This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first entry in one of the most ambitious film undertakings ever attempted. To celebrate the anniversary, all three of the iconic films are being re-released in theaters this month, and Peter Jackson is coming along for the ride. He's also sharing behind-the-scenes stories, including one about how Viggo Mortensen getting into a surfboard accident impacted his movies.
When The Lord of the Rings movies hit screens again this weekend, they’ll be accompanied by new introductions by director Peter Jackson. EW has a look at one of them, which includes the director talking about the production, which was more like one massive film than it was three separate projects. He said…
The thing with these movies, of course, is we shot all three of them at the same time and then in a mixed-up kind of way. So one day we'd be shooting a bit from The Fellowship, then that would be on Monday. On Tuesday, we'd shoot a scene from [second film] The Two Towers, on Wednesday, back to Fellowship again, on Thursday to [final film] The Return of the King. So it was just one film really for us.
Needless to say, a project that extensive was bound to have some problems, and one of them was a surfboard that injured Viggo Mortensen, and required some quick thinking on the director’s part to work around it. Jackson says the team was working on a key Fellowship scene. Unfortunately, one of the principal players in the scene had sustained an injury during a break in filming. Jackson explained…
So in the Mines of Moria scene, too, the other thing I remember, we all show up to shoot that scene. And Viggo had been out with the Hobbits during the weekend, and he'd been surfing, and he had sustained an injury surfing, like the board had flipped in the air and whacked him in the face.
The Lord of the Rings saw its share of injuries. This isn't even the only significant injury to Viggo Mortensen. It's frequently reported that the actor broke two toes kicking a helmet in one scene as well. However, getting whacked in the face by a surfboard is a bit harder to cover up.
If it were a minor thing, it likely could have been covered by makeup. Unfortunately, as Jackson tells it, the injury was quite severe. If it had been a smaller production, rescheduling the scene might have been possible, but on something like The Lord of the Rings, that simply wasn’t an option, leading Jackson to only have one choice. He said…
So he comes in, and he's got his eye is bulged out, black eye, shut, like a boxer swollen, and he says, 'I'm sorry, Peter. I'm sorry.' And I said, 'Oh God.' So you'll see that all I could do is to shoot him from the side. I couldn't shoot [head on].
Peter Jackson says the shots in question came during the Mines of Moria sequence, when the Cave Troll joins the fight. Give the scene a look below and see if you can spot an injured Viggo Mortensen.
With two new Lord of the Rings movies on the way, hopefully, all involved will stay injury-free. Although whether or not Viggo Mortensen will be in them remains to be seen.
Now, to go back and see the original trilogy, you can catch it in theaters this weekend, or you can stream it with an HBO Max subscription.
