Prior to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, many of the stars received combat training to impersonate convincingly as Peter Jackson’s heroic champions in Middle-earth. But after they slipped into their roles, they had to play very different levels of martial arts. One of the performers in particular was forced to be to hide sword fighting talent. A hobbit, of course.
A fencing pro hides among the ranks of the Lord of the Rings companions
On their hobbit friendship podcast, The Friendship Onion, Lord of the Rings cast members of Merry and Pippin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, talk more about filming. They always bring out amazing anecdotes. For example, it recently came out that one member of the Companions could have beaten all the others (via IGN).
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Lord of the Rings star Billy Boyd can wield a sword
Of the 24 most important Lord of the Rings actors, all brought different talents. However, when the two Hobbit stars recalled the spontaneous training-fight scene with Boromir (Sean Bean) in the first film in their podcast, threw Pippin actor Billy Boyd a:
I hated that we had to pretend we weren’t good with swords. I had previously fought in fencing competitions. So I knew how to use a sword.A Hidden Talent: The Lord of the Rings ban for Billy Boyd
Apparently, Billy Boyd’s skills went so far that his Lord of the Rings trainer had to keep reminding him that he was really a low-skill hobbit:
We got to work with Bob Anderson, who’s probably the greatest sword masters in the movie world is. He has trained Errol Flynn and Darth Vader. […] He kept saying, ‘Don’t forget that you’re supposedly not good with a sword’. So I had to stop pretending I knew what I was doing. That was awful!
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To the deal
Incidentally, Samwise actor Sean Astin went through something similar: Because he played the only plump hobbit among the companions, he received Lord of the Rings star Peter Jackson a sports banto preserve the body shape of his character.
Fantasy films other than Lord of the Rings: 10 streaming tips on Amazon, Netflix and Disney+
If you want to discover other extraordinary worlds, characters and stories in addition to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, here are 10 strong streaming recommendations for fantasy films that are currently available on Netflix, Amazon and Disney+.
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Whether it’s a classic, an animated film, a blockbuster or an insider’s tip: the streaming services are guaranteed to have something for every fantasy fan’s taste. Dragons, Polymorphs, Stardust, Epic Journeys and Sorcery included.
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Would you have liked to see Billy Boyd as the fencing champion Pippin in the Lord of the Rings movies?