Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies are rightly viewed as one of the greatest movie trilogies, if not the greatest, of all time. At this point, over 20 years after they began, the films have millions of fans and they have been viewed, reviewed, and dissected to the point that it would seem there is nothing we don’t know about them. And yet, for all the trivia I do know, I just learned something new.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was the first time that many saw Orlando Bloom on the big screen. It was a star-making turn for the actor, to be sure, even though he only had a few lines. However, he had another film that was released right around the same time as Fellowship that resulted in a very strange hair situation for the actor.
Orlando Bloom Had A Mohawk Under That Awesome Legolas Hair
It probably shouldn’t be a major surprise to anybody that Orlando Bloom wore a wig to play Legolas in the Lord of the Rings movies. Sorry, that amazingly long blond hair was not natural. Whether or not Bloom would have been capable of growing hair like that was ultimately irrelevant, because his actual hair, as seen in a still active blog he kept during production, was a mohawk.
Bloom was in the cast of Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down just before he jumped into the massive shoot for The Lord of the Rings. For that film, his character had a mohawk, and Bloom still had the hair when he began production on Peter Jackson’s trilogy. So if you didn’t know that before, you’re now aware of what’s under that wig.
This particular piece of Lord of the Rings trivia was something I already knew, but there’s something else about Legolas I just discovered, even though it’s actually far more obvious.
Legolas Doesn’t Talk Much In Fellowship Of The Ring
Legolas is one of the key members of the Fellowship, so you might expect that he has a lot to say in the trilogy. That may be the case in the second and third films, but not in Fellowship of the Ring.
In an interview with VT for Orlando Bloom’s new movie Deep Cover, available with a Prime Video subscription, his co-star Bryce Dallas Howard asks him how many lines Legolas had in the first Lord of the Rings movie, and even Legolas himself is shocked by the answer.
@vt
♬ original sound – VT
At first, 17 lines may not seem like that little, considering Legolas doesn’t appear until midway through Fellowship of the Ring. Of course, considering the movie is three hours long, half of that is still a decently long movie. So, the lack of talking still shocks me.
However, Legolas certainly has to share the frame with a lot of other characters. The Lord of the Rings cast is extensive, so maybe he just couldn’t get a word in.
