There and Back Again

by Sean Astin

  “This is a pretty awesome opportunity for you, isn’t it?” I asked the question almost out of empathy, as a way to give voice to that great pink elephant in the living room that no one wants to talk about. Stuart was so intense, and yet so clearly agonized by what was happening. He wasn’t enjoying the experience in any way. And yet he wasn’t false. He wasn’t manufacturing the pain. This was almost like a personality trait for Stuart, a genuine recurrent theme. As much as I liked him, I could tell that others, particularly those in charge of the production, found him challenging. There were, for example, times when they wanted him to do sword training, but he was focused on something else. You could just see him struggling to figure out the character, and he was so connected to the nature of the struggle that the solution wasn’t presenting itself. Now, I carried no position of authority—we all had moments of insecurity about our own capacity as actors—but I think in my Zelig-like personality, I instinctively try to have something in common with whoever it is I’m talking to. So, when Stuart projected trepidation, I probably manifested my own trepidation about myself as a way to connect. And he responded to it.

  “A pretty awesome opportunity…”

  His head snapped around, and on his face was a soulful, almost pained, expression.

  “Yeah,” he said, and as he spoke, the breath seemed to leak from his body. I waited for more. But that was it. A single, sad word.

  That image came back to me a few weeks later when we were told of Stuart’s departure. There was something about his acknowledgment of the magnitude of the role, which carried with it the promise of making him a major bona fide motion picture star and serious actor for generations. Maybe he just couldn’t handle it. Or perhaps Peter determined that Stuart’s way of handling the role would have been inconsistent with the spirit of the production. Regardless of the reason, and regardless of whether it was a surprise or not, it was a terribly unnerving development. Suddenly you got the feeling that things had changed, that job security was not to be taken for granted, and thus a prudent man would know better than to whine too loudly whenever his ego was bruised. I had been reluctant to advocate passionately for my position regarding the character of Sam, and now that seemed like a wise course of action. You have a survival instinct as a person who’s been hired to do a certain job, and the efficacy of that awareness was made all too clear when they told us that Stuart had been fired.

  Already, Peter explained, they were out looking for the next Aragorn, and I knew why. Stuart hadn’t been capable of doing what I had done, and what most of the other actors had done, which was to sublimate his own desires about his character to Peter’s vision of the character, and to say with your whole consciousness, “I’m going to lean forward like a skier at the top of the mountain and give myself over to the process. I’m just going to trust that I’m the right guy for this job, that it’s going to work, that Peter is that good and that talented, and he’ll take care of me.”

  That’s quite a leap of faith, but it was necessary if we wanted to survive on such a sprawling, at times incomprehensible, production.

  * * *

  While in New Zealand, part of my research for the project involved renting and viewing much of Peter Jackson’s early work, most notably Meet the Feebles, an almost impossibly raunchy and funny movie. Let’s put it this way: I’d never seen a movie in which the characters curse like longshoremen, drink and vomit like frat boys, and engage in sex acts that would make a porn star blush. At least, not one in which the characters are portrayed by puppets! Imagine if Jim Henson had been kidnapped and raped and forced to do LSD—Meet the Feebles would be the nightmare that experience provoked. Written by Peter and Fran, the movie tells the story of an eccentric, demented acting troupe in all its self-indulgent, pseudoartistic glory. While watching it, I experienced a number of reactions: laughter, shock, revulsion, and outright fear. Meet the Feebles demonstrated that Peter and Fran were so sophisticated about the egos and set politics of actors that there would be no pulling any crap with them. There were no little theatrical, drama-queen tricks that you could play to elicit a response. They were through the looking glass. They absolutely understood the nature of vanity in the actor, and the nature of self-serving comments coming from actors trying to jockey for position in a show.

