Hobbits invaded New York City last weekend.
Sean Astin and Elijah Wood of “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” were speeding from one morning talk show to another, surviving hit-and-run paparazzi shots and autograph requests along the way. They appeared onstage at Lincoln Center and commandeered a table at the New York Film Critics Circle awards dinner, where their movie was honored as 2003’s best picture.
And while all this was going on, the movie was adding to its $767 million worldwide box-office take, a success so blindingly huge that it threatens to obscure everything else in the pop-cultural zeitgeist.
So it’s possible to characterize this most recent publicity tour as a victory lap for the final installment of Peter Jackson’s triumphantly realized adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy. Then again, as Andy Serkis, who plays the malevolent, melancholy Gollum, bemusedly observed, it may not be over yet.
“Someone asked me once if there’s been a single day when the phrase ‘Lord of the Rings’ hasn’t been mentioned in my presence in the last five years,” Serkis says. “And the answer is no, there hasn’t been a single day when that phrase doesn’t come up. And I suppose now there’ll be more of the same this year with openings, the DVDs and the awards.”
Ah, yes, the awards. Having already scored such conspicuous wins as the big prize from the New York Critics’ Circle, a group not always predisposed to confer such lofty honors on popular blockbusters, “Return of the King” now takes that tricky, arduous path toward the Feb. 29 Academy Awards. It’s already a prohibitive favorite to get a Golden Globe on Sunday for best dramatic film.
All of which means that everyone involved will be living with “Lord of the Rings” for a few months longer, maybe even a year.
Astin’s performance in “Return of the King” as the hobbit Samwise Gamgee, devoted sidekick to gallant Frodo Baggins (Wood), has been singled out from among those by Wood, Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) and others. It’s more than possible that when Academy Award nominations are announced Jan. 27, Astin will be among those named as a contender for best supporting actor.
When Oscar buzz swarms around your head, it’s useless to pretend you don’t hear it, especially when everybody else does.
Astin believes that his isn’t the only notable performance in the film. “Viggo gave a heartbreaking performance in this one, but some of it is still in the can. There’s an emotional resonance when he retrieves the mantle of his kingdom that probably won’t be seen until the DVD comes out.”
As to why Samwise has gotten such attention this time around compared with the trilogy’s previous two installments, Astin isn’t altogether sure. “I’m guessing that a lot of people connect with Sam, because he’s the one who’s obviously the most emotionally fragile and yet he carries on and, in the end, survives. Maybe he connects with the fragile part in all of us that we have to cope with when we’re confronted with something bigger than we are.”
