Jackson had asked if I’d like to spend a day as an extra to get a new perspective on filmmaking. First came the costume, including thermal underwear, brown robe, leather vest and rough green cape, all of it draped on me by kindly crew members. (Among my many firsts was having a man say, “Hitch up your skirts for me?”) Then the makeup: a beard and mustache made out of yak hair and dirt for my face, though no blood, despite my request. (“There’s no blood and guts in this scene. You’ll have to start a fight with another extra.”) Jackson chuckled when he saw me and, in his soft New Zealand accent, began introducing me to people as Jiff the Barbarian. The director’s partner in life and movies, Fran Walsh, lobbied for me to have a line of dialogue befitting my place of employ, her suggestion being “What news this week?”
But they gave me no dialogue–and cut my one close-up. Screenwriter Philippa Boyens had e-mailed to tell me that I looked “rugged” in my scenes, and that Jackson was thinking of dumping Mortensen and having me play Aragorn. Walsh, by contrast, said it was obvious in the close-up that I usually wore glasses because instead of registering worry, I was “squinting at Viggo myopically.” Movie people–how do you know who to believe?
In the end, my performance was reduced to a “Where’s Waldo?” moment as Aragorn rides off and a quick glimpse of me walking behind Aragorn and Theoden (Bernard Hill). When I interviewed Mortensen and Hill, I told them that I’d been in that scene–that I knew the scene wasn’t about me and that all I’d tried to do was support them. Mortensen had no idea what I was talking about. Hill, however, nodded gratefully: “We felt you.”