  One of the great, unspoken trump cards between them (Peter and Fran) and us (the cast) was, in fact, the very existence of Meet the Feebles. I know it helped keep me in line. You see, I have this little self-pity mechanism that I can click into; I don’t know why or how it developed, except that maybe sometime in my life I used it once or twice and it was effective, so I keep it in the repertoire as sort of an emotional escape hatch to deal with situations that make me uncomfortable or unhappy. With Peter and Fran, though, I wasn’t allowed to use that mechanism. Oh, sure, I indulged in a bit of self-pity at times, but nobody responded to it. Like screaming in the wilderness, it was a thankless emotional exercise, and unfortunately the brunt of it was taken out on my wife. I thought then (and still do, although as time passes I’m less inclined to rationalize my own bad behavior) that there was a legitimate reason for my frustration. Christine, though, tolerated only a small amount of whining.

  “Open your eyes!” she’d say. “You’re part of something unbelievable.”

  Then she would run through a list of, oh, twenty-five or thirty anecdotes that reflected varying degrees of feedback and recognition for the work I had done. Unfortunately, my inability to exorcise the egocentrism from my personality spectrum led to a good deal of unnecessary, self-induced misery during the making of these movies. Elijah absorbed a lot of it, too, because we talked about it. Most of the time he was really positive. He would indulge my self-pity to the extent that it made sense to honor it, and then he would joke with me about it, or not honor it when it was destructive to do so. Or he would have a visceral, knee-jerk kind of reaction: “You’re being an idiot; don’t do that.” All of which was fine. I needed him and I needed Christine to help me set limits to my own selfishness. And I did try to reciprocate. If Elijah went negative (which rarely happened, by the way), it was like flipping a switch: I turned into the most optimistic, most tireless, most aware, self-realized, inspired individual on the planet.

  These were the types of psychological games I played to keep myself entertained, because we were down there for so long, imprisoned in this spectacular, but sometimes spectacularly tedious, process. If you talk about it with people in casual conversation, you seem ungracious, totally out of touch with reality. I remember at one point chatting with Dominic about my feelings, and he just scoffed. “Listen, man, you need to get some perspective. Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  I needed a cold slap in the face like that every once in a while, and Dom could always be counted on to provide it. Dom is, by degrees, a tougher guy than I am. He’ll fight with little provocation, and he’ll not tolerate bitching that stems from self-induced misery. I don’t mean to completely dismiss my own suffering on this production, because it was the hardest job of my life, but the truth is, there were people in close proximity whose suffering far exceeded my own.

  Stuart Townsend was the first and most obvious example. Peter was getting feedback from a lot of different quarters that it wasn’t working out well with Stuart, so I think Stuart has to bear the brunt of the responsibility for that himself. I’m sure Peter would love to have had a crystal ball, so that he might have foreseen the consequences of his decision. New Line did not want to hire Stuart, but Fran and Peter used their influence with the studio to help him get the part. They reasonably felt that Stuart could overcome his youth and make the part his own. And maybe he could. Maybe Stuart could be a great Aragorn. I suspect he could. Certainly there is no reason to believe he can’t be a major leading man in Hollywood, but given the particular dynamic of this film, I think Peter and Fran believe they did Stuart a disservice by rallying around him to get him the job, only to discover several weeks later that it wasn’t going to work out. T
he studio sometimes gives notes that are completely antithetical to what the artist is trying to do, so the artist develops a defensive posture with the studio. It takes a pretty sophisticated mind to absorb the good and bad of studio notes and elevate the nature of the work to a level that is consistent with those notes. Peter is as good at that as anyone I’ve ever seen. He picked his battles and gave the studio plenty of victories along the way, but ultimately he remained true to his vision.

  Stuart was a casualty of one of those battles. And when he was gone, he was simply gone. Vanished. There were no long good-byes. By the time we found out, he’d already left the country. I left a message for Stuart on his cell phone, but never heard back. Everyone was really worried about him for a while. What happened to Stuart, to be presented with a major opportunity and then have it taken away, is almost cataclysmic for an actor. I haven’t talked to him since, but I know several of the other actors have. He’s recovered nicely and done a bunch of movies, but it’s obvious based on interviews he’s given that he has sour feelings about the whole thing. I don’t know if Stuart is capable of taking responsibility for his part in why it worked out the way it did, but I like to think that everything happens for a reason. Eric Stoltz went through something similar with Back to the Future, in which he was replaced early in the production by Michael J. Fox. Now, Eric is a dear friend of mine, and he’s told me the story of his firing on more than one occasion. I know how painful it was for him. As his friend, I could offer only empathy and understanding; as a moviegoer, my honest feeling is this: it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job in that role than Michael J. Fox. (When I first saw Back to the Future, I wanted to scream when the movie was over. I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t want the experience to end. I understand fans who get attached to a particular movie, like The Lord of the Rings, because that’s the way I felt about Back to the Future.)

