There is one anecdote of the filming of LotR that never has been told in the specials. Peter asked us to keep it quiet. He didn’t want the incident to become publicly known because that would made him look as if he was a ruthless “movie-path” who presses the members of his cast to take unjustifiable risks.
He said it looked pretty much like that anyway, even without that little catastrophe. Usually he didn’t expect us to fudge the hardships he made us go through: broken toes, lost teeth, exploding landmines, canoes flipping over, non-swimmers paddling on white water, horses tumbling on men, orcs going berserk, poor Sean having to trudge all the way up to the snowfields to avoid being forced to clamber into a helicopter… there was already a bit of a list.
I have to emphasize from the start that it wasn’t his fault at all in this case, as it wasn’t with most other inconveniences. He did his best to keep us sane and healthy, but need I explain to you why that was not an easy job to do, with a fellowship of complete nutters?
It was a series of unfortunate circumstances – or maybe I should say happy coincidences…?
Anyway, like with the scene up in the mountains, Peter preferred to do a mix of scenes arranged in a studio and scenes filmed on location. It is clear that it feels much more “real” this way. So, when it came to the scenes in the mines of Moria, part of them were taken in caves and mines the location hunters had sought out.
I was not sure about that. Method acting and a “real experience atmosphere” is one thing; claustrophobia is another. But the worst thing was, of course, that Sean discovered my weakness immediately. That, after I had done nothing but wind him up and take the piss out of him practically non-stop since I saw him blanch in the helicopter. The way he gasped for air and clenched his fingers around my wrist was just too delicious. It was sexy as hell, too, but I didn’t let him know that. Besides, everything he does is sexy; he simply can’t avoid it.
When we approached the area with the mines he walked close beside me, and after a while I felt his scrutinizing gaze scanning me from the right.
“You’re afraid of the caves.” There was already a slightly malicious cheer in his voice.
“Shit. What gave me away? How can you see it?” I seriously wondered, because I had used my best acting skills to keep my face neutral.
“Didn’t see it. I can smell it,” he smirked, and it flashed through my mind that if he could smell my fear, he must have been able to smell my desire a hundred times before, too, and I backed away a little bit, only then realising that he was probably just jesting.
Over the next few hours, he had a jolly good time; in fact he seemed to enjoy a sort of perverted pleasure creeping around in narrow black holes. The fact that I was afraid and he wasn’t worked as the ultimate boost-up for that repulsive kind of entertainment.
After a break we were meant to walk over to another one of the tunnels. Sean strode out a little ahead, and then the chain of misfortune began.
One of the barriers was missing, it never came out why, and so Sean took a wrong turn. Before someone noticed, he had already reached the entrance of another tunnel. Sean was in a particularly animated mood, which had to do with his total superiority over me that day. Normally he doesn’t act foolish, but this time he walked right into the mine in criminal negligence. I would have hesitated anyway, but I stopped dead when I heard the crash – there was a car accident on the road above. With an ugly crunch, metal hit stones and boulders. Loose boulders. Looking up, I saw the first little pebbles slide and toss about, but with the loud gruesome sound of cracking and splitting I already knew a much larger avalanche of stones and dirt was building…
Loud cries of warning and shock came from behind me – “Run! Get away from the entrance!” – “Run, run!” – everybody was fleeing on their heels. The first bigger blocks were already tumbling down, a massive landslide set in motion…
And instead of turning around and getting as far away as possible as fast as I could – I lunged forward, catapulting myself inside the cave through a curtain of raining stones. The last thing I saw before stones and earth closed the entrance and the surroundings went black was Sean’s face, his incredulous eyes as he took in my Batman-like flight into the tunnel.
“What happened?” With his voice, the beam of his torch lit up in the darkness. I started to explain – the accident, the avalanche of stones. I wasn’t sure whether he got me, or whether he was in shock, because he stared at me with an almost frightening intensity.
“Why did you jump into the cave instead of away from it?” he asked, and indeed, that was a good question.
“I thought you would like some company, being locked up here in the dark, dirty mines of Moria…” I offered, and suddenly felt very uncomfortable, which wasn’t due to the fore-mentioned darkness and dirtiness or to my fear of narrow and closed rooms.
“You’re claustrophobic,” Sean recalled; I couldn’t really protest, and furthermore, he was talking as if to himself, so I simply kept quiet. Sean carefully put the torch on a rock jutting out…
And then he kissed me. He grabbed my face with both hands and fucked my mouth with his tongue. There is no other possible description for it. He took me with his kiss, and if I hadn’t fallen for him long ago, I would have, then.
When he finally allowed me to breathe, I asked a confused, “Sean…?”
He shrugged. “You love me,” he stated matter-of-factly, with the dry tone of a scientist who, under the given circumstances, can come to one result only; as if it was nothing but a logical conclusion – which, of course, it was.
At this time we heard muffled announcements through the director’s bullhorn reaching us through the wall of stones that was blocking the entry. We didn’t understand a word, but it was clear that they wanted us to stay calm and wait until they had called for bulldozers.
A few hours later, we walked out the cave.
But since that day, we’ve stayed locked up with each other, and I’ve never felt so free.
Summary: An anecdote of the filming of LotR that never has been told
Rated: PG-13
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 1138 Read: 759
Published: 15 Aug 2009 Updated: 15 Aug 2009