The Hobbits went to Australia... we went to Sydney and checked out the Star Wars set. The Elf joined us. We went on surfing trips alot. It was a close union of boys." - Elijah on him and 'the boys'
"The Fellowship at the end of the movie became the Fellowship in real life," explains Wood. "The actors involved were collectively passionate about Tolkien's world, and I've made true friends for life..."