CHAPTER SIX

It took me a while to figure out which of the books would best serve as my introduction to Tolkien. I dismissed the biographies and quasi-academic analyses—there simply wasn’t time to digest them, and even if there had been time, what purpose would they have served without proper context? Nope. I had to go straight to the source: the three-volume set of The Lord of the Rings.

But even that wasn’t such a simple matter, since there are countless editions of the books, in myriad forms, all of them thick and meaty and utterly imposing to someone unfamiliar with the story. My eyes went first to a version illustrated by John Howe, whose sketches were vivid and visceral, which I guess is why they’ve long appealed to pubescent boys. A lot of kids get hooked on Tolkien and his mythology around that age, but not me. I think unless my mother had read the books aloud to me, that never would have happened. In fact, that’s how I “read” numerous classics. John Steinbeck’s The Pearl and Of Mice and Men, and countless others—all of them were practically performed to me by my mother. I had neither the patience nor the inclination to read alone. I couldn’t sit still long enough. But I did have the patience to sit with Mom and spend that special time with her, to hang on her every word. That felt more like theater and less like work. Not surprisingly, I always did better on school essays when my mother helped by reading the material to me; I could write endlessly about something I’d heard. But words on a page? That was a problem.

Early in my school career I suffered because of this inability to focus, to simply sit down and do the work uninterrupted and without accompaniment. I know what you’re thinking: Sounds like a kid with attention deficit disorder. Well, the truth is, there was a period of time when I think that diagnosis would have been made so hard and so quick and been so totally accurate that it’s not even funny; then again, they probably could have gotten me for a bunch of things.3 There was a time when my parents were worried that I was depressed because I was so much shorter than everyone else, so they had me meet with a psychiatrist. We chatted for about a half hour, after which he shrugged his shoulders and said, “This kid is fine.” Not entirely true, but pretty close. I had goals in mind. I wanted to write and direct movies. I wanted to act. Hell, I wanted to be president of the United States. There was no way I was going to allow myself to be assigned a label. Somehow I’d fight through all the ideas in my head and find a way to harness the motor that never stopped running.

And boy was it humming now, as I stood in the bookstore, shifting my weight nervously from one foot to the other, thinking about how I had to have a perfect British accent so that I could portray this famous character, known and apparently loved by millions of readers, yet completely foreign to me. I’d already called Christine and asked her to line up a dialect coach— fast!

And oh by the way, honey, make sure the fax machine has paper in it, because we’re going to be getting an important correspondence from New Zealand, and another from the casting director, and I have to buy this book, and I don’t know which one to get, and, and, and …

There was an urgency to it—not quite a sense of panic, but a real determined urgency, accompanied by an implied ticking clock and the feeling that I had to get a handle on what this whole thing was about. All of which provoked some uncomfortable yet familiar emotions. When we were kids, my little brother would wear certain clothes to school, and I would look at him in wonder and say, “What are you wearing that for?”

He’d just laugh. “Oh, you don’t understand.”

Sure enough, the next day, or the next week, everyone would be wearing what Mack wore. He was smart that way, savvy and cool about trends and fashion and style. Not me. I was the guy who was happy during my three years at Catholic school because we all wore uniforms and I didn’t have to worry about what to wear; I was the guy who on “free dress day” would have a panic attack because he had no cool clothes and wouldn’t have known they were cool even if he did have them. That was the feeling pouring over me as I looked at this cool, hip thing—the Tolkien section of Barnes & Noble—that I knew nothing about.

I flipped through the Howe book first. For some reason it just didn’t trigger anything that normally draws me in. I felt bad about that years later, when I was in Paris and attended the opening of one of John’s art shows, and saw firsthand the original artwork he’d created for those books. It was absolutely stunning. On that day in the bookstore, though, in my frenetic state, I didn’t give John’s illustrations the time and consideration they deserved, and so they didn’t grab me.

But Alan Lee’s did.

Alan, as most Tolkien fanatics know, is one of the most prolific and revered book illustrators in the world. Inspired by Tolkien, his fellow countryman, to devote the lion’s share of his considerable talent to the realm of fantasy, Alan has become forever linked with the characters who inhabit Middle-earth. He also was awarded the Carnegie Medal for his illustrated edition of Homer’s epic The Iliad, which implies a different sort of sensibility, one that is rooted in mythology as well as fantasy. Perhaps that’s what struck me that day, when I picked up Alan’s illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings. It looked like mythic history, rather than fantasy—a book that had more in common with the Arthurian legend than it did with Harry Potter. I ran my fingers over the cover, leafed through the pages, pausing not to read but merely to admire the artwork, and I couldn’t help but think, Wow, these drawings are unbelievable. It looks and feels like real history.

So I bought The Lord of the Rings illustrated by Alan Lee. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy The Hobbit, which, in retrospect, was a mistake. If I’d been listening more closely to Nikki, I might have absorbed her reference to The Hobbit and understood the value of reading that as well. Reading it first, actually. But I didn’t. Instead, I went home with Alan’s three-volume set and read aloud with Christine the first 150 pages in about three hours, reading very quickly, not really understanding the story, but soaking up descriptions of the land and characters, and stopping to reread, or at least read more carefully, any time I saw the words “Sam” or “Samwise Gamgee,” the character I hoped to portray. My goal was to absorb as much as I could, as fast as I could, to figure out how important Sam was to the larger story and the world in which he lived. And it seemed to me that he was indeed a pivotal character.

A few things resonated. For example, I liked that Sam was a gardener, and I liked the way he spoke. There was, it seemed, a rural, almost agrarian, pastoral sound to his speech. I thought that the simplicity of it, the idea that Sam was at peace with himself and the land he tilled, was so cool. Not that I understood what it meant. I had no idea yet that Sam’s heroism and courage were rooted in his simple, noble approach to life. I knew only that Nikki and Victoria were excited about this project and this story, and I figured I’d better try to find out what it was that piqued their interest. So I didn’t come to the character organically; I didn’t really appreciate the value of Samwise from the beginning. I just knew that he was an important character, and that if I was playing him I had to present myself as an important actor, someone whose credibility and credentials—from starring in Rudy (whose titular character displays a courage that, in a way, mirrors Sam’s) to putting myself through college, where presumably I had done a fair amount of reading (though obviously not quite enough). No problem there, really, since I considered myself to be a serious actor, recent setbacks notwithstanding. I was a legend in my own mind, if not in the minds of studio executives, and I knew that if The Lord of the Rings was an important project (and what trilogy isn’t important, at least from a financial standpoint?), then I had to approach it with the proper combination of reverence and confidence.

