Iconic Lord of the Rings Meme Came From Sean Bean Forgetting His Line
I think everyone knows the scene from the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which Boromir, looking down, says that „one does not simply walk into Mordor”. As it turns out, it could have looked completely different if the actor playing the character (Sean Bean)... remembered his lines.
- Sean Bean did not remember the lines Boromir was supposed to say at the Council of Elrond in Fellowship of the Ring;
- The actor justifies the fact that they were only written at the end of the day preceding the work on the set;
- Bean had to prepare himself a little cheat sheet, which he put on his knee, so he could read his lines from it, just before he was supposed to speak them;
- This is how the iconic scene known from countless memes was created.
Last Sunday, Josh Gad's YouTube channel featured a long recording of a video chat with the cast of Lord of the Rings trilogy. This material is a real mine of trivia from behind the scenes, and the best proof of that is Peter Jackson's story about how the iconic scene was created, in which Boromir (Sean Bean) states that "one does not simply walk into Mordor".
As it turns out, the actor simply couldn't learn his lines for the Council of Elrond, because they were written on the previous evening, before the work on set. Bean had no choice but to make a cheat sheet, which he then placed on his knee. The facepalm-like gesture he made was intended not only to show the disapproval of the son of Gondor but also... to conceal the fact that he was reading his line from a card.
The fragment in question starts in at 32 minutes and 36 seconds of the following video.
Of course, that's not the only interesting information revealed by the Fellowship and the company during the interview with Josh Gad. Ian McKellen (Gandalf), for example, revealed what his first meeting with Christopher Lee (who played Saruman) looked like, and John Rhys-Davies shared some facts about how much he had to "suffer" during the make-up sessions turning him into Gimli.
Fans of Lord of the Rings will appreciate this material also because it is the first opportunity in many years to see many actors from the movie "together", among them (apart from the aforementioned): Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Liv Tyler (Arwen) or Andy Serkis (Gollum). And why "together"? Well, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the cast of Lord of the Rings could not meet - so everyone talked from home.
Finally, it is worth noting that the video was made as part of the Reunited Apart series. Its viewers can also financially support the No Kid Hungry campaign, which helps starving American children. The closure of schools and the financial crisis have significantly increased the hunger rate among the youngest citizens of the United States. At the time of writing these words, the creators managed to raise almost 99 thousand dollars for this purpose.
