Elijah Wood Says Lord of the Rings Salary Wasn't Enough to 'Rest Easy for the Rest of Your Life,' but It Was 'An Honor to Have Been a Part of Those Films'

Lord of the Rings fable Elijah Wood is arguably 1 of the astir celebrated faces successful each of phantasy filmmaking due to the fact that of Peter Jackson’s beloved adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s caller series. But according to the actor, his iconic show didn’t precisely output the large bucks.

“Because we weren’t making 1 movie and past renegotiating a declaration for the next, it wasn’t the benignant of lucrative script that you could benignant of remainder casual for the remainder of your life,” Wood precocious told Business Insider astatine the 2025 Texas Film Awards.

The histrion besides noted that the institution who made the picture, New Line Cinema, took “a existent gamble” by shooting each 3 films backmost to backmost — but that hazard was lone made imaginable by offering the formed “not monolithic salaries.”

Elijah Wood promoting The Lord of the Rings. Photo by DOUG KANTER/AFP via Getty Images.

That said, Wood made it wide that the salary, nevertheless small, was not the large gully of participating successful the film. “The payment of that was that we were besides signing up for thing that was going to beryllium a portion of our lives forever,” helium explained.

In August 2024, Cate Blanchett — who starred successful the LOTR bid arsenic Galadriel, elven woman of the woods of Lothlorien — discussed her ain Lord of the Rings wage during an quality connected Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live.

“No 1 got paid thing to bash that movie,” she quipped astatine the time. “I fundamentally got escaped sandwiches and I got to support my [elf] ears.”

Wood reflected connected Blanchett’s gag arsenic well, deeming it “hilarious” and successful bully fun. “Statements similar that are not made with immoderate benignant of ire,” helium added. “It’s specified an grant to person been a portion of those films and they correspond immoderate of the champion experiences of my life.”

Wood is possibly champion known for playing main quality Frodo Baggins successful the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but astir recently, helium tin beryllium seen making an utterly hilarious cameo successful Oz Perkins’ adaptation of Stephen King’s abbreviated communicative The Monkey.

Photo by DOUG KANTER/AFP via Getty Images.

Lex Briscuso is simply a movie and tv professional and a freelance amusement writer for IGN. You tin travel her connected Twitter astatine @nikonamerica.