Number one hobbit

There aren’t many 21-year old actors who can boast a leading role in one of the most successful films of all time.

Elijah Wood is one such lucky youngster, but the Lord Of The Rings star admits he wasn’t quite prepared for the pressure of becoming the world’s most famous hobbit.

“This was more daunting than anything I’d ever felt before,” he says of his mythical role which he reprises for the latest outing in the epic trilogy. The Two Towers. “I’d never been a part of anything that continues to have such a fanatical fan base. I did feel pressure to live up to their vision of the whole thing,” he adds.

The result was that the young star felt ’completely wiped out’ and craving for time alone after making the first episode of the trilogy, The Fellowship Of The Ring, last year.

“Afterwards I didn’t want to do anything but laze around. It was time to just sit down and relax, listen to music and read a book,” he says. “I just tried to stay off the scene and do my thing, live my life. I tended not to go to the parties or anything like that.”

Not that Wood is complaining though. He’s the first to admit that clinching the role of mild-mannered Frodo in the $700m (€685m) grossing movie was ’the opportunity of a lifetime’ and he’s more than happy to be a part of cinema history.

Wood had been so determined to get a part in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy that he got a director friend to make his audition tape which he sent off to Rings director Peter Jackson.

Now he says: “Because of the success of the movies and the way people have embraced them I think they’ll be recognised as great movies for years and years and I don’t mind being associated with that at all,” he says with a smile.

Neither does he mind the legion of Hobbit fans who have started calling him by his character’s name.

“I’m a fan of the Lord of the Rings as well, so when people come up to me regarding the film and call me Frodo I can geek out with them too,” he laughs. “Really, people just want to come up to me and say ’thank you.”’

He might have found some of the recent pressures hard to bear but Wood is no stranger to the limelight. With his diminutive stature and cherubic face he might look as if he’s fresh out of school but the talented star is actually something of a showbusiness veteran.

He landed his first major film role at the age of nine in the movie Avalon and went on to appear alongside Mel Gibson in Forever Young and Bruce Willis in North, as well as with fellow child actor Macaulay Culkin in the 1993 film The Good Son.

But whereas Culkin’s career nosedived and his personal life went off the rails after Home Alone Wood has worked steadily and managed to keep his feet firmly on the ground.

“I think a lot of that is to do with the fact I was never part of anything that was particularly child-orientated, so I was never really branded a child actor,” he ponders.

“I was also never part of anything really huge when I was younger so I had a kind of gradual growth as an actor.”

That’s all changed now. Wood will forever be linked with a movie which has smashed all box office records and, last year, was nominated for a staggering 13 Oscars.

What’s more, The Two Towers looks set to be just as successful. In this latest episode fans will start to see a very different Frodo emerge as the power of the ring begins to turn him against his fellow hobbit Sam (Sean Astin).

It’s clear that Wood couldn’t wait to reveal his darker side. “Frodo ultimately ends up being stripped of all his innocence and has touches of evil,” he says gleefully.

“It was great for me as an actor to be part of that because I could take this character from a very innocent and pure place to one where he’s nearly a shadow of his former self. It was great fun because I get to sort of begin to destroy him in this film.”

He may have turned against his fellowship in the movie, but in real life, the bond between Wood and the rest of the cast members, including Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen and Sean Bean couldn’t have been stronger.

“In every sense of the world we became a real fellowship,” beams Wood. “We worked together, we fought together for the film and helped one another.

“I don’t think that fellowship will end either. I’ve got a big file of telephone numbers from people I’ve worked with over the years like Sigourney Weaver, Brooke Shields and Salma Hayek but it never feels right to call them, but I don’t think that will be true of these guys, I look upon them as true friends.”

In fact Wood admits that the intensity of filming with his fellow hobbits and elves has left him no time for dating. Despite rumours linking him to German actress Franka Potente he says there’s no one special in his life right now.

“It’s not that I don’t want to date – it’s just that nothing has really gelled in that area,” he shrugs.

But happily he’s too busy to fret about it and with a career going into overdrive he knows love and romance will just have to go on the backburner for a while.

As well as his epic journey into Middle Earth, Wood has also shot two other movies Ash Wednesday with Ed Burns and Try Seventeen, opposite young Hollywood babe Mandy Moore.

But despite his foray into other fields it’s clear there’s only one thing that’s truly exciting him right now – the third and final instalment of Lord Of The Rings.

“It’s my favourite film of the three,’ he enthuses. “It gets very scary, all of the characters sort of descend and for Frodo things get vastly worse.”

Bad news for Frodo, great news for the talented young Elijah Wood and his millions of fans.