THRANDUIL - The King of Wood and Stone/ Part 1 (HD)

in a great hall with pillars heun out of the living Stone sat the Elven King on a chair of Caren wood in the book trenel is not fully drawn so to speak as a character in fact he's not actually named as The Hobbit except to say that he is the Elven King talking doesn't really describe anything more than he's the king of the Woodland realm but you know in a film you can't quite get away with some of the Simplicity that you can in a book especially a book written for younger people they has to feel real and that's one of the rules that we've always given ourselves with these films is to have our characters have a degree of complexity Kate Blanchett and Hugo weaving and Orlando Bloom created such iconic elves and so here I had this new elf to play with and I was thinking what makes this very powerful King of elves different than them she's an elf with dungeons you know that's there's a lot to [Music] that one of the screenwriters strengths in this film is to actually remain faithful to what's in the book but nevertheless add all those Dimensions to characters like thuel as filmmakers we take out Clues from I mean talking obviously we take out gu guidance from the book The King's cave was his Palace and the Strong place of his treasure and the Fortress of his people against their enemies randol's underground Kingdom in the forest is really uh an echo or parallel to this Elven King thingle who's featured in tokin earlier stories and thingle lived in a hill underground in this amazing guarded realm called menth for the Woodland realm we chose to take that a little bit further and create the King who is now literally in a state where his people are shut off from the outside world no one enters this Kingdom and no one leaves it if the elf king had a weakness it was for Treasure especially for silver and white gems and so that became an interesting idea it was like okay where did this come from the Elven King the character himself is inspired by a character from token's earlier writings King thingol grey cloak thingol also like thuel has his weaknesses and one of them is passion for the jewels and that was a kind of recurring theme in token's writing and we thought okay so maybe that's something that you can turn into a character story there are gems in the mountain that I too desire white gems of pure Starlight because we needed to know why he would March upon that mountain without it feeling greedy so what we decided was that these jams had meaning for him the heirlooms of my people are not lightly forsaken in ancient days they had had Wars with some of the dwarves whom they accused of stealing their treasure we've seen all of that in earlier writings that predate The Hobbit King thingle had a great quarrel with the dwarfs which is what tolken referred to in The Hobbit thingol arranges for the dwarves to make a necklace for him but then there is a dispute over payment and ownership now there's some real contention as to what exactly happened but the uh the dwarves actually went in and killed thingle in his own halls in Revenge the elves go after the dwarves and they wipe these guys out so you can understand the intensity of the blood feud between these two races that persists for thousands of years afterwards we took that story Thread about a dispute over jewels that Professor talking in the book of The Hobbit ascribes to past Grievances and expanded on it and it began to help us shape thrand the film did rather well in motivating thranduil's refusal to help the dwarves when smar touched and the dwarf's Deep resentment of the fact that he refused to help well that's not in the book but it is I think uh quite consistent with the way that tolken presents the elves in particular tolken clearly was was inspired by his own construction of king thingle living in the caves in the great Forest but we don't know whether the Elven King in The Hobbit was originally intended to be thingle or a thingle like character it's not until he starts writing the sequel that he decides no this is a new character we find out his name in um the Lord of the Rings when we meet his son legalis Green Leaf Magan Legolas one of the things that we got to do in The Hobbit is to bring in the character of legalis he's not actually in the book but I think we would have probably been killed if we hadn't met legalis in these movies do not think I won't kill you dwarf it's highly likely that uh legalis was still living at home with his dad at the events of The Hobbit um and why not have him part of the story taking advantage of the fact that we have now the the full picture of token's family tree as it were one of the things that was interesting for me about Le being a part of The Hobbit was for me to get to go back and create a backstory for legalis and particularly the father son [Music] relationship why did you do that you promised to set him free and I did brand will is really a very complex character you know he's an elf with uh with an axe to grind you know which is um normally a dwarf's job right stay here if you will and rot a 100 years is a mere a blink in the life of an elf you get the sense when you meet trandell that his agendas are so obviously distinct and his superiority is so evident that there's something frightening and that's a different quality that we haven't seen before in an elen leader trenro is nefarious he's duplicitous he's a commanding individual all of these elements you would think in a very clarifying view of a character they don't they just make it more and more complex to find that beautiful and refined piece of design that is going to perfectly represent that individual we explored all kinds of different ideas for thrund willll back in the days with GMA deloro in the beginning and one was an orientalist kind of influence that was coming through in terms of hairdresses in terms of makeup in terms of costuming some of the ideas I was playing with because we were sort of pushing this more orientalist sort of idea was he is obviously someone really quite stone cold quite imposing and intimidating that would have sort of a mantle that could have a slightly armored feel to it and a crown that was kind of sort of dangerous looking quite spiny we