  Things just happen. I don’t think anyone had nefarious motives or was operating with ill will in regard to Stuart’s dismissal. For this production, Viggo Mortensen was the right choice for the character of Aragorn. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role, for the simple reason that I worked with Stuart for the better part of two months. There are certain elements of his persona that would have been interesting in Aragorn. There is a brooding romanticism to Stuart, a genuine pathos you see in his eyes; your heart wrenches when you see him on screen. Viggo is a much more austere actor, and that is reflected in the way he portrays Aragorn. His strength and beauty and sex appeal derive from some other place, so it’s pretty hard to compare the two of them. Stuart would have been a very different Aragorn. He might well have been a very good Aragorn. Given the fan and critical reaction to Viggo, however, it’s hard to argue that the wrong choice was made.

  * * *

  The story of Viggo Mortensen’s entry into the fray has become the stuff of legend—how he was told of the project one day and flew to Wellington the next morning without seeing so much as a word of the script, and jumped immediately into heavy sword training with Bob Anderson. By this time we’d spent nearly two months learning some of the key concepts in swordplay. Bob would teach us fifteen different moves or techniques, assign each a number, and then choreograph a fight scene using those numbers: “Okay, Sean, I want you to do two, seven, eight, five—in that order.” Viggo arrived and had to instantly learn a specific fight sequence, the Weathertop battle with the ringwraiths, from The Fellowship of the Ring. We had been choreographing the scene with stunt doubles, and one day Viggo just showed up, in costume, sword in hand. He was strong and athletic, and very serious. And clearly up to the task. I never doubted for a moment that he’d be able to handle the role of Aragorn, despite the circumstances under which he’d gotten the part.

  Not long after his arrival, Viggo and I had a meal at a restaurant called the Green Parrot. Actually, it was more of a burger joint than a restaurant, the kind of semigrungy place that oozes character. The Green Parrot quickly became known as Viggo’s hangout, and one night we went there to talk. I wanted to share with him how badly I felt for Stuart, but also to let him know that I was looking forward to working with him. I wanted to understand from Viggo how he was approaching things. Part of my motivation was to establish a genuine rapport with a fellow actor, and part of it was to make myself feel better about what happened to Stuart. Also, I was trying to get a bead on the leadership style at the top of the pyramid. Not just Peter’s style, but that of the producers, as well; I thought I might be able to get inside by talking with Viggo, simply because he’d been approached to join the production, and I’d be able to test the veracity of what had been said to us regarding Stuart’s dismissal.

  That was a big learning experience for me, and it left me wondering whether I’d have the ability to fire somebody I liked for the greater good of a production. It left me with a healthy fear of the authority behind The Lord of the Rings, but also a sense of doubt about my own ability to do what they were doing, because some of it did seem ruthless. I could rationalize it by saying that it was ruthless in service of the ultimate goal of making the movie the way Peter wanted to make it, but it was painful nonetheless.

  Not that any of this was Viggo’s fault or responsibility. He was simply the new man on the job, and I sensed right away that he was a decent, worthy person. I was intrigued by his idiosyncrasies, like the way he would carry his sword around to different restaurants. Viggo has that kind of brooding aura, as if he’s always in character. He wasn’t carrying it the night we met, by the way, but he did carry it a lot. Peter was somewhat amused that Viggo did that, but given the results on screen, it’s hard to question his strategy. Aragorn, as played by Viggo, is an impressive and thoroughly believable warrior.

