The Sunday Session with Francesca RudkinBest of 2024: Elijah Wood on the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin
Elijah Wood, the star of Lord of the Rings, has returned to New Zealand shores as part of his latest project.
Wood stars in Bookworm, an adventure-comedy that follows a young girl and her estranged father on their mission to find mythological beast known as the Canterbury panther.
He describes the film as an emotional father-daughter story - where the connections are the central focus of the piece.
"It's actually quite beautiful and emotional - and ultimately connective at the very end of it all. Those things also really appeal to me."
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You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin from News Talks. Edb Right.
Hollywood star Elijah Wood has had an incredible career. At only forty three, he's already clocked up thirty five years as an actor. He made his debut as an eight year old and Back to the Future Too, gaining recognition as a child star. It was, of course though here in New Zealand. He made a big name for himself internationally as Photo Baggins in Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has had many films. He has starred in many films since. But Elijah has been back filming on our shows and stars in a new Kiwi film releasing this week. It's called Bookworm.
What's this? This is the Canary Panther.
No one's ever caught to finish of proof. I could take you. We leave it first light, stick with me. We'll be fine. You know where you're going, right? Just see it fora today for an ELASII Booklock. I do appearances.
Wow, you think it's easy? Thinking one hundred balloon animals with Indese's kids? What the hell is a vin diesel? Elijah Wood joins me. Now good morning, Elijah, thank you so much for your time.
You're so welcome.
How gorgeous is this film? It's got it all. It's a beautiful family drama and adventure flick with tension and action. It's funny, it's got beautiful views. What more do you want when you go to the cinema?
Well articulated, I agree, what more do you want? I completely agree. I'm in love with it. I've been in love with this since the first time I read the script. It's incredibly special. It's got, you know, fun, awkward, somewhat in some cases, bizarre characters that intersect in the wilds of New Zealand, and ultimately, at its core, in this very sort of funny series of events that these characters go through, it's really a father daughter story and it's actually quite beautiful and emotional and ultimately connective at the very end of it all. And so those things also really appealed to me.
I've got probably a decade on you, Elijah, and when I grew up, this is what I grew up on live action family films, and I feel like, since then, you know, my kids have grown up. If you went to a family flick, it was an animation. It's so lovely to see, you know, live sort of family action flicks.
You're so right, and that's absolutely what inspired ants to make the film. It's what he grew up on as well. And I think, you know, in the in the eighties, son I was born in eighty one, so eighties into the nineties, there definitely worth the films live action, you know, out in the wilderness, family films with like low stakes danger that everybody could enjoy. And you're so right, they're really not made anymore. And you know after that it was all animated films, and now it really truly is dominated by animated films. So to sort of bring everything back to live action and you know, throw these characters into these really fun scenarios that are semi dangerous but just enough I can sort of be enjoyed by all ages was really fun to sort of engage with and kind of imbue the film with those old sensibilities.
Because we're of course enjoying all the summer blockbusters that come from sort of Hollywood, but a lot of them this year seem to be sequels or remakes, and I think that's why I left the skim with a smile. On my face. You know, I was just like, I've just seen something absolutely wicked and original.
Oh that's awesome. Well, listen, I think the culture has definitely done dominated at the moment with a lot of IP driven film, and you know, it's it's always refreshing to walk into a cinema with characters that you don't know, uh, in scenarios that you've not seen, and let something play out and go on a ride with your characters. You know. There there happen to be you know, hundreds of movies every year that are not made by the major studios that do engage in those dame traditions, and I'm with you. I find I find them to be delightful and that this too is not you know that the stakes are genuinely quite low for these characters. It's just a fun romp in the wilderness that ultimately tells this really wonderful story of a father trying to reconnect with his daughter and and and I think that can be enjoyed, you know by the adults, where the kids can kind of come for the you know, the wild looking for the panther and the various mishaps that happened along the way.
