Director Peter Jackson didn't mince his words when he turned down a major movie star for the role of Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, which was ultimately given to Elijah Wood.
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Peter Jackson is now considered one of the most talented filmmakers of his generation. After making his first steps in cinema with the horror comedies “Bad Taste”, “Les Feebles” and “Braindead”, the director's career took off with the release of the drama “Celestial Creatures”, based on a message from New Zealand in the 1950s based, a new twist. But it wasn't until the 2000s that Peter Jackson achieved his greatest successes, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy (watch on Prime Video). A saga that Jake Gyllenhaal almost took part in before being rejected by the filmmaker.
The Lord of the Rings: the disastrous casting of Jake Gyllenhaal
That was on the set of Jimmy Fallon a few years ago Jake Gyllenhaal spoke about how he completely failed his audition for the role of Frodo Lord of the Rings. “I went to the auditions, it was an audition where there were a lot of stage directions. We had almost no dialogue. It was the scene where Frodo had to find the ring. I had to open something that had the ring in it. But I remember not doing it right because no lines of dialogue helped me. I opened the thing and took the ring as it was. “It was something banal,” he recalled a few years ago. “And I remember Peter Jackson's face when he couldn't believe it. After that I had to recite another scene with lines of dialogue; except this time I didn't use an English accent, whereas the hobbits had to have a British accent. He came to me to say: “You’re the worst actor I’ve ever seen!” Didn't anyone tell you that you had to have an accent?' And I said no and he said, 'Fire your agents!'”
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Jake Gyllenhaal: a versatile actor
Although he missed out on the role of Frodo in the famous film trilogy, Jake Gyllenhaal quickly found success with the sci-fi film Donnie Darko in the early 2000s. The general public then discovered him in “The Day After Tomorrow” and then in the drama “Brokeback Mountain,” which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Since then, Maggie Gyllenhaal's brother has had a number of successes in the cinema, alternating between major Hollywood productions and more intimate films.
Article written in collaboration with 6Médias