The Making of…
Chapter 35
Blood, Sweat and Tears… And Rain… And Mud…
After a few days of filming in the studio, we were suddenly on the move again. Our newest location was the set for Helm’s Deep, which was in Dry Creek Quarry in Wellington – it sounded like something out of a movie, and I almost half-expected to stumble across a gang of cattle-rustlers while we were there! But we only found cameramen. The full-sized model of Helm’s Deep was fantastic; it was as if you were actually in a real fortress!
We were also working with Bernard Hill and Miranda Otto now, who were playing Théoden and Eówyn, and Craig Parker was back as Haldir. They were the newest additions to our ‘cast family’, but we had also been split from Billy and Dom, and Elijah and Sean, who were away doing their own scenes at different locations. Sean Bean was still hanging around the studio, as Peter said there were a few shots he wanted him to do with David Wenham – who was playing Faramir.
Our trailers had been moved to the quarry too, as we would be staying on this set for a rumoured 3 months, and the majority of that time was going to be spent doing night shots. This was by far going to be the biggest challenge we’d had to face so far.
We were expected to arrive on set at 8pm in full makeup, filming would begin as soon as it was dark, and would pretty much carry on until the sun rose. Over the course of those sleepless nights, we’d be expected to swordfight, perform stunts, act and manage to stay awake. Some nights it would rain, some nights the crew would have the rain machine on, some nights it would be dry. One guarantee was, it would be cold, strenuous, and emotionally trying. To recover from theses nights, I slept most of the day away, to the point where I was convinced that I was becoming nocturnal – it didn’t stop me from being exhausted all night though. Probably the only thing that kept me going was Viggo. In fact, he was probably what kept everyone going. Every night he was needed he would show up, and put his heart and soul into his performance, without a single complaint. And every morning, as the sun was beginning to rise, we would both walk back to our trailers dripping with rain and sweat, with dented swords, bloody hands and knuckles and massive bruises forming all over our bodies, and he would still smile.
He was inspirational to say the least, and he kept me smiling.
One night, we were in the middle of filming a particularly vicious fight scene, when I saw Viggo get accidentally smashed in the face by the hilt of somebody’s sword.
“Vig!” I cried as I saw him holding his face. A few people crowded around him as he bent down and picked up something. I rushed to his side as he stood up again. “Viggo are you ok?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah.” He muttered, turning to me.
“Oh my God.” I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth as I saw his broken front tooth. He held up the tiny white shard for me to see as Peter dashed over.
“Does anyone have any superglue?” Viggo asked.
“Superglue?” I cried in alarm, “You are not sticking that on with superglue!”
“Why not?” He asked, “I’ll stick it on and then we can finish the scene. I can get it properly sorted tomorrow.”
“You’d probably die of glue poisoning or something!” I protested.
“She’s right Vig.” Peter cut in, “We’ll get you to a dentist now, and you still might be able to get back tonight and finish the scene.”
“Alright,” He sighed, not wanting to argue against to both of us. “Do you know if any dentists will be open at this time?”
“There are emergency ones.” Pete explained as he started pulling Viggo towards the car park. “Ki, can you stay here and finish your shots?”