Straw and Wise is such a great character. He looked a lot of fun to play. He's an illusionist, a contemporary maybe of David Blaine. Are you you were a fan of illusionists? Do you know any magicians?
I well, so for the film, I trained with a magician very briefly, partially because I wanted to have a sense of card dexterity. The thing was, I had no experience at all. And it's really funny, prior to making the film, ant for months before we were we were actually meant to go down to New Zealand to start shooting, he would send me videos maybe references for tricks for me to learn, and I was in I was in the middle of production. I was I was working on a show called Yellow Jackets, and so I didn't have like in my in my my mind, and just because time capacity, I just didn't have the capacity to like jump into learning these things yet. But the clock was kicking, and the main thing there aren't there's only really two tricks in the film, so I didn't really have to learn anything in particular. I just my main concern was just dexterity, like being able to handle a death of cards with confidence in a way that looks like I know what I'm doing, so I hopefully achieved that it was. It was kind of terrifying because any time that you depict a discipline that isn't your own, I take that really seriously, and I don't I don't want it to seem like I don't that I haven't invested the time, or that it's flippant. So I certainly invested the time, and I had cards with me all the time, and I was shuffling them and and doing these uh these these sort of fans with them. So hopefully some of that comes across on screen that is believable. But yes, in answer your question, I love magicians. I love magic, and in particular less less of the kind of big showy showmanship, massive illusion magic, but the close up card magic and sleight of hand. That's that does it for me because it's it's so it's so unbelievably subtle that you can't tell that your bet a trick is happening before your eyes, so it feels real. And there have been so many times where a close up magician has done something that it almost felt like wizardry.
You know, in the film Drawn and your Daughter Mildred. They they're newly introduced father and daughter. They head out into the wilderness on a camping trip, and it's kind of like the ultimate taste of family bonding. I mean, I think going camping is a challenge even if you you know then you know the people you're going camping with. Are you a camping.
I love camping, Yes I have. I've been camping quite a few times, largely on river trips, on rafting trips with some friends. But I love sleeping outside. I don't even know if I've ever slept in a tent. I think I've always slept just in, you know, in a sleeping bag on a camp mattress, just under the stars. So yeah, no, I absolutely love it and feel pretty comfortable in the wilderness. Now that being said, would I lead a trip, you know, like I've gone with friends who are adept at rafting, adept at handling a camp and setting a camp up. Could I do that on my own? With great confidence? I can certainly learn. I don't know that I have the skills quite but I do feel comfortable in the wilderness for sure.
How good as Nel Fisher, the young lady who plays your daughter, Oh, amazing.
Amazing, Yeah, yeah, she's amazing. It's you know, it was it was quite a search. I think they saw an estimated three hundred people or more for the role. And you know, it's so important that this character of Mildred is so vital to the storytelling. She really is the focal point of the film, and then obviously then their relationship too, and she just is that character. She's so vibrant and so filled with life, so unbelievably smart and precocious herself, not at all unlike her character. She was a total delight. And you know, ninety percent of the film is exteriors. We have very very few interior shops, so we have this very small intimate crew out in the wilds of Canterbury for the duration of the shoot, and so it was just most of the time the two of us tramping around and the wilderness together. And I couldn't have had a better companion. She is so so wonderful, and every single day too, and I have no capacity for this. My wife has a better capacity for remembering these things. But she would regale us with a new word of the day every day, and the words were so obscure and difficult in some cases to pronounce oftentimes with more letters than it seems necessary, with really wild definitions. And that was just so apropos that now just naturally would also be engaging in that kind of activity that was so similar to her character. It was really fun. And I have since forgotten every single one of those words.
That was gonna be my next question. So what was the most interesting word you learned? So I won't go there.
Oh, look, I've definitely forgotten.
Them all here you were a child actor. Is it a different life on set now for kids compared to when you started out?
