Jackson dreads saying goodbye to Rings

PARIS - Film director Peter Jackson has lived every minute of The Lord of the Rings for seven years and now increasingly resembles one of his hobbit heroes.

But the bearded New Zealander is dreading the day when he will have to say goodbye to one of the biggest projects in the history of cinema: the film trilogy he made that majestically captures the fantasy world of J R R Tolkien's classic saga.

He felt intense pressure last year with the first film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Millions of Tolkien fans around the world had personal visions of Middle Earth, with its fantastical elves, orcs and hobbits. The future of the studio, New Line Cinema, also hung on his success.

But the fairy tale came true. The movie became a worldwide box office hit, grossing US$860 million and grabbing four Oscars after a near-record 13 nominations.

Now Jackson is back on the global promotion trail for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which opens on December 18.

The renewed pressure does not stop him adopting a laid-back approach to the media, as show business reporters interview him before the film's European premiere in Paris.

The tousle-haired and dishevelled director strode into the conference room of an elegant Paris hotel barefoot and dressed in shorts. A diminutive and burly figure, Jackson is a dead ringer for one of the hobbits he put so memorably on the screen.

He has no regrets about giving a huge slice of his life over to this great saga. "Lord of the Rings is one of the things I am happy to spend seven years of my life on," he said.

"The first film certainly had pressures of its own," he said. "If the first film wasn't a success, it was possible the studio would not have survived."

Once the hoopla has died down after the second film is released, he will move straight into post-production on the third movie, which will be released at Christmas next year.

Already nostalgia is creeping in.

"I expect next year is going to be bittersweet," he said. "I expect I am going to be, in some respects, relieved to get to the end of it. But it will be like saying goodbye to an old friend."

But how does he keep motivated on such a giant undertaking and keep a sense of vision after 18 months of non-stop shooting in New Zealand, now that he and the 2400-strong film crew have the three movies in the can?

"Ultimately, I am spending seven years of my life on the project. But each film is different from the one before, and that keeps you fresh," he said.

The film, going head to head at the box office with Harry Potter and James Bond in the run-up to Christmas, is being given a spectacular round-the-world send-off, with premieres from New York to Sydney and Copenhagen to Wellington.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Lord of the Rings