What I understood from the moment I began reading the trilogy was its level of artistic achievement. It was clear from the first three paragraphs that the language employed by Tolkien was exceptional. He was brilliant. The book was brilliant. This was not a dressed-up, fleshed-out comic book,4 which is the way I had viewed most books in the fantasy realm or genre. It was literature, and I felt humbled and embarrassed that I had never read it and knew nothing about it. It was important, serious, world-class art, and the moment was now upon me to demonstrate that I was equal to the task of engaging the material in a serious way and bringing my talents to bear on a cinematic interpretation of Tolkien’s work.

Understand, please, that this is not the response typical of an actor being introduced to a project. What usually happens if you’re offered a role in a movie is this: you sit down with the script, or with the book or magazine article on which the script is based, and with sweaty palms sticking to the paper, you begin to read. In those first few paragraphs or pages, the thought running through your mind is: Oh, God, please don’t let it suck. Let it be something I can sink my teeth into. You want more than anything to be working, to be earning a living, but you also want to have an opportunity to work on something you feel really good about, because that makes the process enjoyable, fulfilling. Acting is hard. Not hard in the way that firefighting or law enforcement is hard. But it is hard. Even on the best of days it’s emotionally exhausting. There’s a stunning openness to it, a vulnerability that comes with stripping your soul bare in front of a group of strangers (and that’s what actors are in the first days of a movie production) in the hope that your combined efforts will result in work that will be sufficiently interesting to another, much larger group of strangers—the moviegoing public—a few months down the road. But it all begins with the written word. If the source material fails to hold your interest, well, you know it’ll be a long, uphill climb. Therefore, Please don’t suck becomes the mantra in your head.

Sadly, the undeniable truth is that much of what gets produced does, in fact, suck; there are so few scripts of quality, and so many that are merely retreads. In the years leading up to The Lord of the Rings I reached a point in the auditioning cycle where I lost faith, where it simply wasn’t fun anymore. I had starred in enough movies, and had done enough television pilots that didn’t go. I hated the feeling of auditioning cold for parts that I really didn’t want, in projects of modest to little merit. And yet, like my mother before me, I wasn’t at a place where I felt particularly confident about being selective, saying to my agents, “No, I don’t want to do that.” Like anyone else, I had to earn a living. Moreover, I wanted to have the freedom to flex my entrepreneurial muscles on occasion, and that was an exercise regimen requiring substantial capital. As a result, when it came time to audition for a given director, especially first-time filmmakers or people who hadn’t done well in their previous endeavors (and that happened a lot), I had difficulty mustering the requisite enthusiasm. I preferred going to meetings, pitching projects, because I do those things pretty well. In general, my auditioning skills had dulled considerably, although my level of self-confidence and interest ebbed and flowed according to a variety of factors: whether I was physically fit, working out, eating right, and feeling good about the project at hand. If I was in shape and excited about a particular project, I’d get a little of the swagger back and be happy to go into a room and put on a show, just as I had so many times when I was younger.

As a kid, I loved auditioning. The idea of competing was exciting. I was cocky and confident and enjoyed the process. I wanted to go in and prove to myself, and anyone else who happened to be around, exactly what I could do. A long time ago I did a Disney TV movie called Brat Patrol, about a bunch of rabble-rousing kids who live on military bases and have a lot of fun by riding around on their skateboards, crashing the officers club, having water-balloon fights, and generally driving the stiff-shirted adults crazy. Formulaic stuff. The character I played was described in the teleplay as a tan, brash, skate-punk kind of kid, about fourteen or fifteen years old. Before auditioning I made a decision that the way to get the part was to become that kid, so I put on the appropriate clothes, adopted the appropriate attitude. I walked into a room filled with studio executives, sat down, threw my feet up on the desk, and acted real cocky. As soon as I walked out after the audition, I had a nervous feeling in my stomach, like when you almost get into a fight, but you avoid it at the last second. My knees were shaking, and my body was bathed in sweat.

Oh, boy, if they didn’t buy that act, I’m in big trouble. They might really think I’m a jerk.

It wasn’t the most professional approach, and it wasn’t something I ever tried again. But I wanted to blur the line for them; I wanted them to wonder whether they were hiring the actor or the character. Not that they didn’t know who I was. I had already starred in The Goonies, which had made $100 million, when I was twelve, so in that world, the Disney Sunday-night world, I was a reasonably well-known commodity; I had some cache, and while I didn’t understand it completely, I was unquestionably emboldened by that knowledge.

The Method approach of auditioning (in which the actor disappears into the character) is not the sole province of desperate, unknown actors. There are A-list performers today who are more than willing to act the part in order to get the part. And there always have been. A few years ago Dan Petrie Jr. shared with me an interesting story that illustrates this point. Dan’s father, Dan Petrie Sr., was a very successful director whose credits included A Raisin in the Sun. According to Dan Jr., Mr. Petrie told the story of a visit to the home of Gregory Peck, at a time when Peck was one of Hollywood’s greatest and more bankable actors. The director was casting a movie that featured a character who was a rather rustic, gardener type, a man who liked to have his hands in the soil. Petrie was interested in hiring Peck, but wasn’t sure whether the actor was serious about getting involved—until he went to Peck’s mansion. A butler answered the door and invited Petrie into the foyer, where he waited for several minutes. Finally, Gregory Peck walked into the room, sunburned and wiping sweat from his brow. He removed a glove and extended his hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was out in the garden.”

Interpret that any way you like, but to me it’s fairly obvious. I mean, we’re talking about one of the biggest stars in the history of Hollywood, a man revered not only as a performer, but as a consummate professional. He knew he had an appointment with Dan Petrie Sr. He knew the subject of that meeting and the time it was supposed to begin. His intent, subtle as it may have been, was to make an impression, to demonstrate that he was right for the part. And perhaps to provoke a reaction from the director.

