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Like most young actors that strike gold and catch the break of a life time, when Elijah Wood was wrapping up his time as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, there were many roads he could have taken. Not wanting to be soley thought of as Frodo Baggins, Elijah Wood set out and crafted one of the more interesting careers in Hollywood. Never forgetting his roots in Lord of the Rings, Elijah Wood wanted to create new, weird, and interesting works that showed he was capable of a wide range of characters and stories. A big project like Lord of the Rings might ave been it for most up and coming actors, but Frodo had other plans.
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Whatever you did, you've been officially labeled a disturber of the peace
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This is Frodo Baggins, as played by Elijah Wood, but you already knew that
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Becoming one of the most recognizable pop culture icons that ever existed might seem like a gift
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but it's a heavy burden. Very few manage to escape the looming shadow of their most popular roles
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but hobbitses are sneaky, and Wood slipped out from under the crushing weight of pigeonholing
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in some surprisingly clever ways. And you are? I'm the guy. The Lord of the Rings franchise is a beast of an unimaginable size on our pop culture landscape
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From the quaint original Hobbit story to the blockbuster movies to the video games and television series
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the road goes ever on and on for Tolkien's work. By far the most successful of these ventures has been Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy
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which plucked several young actors out of relative obscurity and turned them into superstars practically overnight
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One of these actors was 18-year-old Elijah Wood. Though obscure might be the wrong word to describe him
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While he's unmistakably tethered to the role of the ring bearer, Wood actually started his career as a fairly prolific child actor
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appearing in everything from music videos to the second Back to the Future film
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You mean you have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy
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He co-starred alongside Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son, a creepy psychological thriller
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and made less of a splash in the unmemorable disaster movie Deep Impact
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Wood's early filmography was eclectic, and that certainly helped differentiate him from other actors looking to be cast as Frodo Baggins, like Jake Gyllenhaal
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But what really pushed him over the edge was his audition tape. Wood decided to go all out for his audition, as he told Esquire in 2021
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There was something about this particular film that I wanted to do something different that would stand out above everything else
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Donning a costume and gathering his friends together Wood shot several scenes from The Lord of the Rings book over a single day Cutting down those scenes that same night and recording them onto a VHS tape Wood submitted his physical audition tape to the casting office
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This wasn't exactly common practice at the time, but Wood followed his instincts and trusted that his unorthodox methods would pay off
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Obviously, they did. I think I have a copy. I think buried somewhere in a box of VHS tape
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For most, this would seem like a happy ending. A young actor was cast in the role of a lifetime
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Wood played Frodo with a perfect balance of innocence and bravery in the face of impossible odds
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He held his own in scenes opposite incredible talents, and he built a legacy for himself over a trilogy of near-perfect movies
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But this wasn't the end of Wood's story. All right, then. Keep your secrets
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Good. But I know you have something to do with it. Much like Frodo returning to the Shire upon destroying the One Ring
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after Return of the King was released in 2003, the 22-year-old had to ask himself one very important question
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What now? There are many paths Wood could have taken himself down
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and most would have been less than ideal for an actor with so much potential
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He could have easily allowed himself to fall into the trap of reliving his glory days
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relying on the rabid fandom that has only grown since his first appearance as Frodo
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He could have let himself be typecast as a wholesome fantasy creature for the rest of his career
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He could have disappeared into the night and retired in some far-off paradise
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never to be heard from again. Wow, a lot to unpack there
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Instead, the first project Wood found himself in post-Rings was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
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Sporting a shaved head, facial hair, and dressed in modern clothing, Wood immediately separated himself from the iconic image of a hairy-footed hobbit
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And the character of Patrick Wirtz was certainly different than what he had become known for in The Lord of the Rings
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I stole a pair of her panties as well. It's not like, I mean, they were clean and all
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Citing his interest in director Michelle Gondry early music videos Wood knew he wanted to be involved in Eternal Sunshine from the very beginning You could say his eclectic tastes had followed him into adulthood and that trend would only continue Wood essentially made his mission to work with creatives he looked up
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to on projects he found genuinely interesting. He took the part of Kevin in Sin City because he was
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a fan of the graphic novels the movie was adapted from. He fronted Liev Schreiber's directorial
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debut, Everything is Illuminated, because it was very different than anything he'd ever done
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He committed to four years of being licked by a man in a dog costume because
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Wilfred was this crazy amalgam of really f***ing weird, super funny, also it had heart
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And he played a cold-blooded killer in Maniac because he was a fan of the director's first film
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the controversial, ultra-violent, high-tension. Even still, he couldn't quite shake off the role that made him famous
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I wish the ring had never come to me. In an interview with The Guardian in 2013, Wood had this to say about his work after The Lord of the Rings
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When Maniac was first announced, all the references in the press were to Frodo
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Yet that was eight years ago. I've worked on a bunch of vastly different movies since then
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I guess what it showed is that Frodo's never going away. Wood was right in a lot of ways
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But the good news is that while he remains heavily associated with The Lord of the Rings
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he has also carved out a rich and varied career in the 11 years since that Guardian interview
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The choices he made directly after his stint as Frodo may not have completely broken him free of the Ring's influence
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but they demonstrated his willingness to try new and strange things. He dipped into horror comedies with Come to Daddy
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and more recently he became a hugely popular character on Showtime's thriller TV series, Yellow Jackets
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What's with the boat? Medical Life calls to me. Plus, I hate bureaucratic red tape
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You never know when you might need to leave the country sans passport. And if it ever gets a wide release, we'll get to see him channel Danny DeVito's Penguin in the 2023 reimagining of The Toxic Avenger
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But perhaps the most important and least known part of Wood career is the work he doing behind the camera Founding a production company called Spectre Vision Wood has been helping to crank out cult hits at a mid budget a virtually unheard of practice in modern Hollywood While the
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production company's most popular titles are the Nicolas Cage vehicles Mandy and Color Out of
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Space, Spectre Vision has continued to produce interesting and challenging films that range from
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cynical Swedish sci-fi to high-octane superhero mysteries. Maybe I'm just a bored Moriarty
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Looking for his Sherlock. Giving writers and directors the freedom to do something weird on more than a shoestring budget
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is a worthwhile endeavor, and it's no surprise that Wood is at the heart of the idea
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Due to his wide array of projects that span an unending list of genres
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he has become something of a wild card. It's pretty rare to have a friend who's relentlessly got your back
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Those same instincts and unorthodox methods that got him cast in The Lord of the Rings
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have continued to serve him well since. And though he has suffered some serious misses with projects like Green Street Hooligans
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and The Last Witch Hunter, his inclinations toward the unusual keep his IMDB page from
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sinking into mediocrity. And now he's turning those instincts toward other creators and giving
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them enough runway to launch their own projects with his production company. Me? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I definitely don't do brave stuff
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Like, I've never even been camping. When it comes down to it, Wood has always had an eye for the artfully weird. His continued
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interest in niche projects, both as an actor and a producer, means that he can use his post
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brings wealth and influence to make the film landscape just a little more fun. Rather than
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sitting on a dragon's hoard of cash, Wood has essentially been throwing the party of a lifetime
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and handing out gifts to those who come calling. His name and face on an indie movie will certainly
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draw attention, and his production company's money behind an unknown director's first movie
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will make someone's dream come true. So he may never be completely free of the burden of Frodo
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Baggins, but he has found a way to share the load, and that might actually be a better end to his story
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It's done. It's over now
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