we even started playing around with the idea of painting tattoos on their skin like with the henna painting in some cultures where they paint patent work onto themselves as a decorative device a lot of Kookie ideas were cooked up early on CU GMO inspires people people to really go laterally and think broadly of course when Pete came on board it was important that every character in the movie now complemented his vision for his film and that required us to revisit the ow and um have you got any thoughts of an actor that we could base them on not not the may have cast someone but even someone that we could design around the body type casting El is honestly a nightmare I mean there's no point casting an if he looks like he's 55 years old or 60 years old but at the same time you can't have an 18-year-old beautiful fresh faed person playing a,y old elf I mean elves are Immortal so that's always our problem and we had seen Lee Pace in a movie um called The Fall he was really quite remarkable in that film when it came to looking for therel we remembered Lee and we met him in New York a casting trip that week I was so kind of excited to meet with them I'm such a huge fan of the lord of the ring series that you know I kind of rewatched them all I got the director's cut watched that watched all the documentaries and kind of just put myself in Middle Earth how far did they travel well we checked them as far as the Great Oak clearing and there you killed them yes my Lord you killed them all you do not think to keep one of them alive oh it was dark we were outnumbered I don't care if you were fighting alone in blind I do not accept incompetence from a captain of my guard Lee had that gravity he had a sense that he could be be a thousand years old he could be immortal but also that he had lived he had lived a long life he had seen a lot and he had been through a lot and that Lee really brought that feeling to the role all my fighter my golden eyed assassin you have skill in coming you could go far trandell in my mind started out as kind of the anti alant he doesn't sit and have conversations with Wizards about the best possible course of action to benefit Middle Earth as a whole he's just out for pursuing his own agenda and so where Elon is very simple and elegant in his costumery with thren will be the opportunity to actually go quite elaborate and fanciful conceptually you know his look uh it was really hard to get right he is a King born and bread everything that was being drawn initially was trying to add that to him when actually he doesn't need it there was kind of an aha moment when philipper said you know you want to think about this guy as a rock star instead of buttoning him up let's open his neckline and let's give him an arrogance but also a kind of a self assured Cockiness and I kept going on and on and on about this and it was like you know the really great designers it's like the Simplicity of a great suit and I came across an image of Tom Ford Tom Ford is the American designer who turned Gucci around and he just looks so cool lounging out on a chair and I mean lounging I mean like really lounging like hanging out on one side legs off to the other and I I was like this that's strand wheel in the next piece of artwork that I did I changed the way he was sitting on his throne in my pictures just s up throwing himself around a little bit more and that suddenly gave us a window into this character and the costume design kind of took off from there you sometimes you design costumes before you know who they actor is you might be designing for someone in your mind that's 6'4 and in walks someone 5' 6 so anyway with Lee what you get is exactly what you want physically because he's tall and handsome and he's got the best shoulders to hang a costume on that orange is just yummy yeah the orange phenomenal he's money the self King I mean it really is a fun character to dress up amazing working with Lee Pace was wonderful cuz he definitely wears incredibly well he's got a great presence and he also moves incredibly well all adding to that movement of the king of the elves The Source comes from here yes that's the power thandel really had this Burning threatening presence but he really had to just rain everything in so it was like this tornado that he was pulling back from just unleashing why do I see myself going Elin movement training that we've done with Terry has kind of given me my entire character it's not even about movement as much as it is about thought kind of like as the wind and the ocean pulls and pushes it's like that's how they move through space you're riding these waves it's like you're surfing it's like you're surfing through space and you get to go here's another way yeah Terry was great when I got back to the Hobbit it had been 10 12 years he brought me back to my inner elf when Orlando f and Lord of the Rings I mean he was he's the AL that we all know we didn't have a movements coach like Terry so Orlando being the first El he had to create and Elvish trademark there was a sort of catlike Grace and presence agility constantly aware all of those things that basically gave me the sense of being an immortal being after 10 years of living my life coming back to that kind of centered place of legalis was really actually kind of wonderful on the breath feel it come from your Center the way Terry kind of cracked into this Elven movement is that it's not just kind of a Zen peacefulness it's like a relaxed engagement let it like be like a piss shiver that it it almost lifts you up yeah okay this Shiver I don't even know what a piss shiver is all right guys we're going to do some of the hardest [ __ ] is all right see how when you get out of your head when you get out of the Zone it's [ __ ] yeah see that all about fish when Orlando and Lee worked together it was really helpful because it's a father-son relationship and it was just nice to have them connect in a very private space before they get on set cuz then they have that history

Channel: April Wind

Views: 2,437,119

Keywords: thranduil, lee pace, legolas, orlando bloom, elves, the hobbit the battle of the five armies behind the scenes, thranduil scene

Id: 4p45-rxpNVg

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2015