It had been a while since I’d been willing to take a chance like that. Truth be told, it had been a while since I’d felt even a ripple of enthusiasm over an audition. Nausea was a more common response. The Lord of the Rings was different. In this case, I felt nothing but excitement. The fact that there was so much history with my father and Peter and Fran, and with Victoria Burrows—well, it just felt safe. I had no problem with the process of preparation, of diving into the book and hiring a dialect coach, and working on Sam’s Cockney accent. I must admit, however, that I did not read the entire book at that time. I stopped when the fax arrived: it consisted of four or five pages about the language of Tolkien, and a handful of speeches by and about Sam, including one from the first movie in which Gandalf yanks an eavesdropping Sam through a window, and another from the third film in which Sam laments the apparent death of Frodo after his epic battle with Shelob, the giant spider. (“Please don’t leave me here alone. Don’t go where I cannot follow.”) As I read that language my heart swelled with hope, and I fell in love with the character.

This is poetry. This is … beautiful.

The dialect coach came to our house that night, and we put in a good long session together. I wanted to play Sam, not only because it was a substantial part in a substantial movie, but also because I thought there was strength and dignity in the role. Rather than being too daring or experimental, we settled on a rather standard Cockney accent, a reasonable choice given the character’s rural heritage. I wanted the accent to be real, more like a working-class Michael Caine than a broad style like that of Mary Poppins, so I dialed it back just a bit, curled the vowels a little less obviously, and tried to soften the pitch of my voice. The effect was my own personal brand of Cockney, and within a few hours I felt reasonably confident that I had begun the process of inhabiting the role. Like Rudy, Samwise Gamgee is indeed a working-class hero, a distinction that holds tremendous appeal to me. You may think this sounds odd, coming from someone perceived as having been raised in the bubble of celebrity, but I always felt as though our family had its collective heart in the right place in matters of class and social justice. We weren’t blue-collar people, but we were progressive and liberal, and our sympathies and sensibilities rested earnestly with those who knew what it was like to really work for a living. I like to think that my father was basically a hippie. My mother was president of the Screen Actors Guild; matters of business were routinely presented to us with a particular slant: us versus them. “Us” was the rank and file, and “them” the suits in the front office. As much as I wanted to be a Hollywood mogul, maybe even the head of a studio, in my family you couldn’t help but absorb into the fabric of your skin a kind of passion for working-class people. I married a girl whose father was a firefighter and operated a crane. Normal, good-hearted, hard-working people. I relished that kind of normalcy, and I recognized it at once in the character of Sam.

At the same time, because I’d been reading so much, I admired the quality of Tolkien’s writing, and felt it was an elegant, emblematic vision of working people. One of my favorite books in college was Candide, the last line of which, when translated roughly to English, is, “Cultivate your own garden.” There’s something sacred about having your hands in the soil, planting seeds and growing food that can sustain you. So what the hobbits represented, what Samwise represented within the context of the hobbit world, just felt right. It was to me a no-brainer. I was meant for the role. It helped, too, that right from the beginning I enjoyed the process of preparing for it. I’d lived in London for a while, so I had no problem popping into a British accent. By the end of the night, I found myself not just excited about the audition, but ready, too. And I hadn’t felt that way in a long, long time.

The next day I talked by phone with a friend named Dan Lyons, who had been a technical adviser on Kimberly, starring Gabrielle Anwar. We’d filmed for six weeks in Philadelphia, and had a wonderful time living in a great apartment and shooting on Boathouse Row. Dan and I developed a strong connection. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he had rowed for one of the best crews in the school’s history, a team that won the equivalent of the national championship by beating Harvard, Yale, and all those other traditional powerhouses. Dan is a smart, successful man who moves easily among the East Coast cultural and social elite, yet somehow remains eminently approachable and pleasant in virtually all interactions. In short, he’s a good and decent man, and we’ve maintained the friendship forged while working on Kimberly. When I called Dan from my office and told him I was auditioning for the part of Sam in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he practically flipped out.

“Oh, man, I’ve read that book every year since high school!” he shouted. “I cry in the same spots every time. You’re perfect for that role.”

This to me was not a hollow endorsement. Dan probably has a couple of postgraduate degrees and is married to a woman who is some kind of rocket scientist for the navy. He’s one of the smartest people I know. And here he was freaking out, yelling into the phone.

“This was meant to be, Sean! It’s perfect.”

The fact that this man, whom I had placed on a pedestal and tried to emulate, a guy full of integrity and good feelings—well, for him to react in this way really increased my appreciation for the power of the franchise. I knew The Lord of the Rings was a big project, but suddenly it seemed even bigger. Dan was more excited than I was. Oh, I was diligently doing what I needed to do, but his reaction was just frenzied. I was focusing on getting the job; he was thrilled with the whole concept. He understood the magnitude of it in a way that I did not and could not.

What I also got from Dan was a kind of profound confidence that I was right for the part. I was having trouble with the notion that Frodo and Sam, in the book, are fifty-five years old. Granted, they live to be more than a hundred, so they’re still somewhat youthful, but the fact remains that I was, physically, not quite what the role called for. I was only twenty-eight at the time. None of this bothered Dan in the least. That he knew me so well and knew the book so well, and felt we made a good match, helped erase any doubt that lingered in my mind. His endorsement, combined with Victoria Burrows’s involvement, my father’s history with Peter Jackson, and my own connection with the character made it feel as though the stars were lining up.

*   *   *

I dressed casually for the audition, just jeans and a T-shirt. No costume, no makeup. I worked “off-book” (without a script) because, helped as usual by my wife, I had memorized the scene completely—not a difficult task when the material is compelling and you really want the job. The only people in the room were myself, Victoria, and an assistant whose chief function was to videotape the audition for Peter. Ideally, an audition involves a second performer, someone with whom you can share the task of bringing a scene to life. Often, as in this case, you simply work with the casting director, which is more difficult simply because you’re not getting as much as you’re giving. Acting, even when it’s just an audition, is a collaborative endeavor. It’s much easier to sink into a character when you’re acting on the set, with cameras rolling—or better yet, onstage, in front of an audience—when you’re with other people who are similarly invested. On this occasion, though, it didn’t seem to matter, for I absolutely nailed the audition. Victoria deserves a good bit of the credit for that. She handled the process extraordinarily well, making me feel like I wasn’t just another guy on the long list of actors hoping to portray Samwise Gamgee, even though I knew that Peter was indeed looking at a lot of different candidates, from all over the world.