  Different parts of Viggo’s personality emerged in different ways. When he first showed up, he carried himself with an obvious grace and intensity, and the intensity heightened as time went on. At first, I couldn’t believe how he just appropriated the role, how he made it his. I would expect that it would be enormously difficult to step in on short notice and take over from someone who has just been fired, but perhaps it’s possible to overthink these things. Maybe jumping in with both feet is the best approach. Maybe Stuart had too much time to think about it, too much time to fret over character development and to dwell on the career ramifications. It’s also possible that Viggo was uniquely suited to the task. He has a reputation, enhanced during this production, for being somewhat eccentric, and I think that’s probably an accurate assessment. I also think he enjoyed the notion that other people were perpetuating that reputation on his behalf. Viggo has a definite self-awareness and amusement about those kinds of things. This is not to suggest that there is something false about him. Viggo does at moments lose himself in whatever it is he’s doing. He’s very smart, and he’s very passionate and sensitive. He’s committed to his poetry and photography; he also paints and sings. He has an enormous amount of energy, and he applies that energy in unique and interesting ways.

  Viggo was utterly devoted to the production—not merely to being the best Aragorn he could possibly be, but to helping others understand what that meant. He and I were different in this regard. Viggo lived with Tolkien’s books. He was constantly reading and coming up with new ideas and existing in an ongoing, contentious creative discussion with Fran and Philippa and Peter. For his part, Peter seemed to enjoy it, or at least was willing to accept that there was nothing personal or mean-spirited about it. That’s who Viggo is, and occasionally, when it was convenient, or if he agreed (and maybe sometimes if he didn’t), Peter would incorporate the actor’s suggestions; I presume the same was true of Fran and Philippa. But there were moments when Viggo’s advocacy produced a few chuckles. There was one time, for example, when he wanted to bring in a deer carcass and flop it down on the hobbits’ campfire.

  “How the hell are these guys eating?” Viggo had wondered aloud. “They’re traveling all the time, and we never see them
eating.”

  Viggo’s intentions were noble. He wanted realism. He didn’t want this to be one of those movies where nobody ever goes to the bathroom or has to reload in the middle of a fight, and so he argued in favor of things that would give the story sweat and blood. Unfortunately, they were also things that would command time away from the spine of the story. I’m sure Viggo knew that, and yet he was tireless in the communication of his ideas. I tried once or twice to get an idea into the movie that I thought would serve the story well, and when it didn’t fly, my ego was bruised and I backed right off. I didn’t want to bang my head against the wall. For me, something happens in those situations. If I try to float a good idea and it doesn’t get incorporated, it’s too painful to try again. I give up. And I stew about it for a while. Not Viggo. He’s relentless.

  He’s also extremely political and politically extreme. Viggo is a Noam Chomsky guy. He gave me Jim Hightower’s left-wing screed Thieves in High Places as a gift one day. He gave me one of Michael Moore’s books. Viggo would just do things like that. I wanted to talk with him, share ideas and thoughts and philosophy, but I sensed he wasn’t comfortable relating with me on that level. He’d rather blow through a party handing everybody a copy of three different books that he’d read, and then move on. If you read one of those books, which I did, and you talk about it with him later, it’s almost like trying to communicate with a hummingbird: he sort of hears you, says something, then flitters away. Viggo is not a ranter, at least not in that kind of setting. He doesn’t dominate the cocktail party scene. But when he has a microphone in front of him, watch out! Michael Medved, a conservative columnist and author, wrote an essay attacking Viggo not so much for his political views, but for using his celebrity status as a platform for expressing those views, since that expression intrudes upon and colors a fan’s interaction with the film. I happen to disagree with that assessment, since actors, like anyone else, are entitled to their opinions. But there is no denying that Viggo is a rabid, radical, political activist. This is a guy who appeared on Charlie Rose’s rather sensitive, erudite PBS talk show wearing a T-shirt bearing the inscription “No Blood for Oil”; he showed up at a premiere for the third film wearing a United Nations patch (actions which I admire, incidentally).