As Jake Gyllenhaal told a late night show, he auditioned for a role in Lord of the Rings. However, things went so badly that he didn’t even come close to being shortlisted.
As Jake Gyllenhaal (Road House, Brokeback Mountain) told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 22, 2016, he had applied for a role on Lord of the Rings. This is what he wanted to be like Frodo. But the audition just went terribly badly.
Here you can see a trailer for the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy:
Epic trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
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That’s why the audition was a complete failure
Jake Gyllenhaal said he received a whole conference call from several agents enthusiastically telling him about Peter Jackson’s new project, the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings.
They enthusiastically told the actor that they had to think of him for a role: “And when they said they needed a hobbit, we thought: Jake!”
You can watch the interview yourself in this YouTube video:
So he set off and went to the audition for the trilogy’s lead, the hobbit Frodo. He received a lot of instructions on site, but no dialogue.
In addition, Jake Gyllenhaal had no idea at the time what this one ring was all about:
“We should just find the ring […], I didn’t quite understand it. I just went over and opened it [die Box und nahm den Ring] and then asked, ‘Was that good?’ […] And Peter Jackson just like that [vergräbt den Kopf in den Händen].”
You can read more about Jake Gyllenhaal here from our colleagues at Moviepilot: “26 million are gone”: Marvel star Jake Gyllenhaal is said to have ruined an entire film with bizarre behavior
The missing accent was added to that
On top of that, everyone else had a British accent prepared – except Jake Gyllenhaal. After he played the next scene with lines, the director turned to him and said, “You’re the worst actor I’ve ever seen.”
Then Peter Jackson asked if he was told to have an accent. When Gyllenhaal then said no, the advice came: “Fire your agents!”
Afterward, Jake Gyllenhaal humorously commented that he was so excited about the role that they had to drag him out of the room while he kept screaming, “But I’m a hobbit!”
In the end, Elijah Wood got the role of Frodo. He had created an audition video for the director in which he demonstrated his skills with a wig, a self-made hobbit costume and a British accent.
More about Lord of the Rings on MeinMMO: In the prologue of “The Lord of the Rings” there is a macabre detail that didn’t make it into the final film