Even before the audition, I got the distinct impression that I had a legitimate shot, and that they—specifically Victoria—wanted me to do my best. How can I say that? Well, it’s an intuitive thing; if you’ve been through the audition meat grinder enough times, you begin to sense whether you’re being taken seriously or not. Often the atmosphere that permeates an audition is one of exhaustion and annoyance: We’ve been through hell to get this movie off the ground; now we’ll sit back and wait for the perfect guy to walk in. Then we’ll get excited. You don’t usually get the feeling that the casting director really wants you to do your best.

With some casting directors, it’s such a callous kind of transaction; they’re trafficking in human flesh. They have filing cabinets filled with résumés and perfectly airbrushed photographs, but they develop a rapport with certain actors, and those are the ones who get the jobs. The good casting directors genuinely care about the people they’re calling in. They get offended when you’re late or don’t take the audition seriously. There’s always a Cinderella element to it: Here he (or she) is—the perfect fit! To a degree, my motivation was no different. I had to audition, I had to prove I was right for the part, I had to work for it and want it bad. But within that context, it was a safe, nurturing environment, one that discouraged the little voice that sometimes pulls an actor out of focus. That voice, the voice of doubt and fear and insecurity, did not win the day; instead, I sailed through the audition. I knew I had met the challenge. It’s like when a singer has the opportunity to interpret great material, or when a race-car driver gets behind the wheel of a perfectly tuned automobile. Something happens when you are resonating correctly with good drama. You feel it in your stomach, in your heart, and it’s visible to everyone in the room.

Moreover, Victoria projected an attitude that reflected a certain kinship or camaraderie. I felt as though she wanted me to have this job. Now, the truth is, I’ll bet she made a lot of actors feel that way, because that’s her job; that’s how she gets the best possible audition out of every candidate. But she was so good at it that I really believed she wanted me. I think she was doing her job to make sure the director had a good selection from which to choose, but I also felt like she had a special something inside of her that wanted me to have the job. She was simply too nice to me the night of The Frighteners premiere, and I knew from my agent that much of the excitement about my potential involvement stemmed from Victoria. As an actor, you get that feeling sometimes, that someone is really pulling for you. There’s so much negative energy in the world, so many people who don’t treat you that way, that when you do experience it, it’s identifiable and palpable and genuinely inspiring. I could tell when I walked into the room that Victoria was happy to see me and wanted me to do well. Whether that means she wanted me to get the role, I don’t really know. But she was a very positive, nurturing woman, and I don’t doubt for a second that her attitude and outlook played a role in what turned out to be the best audition of my life.

“I’ll send everything to Peter right away,” Victoria said afterward. “Good luck. You did great.”

I thanked her, gave her a hug, and walked out. Before I hit the parking lot, I was on the phone, calling everyone—Christine, my father, my manager, and my agent—to tell them I hadn’t screwed the proverbial pooch. The audition had exceeded my wildest expectations. I had a legitimate chance to get this part.

And then I waited. And waited.

And waited.

Feedback, direct and indirect, came sporadically. I tried to put it out of my mind, because to fixate on it was to court madness. And yet, how could I think of anything else? This was not just another little independent film that would go straight to the art-house circuit or, worse, straight to video. This was The Lord of the Rings. This was a movie—three movies!—that would dramatically impact the career of anyone and everyone involved. It often takes time for a project to come together, especially one of this magnitude, but that knowledge was only moderately reassuring. I couldn’t tell if the studio was simply taking its time or posturing so it could get me cheaper; after all, The Lord of the Rings was such a big epic adventure that you just knew the studio was trying to get everybody to work for less money so it could afford to make the damn movie.

At one point Nikki heard through the grapevine that Peter Jackson was seriously interested in someone else for the role of Sam—a British actor who tended to be more naturally stout than I was. In an attempt to refute the wrongheaded notion that I wasn’t capable of “playing fat,” my father and I spliced together some footage from a few of my earlier movies, including numerous scenes that, under different circumstances, might have caused me considerable embarrassment, so obvious was it that I’d let the health-club membership lapse. Accompanying this montage was a deeply sincere letter to Peter, thanking him for the opportunity of a lifetime. I closed the letter by saying, “I know this is going to be a great adventure. Whether I’m along for the ride or not, I wish the best for you.” That probably sounds a bit desperate, if not downright unctuous, but I was willing to do or say almost anything to get the job. Besides, I meant it. It was going to be a great adventure, and I did wish Peter nothing but the best. But I also knew how I would feel when the movie came out if I wasn’t part of it. At different times Peter has said that he remembers that note, and that it was meaningful to him. At other times he’s said, “You wrote me a letter, Sean?” Where the truth lies, I really don’t know. I don’t even know if he ever saw the tape, either. I only know that I sent it, and that I hoped it would have meaning.

After the audition I went back to what would, for most of our time in New Zealand, affectionately be called the “bible,” the three-volume set of The Lord of the Rings. I remember picking up the book one night to read to Christine, starting where I’d left off at page 150, and continuing to page 166. And then stopping. Cold. A week later I picked it up again. And stopped again. Three or four times I did that, started reading with the best of intentions, only to give up after ten or twenty pages. Why? I couldn’t concentrate on the story, couldn’t enjoy it, and the reason was simple: I was afraid I wasn’t going to get the part, and that possibility was paralyzing. To read the trilogy and fall in love with it and then not get the part—that would have been too painful. So, time after time, I respectfully closed the book and placed it on the nightstand next to my bed.

Don’t worry, I’ll be back. Soon as I get the part.

