Bernard Hill gave me one of my favorite fantasy moments and it still sticks with me 22 years later

Bernard Hill died on May 5, 2024. He enjoyed a long career in cinema, TV and the theater. He appeared in epics such as Gandhi and The Mind and the Darkness. In Titanic he played the tragic character of the captain. But the vast majority, certainly all fantasy and The Lord of the Rings fans, will see him as Théoden, King of Rohan, know.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, based on JRR Tolkien’s books, is a masterpiece for a thousand reasons: gigantic battle scenes. Intoxicating landscape shots. A production design that is second to none. For me, Hill is one of them: as a fan of fantasy films, his role is my favorite burned into my memory since the film’s release, although she is nowhere near as important as characters like Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) or Frodo (Elijah Wood).

Bernard Hill is pure enjoyment as the Lord of the Rings King

Bernard Hill doesn’t have a single mediocre scene as King Théoden. The script is not unrelated to this, but above all it is the actor’s credit. From the weak rattle of the deluded puppet king to the despair of a father mourning his son in the hill robbers of his ancestors, and that “Grim deeds awaken!” of a doomed warrior: Hill shines from the first to the last second. For me, one scene in particular stands out.

Théoden can be seen in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. In The Two Towers he retreats to the refuge of Helm’s Deep and awaits the onslaught of thousands of cruel Uruk-hai.

The situation is desperate: the entire civilian population of Rohan is stuck in the castle and is waiting for destruction. Director Peter Jackson documents the preparations. He shows the fear on the faces of the children, whose battle axes are half taller than them. It shows the black stream of enemy hordes like scales of a hungry dragon. He lets the friends Aragorn and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) argue, almost at each other’s throats in their desperation. Then comes Bernard Hill’s best of all his great scenes.

That’s why Bernard Hill’s best Lord of the Rings scene is so great

Théoden stands in the middle of a ballroom illuminated by a dazzling beam of light. His officer Gamling (Bruce Hopkins) brings the royal armor and reports, but his king just stares transfixed into space. “Who am I, Gamling?” he asks. “You are our king” replies his aide.

Hill hardly moves, he just looks straight ahead in the scene. And yet an infinite depth of emotion can be read from the smallest gestures. As Gamling soldierly explains, “We will follow you to any end“Hill repeats the sentence with a light, almost imperceptible laugh. As if he had to grin at the fact that all that was left of his life’s work was a morbid oath of loyalty remains.

His officer puts the armor on him and he remains stiff, as if resigned to his fate. But his look, his entire facial expression, radiates such liveliness, dignity, and astonishment that it still fascinates me 22 years after the film’s release. Hill creates the face of a person who faces the inevitable with remorse. Théoden quotes a poem:

Where are the rider and horse?
And the horn that echoes far away?
Long gone like rain in the forest
and wind in the branches.
Sinking into the shadows behind the mountains
the days in the West.

“How could it come to this?” Hill’s character concludes the scene. His monologue, even in the original, always blows me away. In his words, his wide-open eyes, his petrified demeanor, there is an infinite sadness for the missed opportunities of the centuries, for the passage of time completely wipes out the traces of all human races. And a powerlessness over this process that only allows the fulfillment of duty.

Watch the trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers here

Jackson understands the power of Hill’s scene. While he previously remained close to the speaking actors, he now shows innocent children in war armor and the shadow of the Uruk-hais washing into the earthy valleys of Rohan. And finally returns to Hill, who seems to awaken from a state of phlegm with his last words. He briefly lets his eyes wander around the room, as if he needed to orient himself after a long sleep. To realize a split second later: It’s a rude awakening. All hope is lost.

Hill handles the scene with the meticulous skill of a ballet dancer. Every fold is subject to his will, embodying the emotional rush inside Théoden in all its richness. With his facial expressions, his gestures, his words, he elevates the fantasy masterpiece beyond itself, as happens in the best The Lord of the Rings moments: the scene no longer revolves around escape castles and Uruk-hais and fragile alliances , but about the human transience.

The film world owes a huge debt to Bernard Hill

What Bernard Hill achieves here may not come as a surprise to his older fans, after all he played Shakespeare’s characters for years on stage and on BBC television programs. But as a fourteen-year-old Lord of the Rings fan, this scene stuck with me. To this day she doesn’t have it.

Bernard Hill shows me time and time again how rich a single two-minute sequence can be, provided a talented actor masters it with sensitivity to his role. He was able to make a film shine with just facial expressions. And to create deep emotional impressions for an entire human life. His work, like his loss, cannot be overestimated.

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