I don't know, it doesn't seem like it is. I mean, it's always contextual because every job is different, right, The environment is going to be different because it's the nature of the job that it's in a new city with a new crew, a new set of people. For the circumstances are often not replicatable, Like it's a different atmosphere every time. So I don't know if it feels different for kids now in general, And it kind of like in a way that feels that it can be sort of trapped throughout the industry. Not really, I don't know. The sort of the labor is the same this on school, the onset schooling, like now had school that she had to do every day, like that was very familiar. The hours are also shorter for kids, so it's actually really interesting being on the other side of it now as an adult to work with with with a minor, because I'm like, all right, they can only work eight hours. There's there's time that has to be taken up for school, and there are all these sort of other considerations. But you know, as a kid, you're not thinking about those things. You're just sort of on set for the time that you are and you go home when you're done. But in terms of the actual environment, like I said, I think it's it's unique to it's unique to the individuals. It's unique to the parents. The parents set the tone largely for the children, but also so does the environment of the set and the filmmaker and the cast. You know, it becomes this sort of family, and that's very much what we had on this and Nell's parents her dad was present for a bit, but she she had a guardian on set who was lovely, who also helped with her key reaccent and was with her at all times and was super rap So I know she had a wonderful time. It's a very long answer that is quite meandering. I've gotten so far away from what.
You have even I love the way you're just thinking it through. What would you do if your children said, hey, Dad, I'd like to start acting.
I wouldn't discourage it. I think my my perspective is always to encourage the interests of my children. So whatever they whatever impulses, they have, to encourage those impulses, and if that ultimately dovetails into the film industry in some way, to not stand in the way of it. You know, Look, I had an incredible experience. I am the sum of my experiences as an actor, right and in addition to other life experience that I've had. So I'm so grateful for my child as I'm so grateful for the experiences that it afforded me. So I have no kind of negativity associated with having been a child actor or any time will start as a child actor. So I only have kind of positive reference points. So I, yeah, I don't. I wouldn't. I'm I wouldn't be coming at it from a perspective of well don't I wouldn't want you to do that because it doesn't you know, they were all great experiences, and I would trust that they would be surrounded by I certainly you know us as parents, but also you know, an environment that would be healthy for them. But yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't I'm not. I wouldn't go out of my way to encourage it. But that has more to do with wanting to make sure that they find their own voice and do whatever they feel like they want to do in terms of expressing themselves.
You know, in the film, your character learns a lot about himself through the discovery of this daughter and being with her and things. Did having kids change you? What have you learned about yourself from your kids?
Oh? Man, I mean you're constantly growing as a parent, as a person, you know, Yeah, I mean it it tests you to find patience. You know. I always thought I was a really patient person, and I think I've I've realized like and I and I still am a patient person, but I think it has tested that and finding calm because there's there's chaos that is out of your control and I.
Don't know, No, that all sounds very familiar.
Yeah, listen, I think it's an it's an ongoing it's an ongoing I'm assuming you're a parent. Yeah, yeah, it's an ongoing process. You know, you're I think it's it's a constant evolution and I and I like looking at it like that because as they grow, you are growing. You are also learning as you go. You do not step into this with all of the knowledge to just immediately slot into being a parent. You know, it initially happens where you have an idea and then you're thrust with the reality of it, and that is an ever evolving process, and that evolution will continue and I will continue to grow as a human being along with my child, both as a parent and as a person. And it's important for me anyway. It's really important to look at it that way because also there's those moments as a parent, as I'm sure you know, where you're like, I can't imagine another night like this, or you know, this is so hard, and then you kind of you know, one of the best pieces of advice that I ever heard about parenting is like, just know that it doesn't it doesn't last, Like this is a phase and that will end and then it will be something knew that you'll have to learn how to how to adapt to and grow with. And so yeah, it's total ever evolution, you know, so.
True, Elijah, thank you so much for your time and for the absolutely delightful film.
Oh thank you. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Thank you.
Bookworm is in cinemas this Thursday.
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rutkin, listen live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