*   *   *

A second audition followed a couple of months later. Same office, higher stakes, for this time I was auditioning for Peter Jackson himself. Fran Walsh was there, too, and I have to say that they seemed almost as supportive and nurturing as Victoria had been. It was amazing, seeing these people who had been so nice to me years earlier, and who seemed so familiar because of all the stories I’d heard from my dad. After I walked into the room, we embraced, shared a few stories about my father, and then we went to work. But the wall—that barrier between actor and director, between employer and prospective employee—never really went up. It was like we were already part of the same team.

That day Peter talked about Tolkien’s service in World War I, and how important it had been to him. It was clear that Peter was a student of the war, and that he understood how Tolkien’s wartime experiences shaped both his artistic sensibilities and his worldview. Peter also told me that he considered the relationship between the characters of Frodo and Sam to be the central relationship in the books, and that making the relationship believable and viable on film was crucial to achieving his vision for the movie. It was, he said, a specifically English relationship, not just a mythological thing that happened in the space of your mind. It was based on a kind of history. That was exactly what I wanted to hear, supporting as it did everything I believed and suspected about the character of Sam: his inherent nobility and loyalty and courage.

Hearing it wasn’t enough, though. The point of the talk, and the subsequent exercise, was to give me a chance to demonstrate to Peter and Fran that I truly understood the character. To that end, I fought my natural tendency to claim at least fifty percent of the words in any given conversation. I’m a chatterbox by nature. Always have been. Here, though, protocol and common sense dictated that I take a different approach: Shut up, listen, absorb, and give back what he wants. I was given an opportunity to offer my take on the subject: Who is Sam? As I rambled on, though, I noticed Peter nodding, and it became apparent that he was constructing something in his head, quietly multitasking, as it were, and I took that as a cue to wrap up my biographical synopsis. But he was doing his best not to let me know that he was starting to drift away.

Later I would learn that Peter is an unusually adept and versatile leader: he has a quiet, intellectual mode, but he can turn up the volume when the situation calls for it. He is most assuredly not a screamer or tyrant; in fact, he is a perfect example of how a director can accomplish great things and motivate a veritable army of foot soldiers without resorting to hysterical, petulant behavior. Neither is he naturally a showman, except to the extent that he has to be one to accomplish whatever task it is that needs to be accomplished. For example, one of the untold stories, one of the great achievements of The Lord of the Rings, is that Peter actually directed six or seven other directors. Because we were all over the place, with different units in different locales, he was compelled to cede control to others. He’d essentially have to say to John Mahaffey, the second unit director, “You need to film the sequence; I trust you.” Then Peter would watch the dailies and make comments. The hard part for those directors was to try to capture Peter’s vision. One of the most memorable sequences in the trilogy, the battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers, involved ten or eleven weeks of night shooting. (I don’t mean evening; I mean night, as in, “Show up when it gets dark; go home when the sun comes up.”) Peter wasn’t there for most of the Helm’s Deep shooting. He was with us, the hobbits, during the day, doing myriad other things. That was the nature of his job, to serve as general manager of the project. He directed, to be sure, day in and day out, scene after scene. But he also directed, in a macro sense, taking complete charge of a project that required him to be all things to all people, and to never show the strain of the effort. Not often, anyway.

Peter’s capability as a director, as someone who can inspire actors as well as martial every technological device at his disposal, is easily illustrated. Take, for example a sleepy Saturday morning in New Zealand, when we all showed up to rehearse what would become one of the most memorable scenes in the trilogy: the nine members of the Fellowship battling against a giant cave troll. On film, the scene is a wonder, a visceral thrill ride that demonstrates the power of computer-generated imagery and world-class sound design—when applied by the right hands. In rehearsal, though, it was a tour de force for Peter Jackson, who endeavored to ensure that everyone in attendance—actors, stunt doubles, cinematographers, assistant directors, and the second unit directors—understood what he wanted to see on the screen. Peter had an idea of how the scene would be played out, and the best way to convey that idea was to perform the scene himself. Every word, every movement, every role. Every thrust of a sword, every grunt and growl and howl. The way he assumed the visage of each character—in front of an awestruck crowd of roughly sixty people—was nothing short of remarkable. Aragorn, the hobbits, the cave troll—he played them all. Flawlessly. He choreographed the fight sequence, and by watching him, we all got it. Then, for the next week, we filmed the scene, each of us giving Peter what he wanted; interpreting it in our own way, too, of course, but essentially following his lead.

If we had merely looked at the storyboards or discussed the choreography over dinner, it wouldn’t have been the same. By acting it out, by throwing himself completely into the process, Peter got us to understand what he needed, and the tone that he had in his performance was exactly what was captured in the final film: that feeling of adventure reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a feeling and scene that were central to the movie, capturing as it does the bonding of the Fellowship. It is one of the most thrilling sequences in the movies, and it wouldn’t have happened if Peter hadn’t been willing to risk embarrassment and let his imagination run wild.

Not that I knew any of this when I auditioned. I had no context at the time, only a proper degree of reverence based on my limited personal experience and the tales my father had shared. For some reason, though, I wasn’t terribly anxious. Just as Victoria had done, Peter and Fran created an atmosphere practically devoid of tension. They seemed to me almost like long-lost relatives, and I was filled with a sense of wanting to please them, a sense of excitement and anticipation, rather than the feeling of dread that is generally common during an audition. Not that I wasn’t nervous; I was. But once again, I thought I performed well—really well. Afterward, Peter and Fran paid me nice compliments and said they’d be in touch. We shook hands and I left. Then Christine and I drove right around the corner to a coffee shop, where my father and my stepmother, Val, were waiting for us.

Dad took one look at me and smiled.

“You did it, didn’t you? You got the job.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I mean, I think I nailed it, and they were really nice to me. But…”

“What?”

“I’m just not sure. Peter is so hard to read.”

That was the truth. I would come to discover through my long months in New Zealand that being hard to read is a trademark of Peter Jackson’s, a signature of his unflappable managerial style. It’s not that he’s joyless. He just never gets too high or too low. Or at least that is the image he projects and cultivates, never letting anyone see him as anything other than a rather rumpled, bearded, unkempt fellow in baggy shorts and sandals (or bare feet) seemingly floating through life—despite carrying an enormous weight on his shoulders. I remember being exhilarated as I walked out of the audition, but not quite sure what to think. I knew that an answer would not come right away, so I had to keep busy with the business of life: spending time with my family, trying to be a good husband and father, and working.

