Josh Gad Reunites ‘Lord of the Rings’ Cast Nearly 20 Years Later

Peter Jackson and the “Rings” team discuss changing Tolkien’s script, the Boromir meme and their memories of Christopher Lee

As part of his “Reuniting Apart” YouTube series, Josh Gad reunited “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson with several members of the film’s cast and crew to discuss their memories of making one of the most beloved film trilogies of all time.

Joining Jackson and Gad were all nine members of the “Fellowship of the Ring” — hobbits Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, as well as Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Sean Bean and Ian McKellen. Also joining the chat were co-stars Liv Tyler, Andy Serkis, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto and Karl Urban, with composer Howard Shore and co-writer Philippa Boyens. The event was done in support of No Kid Hungry, a charity in support of ending childhood hunger.

Gad’s 50-minute interview covered a wide range of topics, including adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous tale for the big screen. To do so required some changes to the author’s words, including some that became iconic moments in film history.

“Gandalf does not say, ‘You shall not pass!’ in the book,” McKellen notes. “He says, ‘You will not pass.”

Boyens also notes that Gandalf’s first line in the trilogy was one she came up with herself, instead of coming from Tolkien: “A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.”

Another moment from the trilogy that gained Internet immortality was Boromir’s famous “One does not simply” speech, where he warns the Council of Elrond that trying to sneak into Mordor to destroy the One Ring is impossible. Jackson admits that the speech was written the day before the council scene was filmed and while Sean Bean’s speech was done so well that it became a meme, he needed some help to remember it.

“What Sean did, which I thought was really clever, is he got a print-out of the speech taped to his knee,” Jackson said, pointing out Bean places his hand to his head to display Boromir’s sense of despair. “If you watch the scene now, you’ll see every time that Sean has to check his script.”

Other moments include memories from Andy Serkis playing Gollum and the cast remembering their time with Christopher Lee, who played Saruman in the films and passed away in 2015. Watch the whole interview in the clip above.

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