Among the job opportunities I explored was a relationship with Four Square Productions, a San Diego communications and production company. Four Square had been responsible for, among other things, the 1978 sci-fi/horror parody, kitsch classic, and cult hit Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, as well as its 1990s-era sequels (Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Killer Tomatoes Strike Back, and Killer Tomatoes Eat France). My father played the mad scientist Dr. Gangreen in the sequels, and for some time he’d been promoting the company to me. It was, he said, populated by good, smart people who knew how to get movies made and distributed, and make money in the process. That summer, with time to kill and nothing heavy on my plate, I decided to take Dad’s advice and drive down to San Diego with my family. A tour of the production facility revealed a company that seemed to be every bit as viable as my father had indicated, and I wondered if there might be some way to form a strategic alliance that would benefit Lava Entertainment. But I wasn’t really as focused as I might have been, for even as I engaged in meetings with the company’s executives, I kept thinking about The Lord of the Rings.

Oddly enough, the good news arrived while I was sitting in the office of Michael Bayer, Four Square’s vice president. It was my agent, Nikki, on the cell phone, saying the producers at New Line had called. They wanted quotes.

This was important. “Quotes” refers to an actor’s salary history. A studio asks for quotes only when it’s serious about making an offer. Nikki said she’d get back to me when she had more information.

When I hung up the phone, I turned to face Michael and Christine.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I think I’m about to get offered an amazing job,” I replied. “I’m gonna get to play Sam in The Lord of the Rings.”

Unfazed by the unraveling of yet another potential Hollywood marriage, Michael merely laughed. “I’ll remember you were here when it happened,” he said, reaching out to pat me on the back.

“It hasn’t happened,” I corrected him. “Not yet.”

Two weeks later, just as I was leaving my office late in the afternoon, Christine and Jeff Owens, my assistant, told me my agents were on the phone.

My mind had not been on work that day. Christine and I had gone forward with plans to purchase our dream house, and we had closed escrow that very morning. Scrawling my signature on the contract, I felt a maelstrom of conflicting emotions brewing in my stomach, everything from joy to dread. Like anyone who buys a new home, I was thinking about it a lot. Of course, Christine is an amazing workhorse, so she shouldered much of the burden. For her, every day was filled with the minutiae of real estate transactions: phone calls to lawyers, brokers, and bankers; estimates from moving companies; packing, unpacking, shedding the detritus of a life in transition. As the closing date grew near, fretting about whether I’d be able to earn enough money to support our new home and lifestyle became not just an occasional emotional indulgence, but a perpetual state of being. I was constantly trying to figure out which deals were about to close, and which ones were likely to fall through; whether it made more sense to try to build our company or just take the first acting gig that came along. What I felt, more than anything else, was pressure. Intense pressure.

And now, here was a phone call that held the promise of something great. Christine stood next to me as we waited for the news.

Remember I said earlier that it’s always nice when an agent calls? Well, when two agents call, it’s never bad news. Two agents call because they want to celebrate with you. Nikki Mirisch was my feature-film agent, the point person in my movie career. Mark Schwartz had handled my television work. Now they were on the line together, screaming, each trying to outshout the other.

“You got it, Sean! You got the job.”

That was the good news—the great news, actually. But there was at least a small piece of bad news, although it wasn’t presented to me as such. You see, while New Line understood the necessity of spending great gobs of money on what would prove to be groundbreaking visual effects and a landmark cinematic achievement, they did not necessarily see the logic in splurging on actors’ salaries. My fee, I was told, would be $250,000.

All right, I can live with that. Three movies … that’s $750,000. I’m covered for the next three years.

“Uh, Sean?”

“Yeah.”

“The offer is $250,000—total.”

I was shocked. A total of $250,000 for three films and up to two years of uninterrupted work, during which time I’d be unable to accept any other offers. And it would be several months before I’d receive a penny.

Oh, no, I just bought a new house, and now I’m going to take a cut in salary?

I didn’t whine for long, in part because Mark and Nikki wouldn’t allow it. We all agreed that compensation notwithstanding, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. When I got off the phone, I literally fell to my knees and cried, and began to say a prayer of thanks. Then I looked at Christine and Jeff, who were smiling and obviously happy for me. I thought, Life is going to change, man. These offices aren’t going to be here, and Jeff … you’re not going to be working for me. Everything will be different.

I remember once seeing videotape of a woman collapsing to the ground as she approached the end of a marathon and then, flopping and flailing like a wounded animal, crawling across the finish line as the crowd stood and cheered. She was at once an object of pity and admiration, a profile in desperation and courage. That’s the way I felt. As a man, as a father, as someone who was trying to survive in a career, and as someone who was trying to pretend that he had more influence than he really did. I had begun to question my own strength and determination and talent. I wondered if failure was suddenly an option.

But no more. With a single call, everything had changed. There was no question that The Lord of the Rings was going to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. I don’t think, however, that I really understood what that meant; how could I? Sure, I knew it would be an epic adventure in New Zealand, with Peter Jackson and an incredible franchise, with its millions of fans; because of those things, I knew it was going to be big. Whatever else it might be, it was certainly going to be big. There was, however, no frame of reference, no way to anticipate what the experience was going to be like. For me, it was more about thinking, Thank God, I’m going to be able to feed my wife and daughter; they’ll be proud of me.

They’d also get to share in the adventure, which was a bonus. One of the things Peter had sought to ascertain during the audition was my attitude toward what could euphemistically be termed “location work.”

“You know, we’re filming this whole thing in New Zealand,” he had said. “And it’s going to take some time. Probably a year and a half. Is that a problem?”

Peter and the producers were very clever about doling out information and getting information. They wanted to know how each participant felt about working on such an unusual project. For Peter, a part of the selection process boiled down to a simple question: Are we going to be able to live with this person? Is he going to be able to come into our family and survive and not make everybody miserable? It was an important consideration, and one that was obviously addressed with great care, because there was so much cohesion on the set. Not that there weren’t problems. As in any “family,” tempers occasionally flared and personalities bumped up against each other and created friction. In the end, though, respect and love (for each other and the film) triumphed over greed and egotism, and that’s a rare accomplishment in any movie, let alone the most ambitious movie in history. When Peter revealed the timetable, I didn’t blink.

“You won’t have to ask twice,” I said. “It’s not an issue for me.”

That would prove to be a naive response, but it seemed reasonable at the time. I’d been to New Zealand and had worked on White Water Summer with some of the people Peter knew. In fact, on the day I arrived in New Zealand for The Lord of the Rings, I ran into a guy at Peter’s house who looked somewhat familiar. I couldn’t place him at first, but he ambled right up to me, gave me a pat on the back, and said, “Hey, Sean, how you doin’?” After talking for a few minutes, I realized who he was: a buddy of Peter’s—a fellow Kiwi, of course—named Dan Hannah. Dan was a member of the set crew on White Water Summer. He’d built a suspension bridge from which I was supposed to take a fall. I hadn’t seen him in a dozen years, and now here he was, at Peter’s house, returning a pile of videos he’d borrowed. So before I even landed the role, I felt comfortable with the notion of working and living in New Zealand for eighteen months. In a sense, I felt like I’d already been to Rivendell and Hobbiton.

I reviewed the offer with Christine. Predictably, since she’s one who appreciates a good adventure, she just smiled and said, “Let’s do it. It’ll be a great experience for the whole family.”

In some ways, Christine was more excited than I was about the prospect of moving to New Zealand. We’d experienced some serious losses in the previous few years. Christine’s father, who suffered from manic depression, had taken his own life; a friend had been murdered. But my wife is sort of a Ramblin’ Rose: when things happen in her life, she allows herself to adjust and to move on. She grieves and she cries, but she retains her faith and her belief in the inherent goodness of people. I’m a compulsive worrier; Christine is an unbridled optimist. She’s a pretty amazing woman in that way. She saw going to New Zealand as an incredible opportunity and instinctively knew that it would be something wonderful for all of us.

There wasn’t even that much discussion about it. I think Christine felt that this job offer represented a logical progression in my career. During the low moments of my life, I’ve often looked to Christine for confirmation of my pessimism, for support of the notion that this is bad and it’s going to get worse and why don’t I just get the hell out of this business? But it never happens. In marriage, I think, the unspoken can be as powerful as the spoken. I felt strength and approval from Christine. I had explained to her what I wanted to accomplish with my life and career, and she had believed in me. Now, with the offer to play Sam on the table, she would have to do an even better job of convincing me that she still believed in me. And she didn’t have to work that hard. Christine’s worries tend to lean more toward the philosophical and spiritual: Am I appreciating it? That’s a sentiment she uses a lot.

“It’s going to be over so fast, Sean,” she’ll say. “Try to enjoy it.”

Christine sees time racing by and wants to absorb it, to slow it down and figure it out, and make sure she isn’t missing anything. So when I run around like a chicken with my head cut off, she just sits there quietly, smiling, saying, “You know, hon, we’re going to be in rocking chairs before we know it.” She knew before I did that this job and this adventure would be one of those life-altering experiences, and on the other side of it we’d both end up better. During the deal, as I fretted about money and time and commitment, Christine was bemused.

“Do you have any concept of what you’re talking about?” she asked. “Do you have any idea of the magnitude of this project, as compared to the stuff you’re bickering over?”

“Uhhhhh…”

“Well, do you? You moron.”

I did, of course, somewhere deep in my bones. But I needed to be reminded. I needed Christine as a barometer.

That said, it wasn’t until three or four months down under that I realized what I had committed to. There was no possible way to know just how demanding and consuming a job it would be. I was also looking at it like this: My daughter is two, and she’ll be four or five when this is all through, and seven when the last movie comes out. I didn’t understand the sheer, groundbreaking enormity of it, and how that would affect all of us on a day-to-day basis. Even the way my agents explained the negotiations—“You’ll be paid for each film, but it’s all one job”—provoked a certain blind response. I was looking at it as one film. I said, “What’s the total compensation?” I didn’t understand the significance of the individual films. In my mind, I just blocked off a chunk of time—a year and a half—without giving too much consideration to the layers of nuance involved with the nature of time as it was going to relate to my experience on the pictures.

My attorney, Dave Feldman, was working hard to get me a favorable deal, but I sensed that the “times” on the contract would bear little resemblance to what we actually did. I think it’s fair to say that the project was like a supernova blighting many of the finer points in the deal as it pertained to actual time worked. The assumption was, “Listen, they’re not gonna kill you; they need you!” Still, a contract was necessary, and very smart people worked hard to make the legal language match the reality we were going to experience. What I’m talking about here is the way the contract was structured to allow for the production’s ownership of my time. On some level I expected to go down to New Zealand and give myself over to Peter. One of my more endearing qualities (I make people crazy!) is that somehow I used to believe that I could give myself completely over to a project, while retaining an inordinate amount of faith that I could do fifty other things simultaneously. When most people would relax or take up a hobby or rededicate themselves to a given assignment, I’m usually just getting warmed up. My mom used to tell me, “Sean, you can’t do it all. You can’t have everything all at once!” I love my mom and she may be right, but I’ve yet to be totally convinced.

Anyway, at the time I was in negotiations with New Line to play Sam, the agents and lawyers were working hard to interpret the contract, especially as it related to time commitments, because essentially we were making a deal ahead of time, and nothing like this had ever been done before. The Lord of the Rings was conceived as a trilogy from a marketing standpoint, but it’s really one movie sliced into three movies. New Line figured out how to make it beneficial to them all the way through, and thank God they did, because if they hadn’t, we couldn’t have gotten the movie made. The studio deserves credit, and so do the actors and the directors and the writers and the crew and … everyone.

It’s my guess that virtually everyone accepted less money upfront than they had earned before, or less than they could have if they had chosen to work on something else. In some way, we all understood that this was an opportunity to do something special. There was a feeling of frustration and exhaustion that permeated the entire project, and yet no one would admit to it, in part because of job security and in part because we realized the sacrifices were worth it. In low moments, when I was worried or frustrated about money, because of the house or other factors beyond my control, because my body was bloated and I was tired and homesick or just plain sick—in those moments, the money issue was a problem for me. Yes, I had entered into the contract with my eyes open. Nevertheless, I was at times bothered by what I considered to be an unfair deal. The work was exhausting and endless, and the financial reward insufficient. I didn’t blame this on the studio or on Peter Jackson. I blamed it on the circumstances, and sometimes I blamed it on myself.

I like to think that I’m a professional, that I’m on time, that I give my bosses what they want. I can do foot soldier as well as anyone. I am not a prima donna. But I do remember a couple of times this feeling washing over me, a kind of panic or claustrophobia, and thinking, What if my body won’t do this? My consciousness hadn’t approached thinking about calling in sick or asking for more sleep. That’s the purview of rock stars, not actors. And certainly not actors at my level. In the beginning I had made a promise: I’m going to give myself over to this process and trust that these are good, decent people and that their artistry is so worthy of sacrifice that I’ll come out of it on the other end saying, “Look what I’ve accomplished!”

But there were times along the way when doubt seeped in and I thought, If I don’t set some limits here, I’m going to die.

That The Lord of the Rings was going to be a nonunion production was one of my primary concerns. Not so much from a physical standpoint, but definitely from a philosophical standpoint. My mother, president of the Screen Actors Guild, was obviously a staunch union supporter, and I held close to my heart aspirations of one day following in her footsteps. I tried to imagine how I’d be able to look at my fellow union members and have any credibility if I had a reputation for cutting and running whenever there was a better opportunity. While I wouldn’t call myself a socialist, I think it’s fair to say that in matters of politics, I’m left of center. But what I developed throughout this experience was a vantage point from which to view all the different perspectives. I could understand from the studio executives’ perspective how they put their deals together, and what was important to them, and why this movie could only be made in this way at this time. I could understand exactly how they were taking advantage of people, and when and why. I mean that in both a positive and negative way: they took advantage of resources available to them to create the best possible work of art, but they also “took advantage” in the more cynical sense, by taking advantage of people who were unsuspecting and unwary and grateful to have a job. The cold hard truth, however, is that Hollywood couldn’t have made this movie. Working within the traditional system, The Lord of the Rings would have taken ten years and cost a billion dollars. It just wouldn’t have worked. Most of the time in Hollywood, everyone looks out for themselves. On this project, just about everyone, to some extent, sublimated their own immediate self-interests to be part of the process and to get the work done.

Ultimately, I made a personal decision that involved a certain degree of compromise. This was a world-class opportunity, and the evaluation—okay, the rationalization—I made was, If I hold the line here and say I won’t work unless it’s a project certified and endorsed by the Screen Actors Guild, they will absolutely hire the fat guy in England. Do I want to make a principled stand and be a martyr for a union that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me and my career, or do I want to embrace this opportunity and endure whatever it means to work under a nonunion contract?

I knew on a gut-check level that playing the role of Sam would be the hardest work of my life. I’d done some thirty movies, had grown up on sets, and had worked with a lot of terrific directors, some of them quite demanding. Even as a child and teenage actor I had understood the fundamental dynamics of the employer-employee relationship, so the unpleasant and sad reality that people will sometimes try to take advantage of you was not foreign to me. But I went along for the ride whenever it was necessary, which was most of the time. Brendan Fraser went off and did a ton of great work after Encino Man, and I remember playing video games with him at my house in the wake of that success. It seemed to me that he had a real callous attitude toward the production he was working on at the time, and I was trying to figure out why.

“Listen,” I said, “even though there are rules about turnaround and set time, if you’re there because you want to be there, what’s the problem? Do you like the movie?”

He shrugged. “Sure, it’s fine.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why not just give the director what he needs?”

But Brendan’s attitude seemed pretty sour, and I remember thinking that the pendulum had swung to the other side, that he seemed a bit harsh and cocky. “They’ve got me for ten hours a day; that’s enough.”

I was honestly concerned for him, but I have to admit that my concern wasn’t entirely benevolent. A part of me worried that Brendan was changing, not necessarily for the better. But another part of me was envious that I wasn’t in the same situation. Studios weren’t backing up to my front door with truckloads of cash; I didn’t have the luxury of taking such an aggressive position on the set. Not that I would have, because it’s inconsistent with who I am as an artist and a man. I think I’m at my best when I’m working with a director who is passionate and driven. In that atmosphere, the hours slip away, and it doesn’t really matter, because you’re both trying to create something meaningful. There are limits, of course, as I would discover in New Zealand. It’s complicated that those lines have to become blurred sometimes. On a union shoot, it’s easy to be there and be fresh and give a thousand percent, because union guidelines govern how many hours you can work. But there are times—and The Lord of the Rings was a perfect example—when the guidelines become an almost insurmountable obstacle.

All of those things were running through my mind as I absorbed the reality of being a part of this project. Whether or not the film would be a “success,” with all that term implies, did not enter my thinking. Wait, that’s not quite true. It didn’t dominate my thinking. After the initial shock and delirium wore off, which took at least a few days, I began to think about the more practical aspects of the job: it would swallow a year and a half of my life, and all the other projects I’d been developing through Lava Entertainment were now in limbo. I didn’t want them just to stop, so we generated a postcard for all our current and potential business partners saying, “The volcano is going dormant for a year and a half. Then it will explode again!” I had thought—again, naively—that perhaps when I got to New Zealand, I’d be able to continue to develop projects. The world had become a much smaller place, right? I’d have cell phones, access to the Internet. Most important, I’d have plenty of downtime. Samwise Gamgee was an important character, but not the star of The Lord of the Rings. The “story” was the star. This was to be a true ensemble piece, and as such it was likely to provide plenty of opportunities for individual actors to pursue outside interests.

As it turned out, there were gaping holes in my strategy. First of all, I didn’t have enough money to be a bi-hemisphere mogul. That became clear right away. Second, and most important of all, there was almost no free time. After the first thirty-six hours of boot camp, it was obvious that my life was not my own. I didn’t think that my services would be required twelve hours a day, every day. I was wrong.

I was part of the Fellowship.