Osborne keeps Oscar ambitions modest

By MIKE HOULAHAN

While many are expecting - and the most fervent are demanding - The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King win top honours at next week's Oscars, the film's producer Barrie Osborne has more modest ambitions.

"Being nominated is a real honour: winning is a toss of the coin depending on what else is happening," he says.

"I think the films are all really great films, I'm extremely proud of them, and I would love to win, don't get me wrong, but whether we win or not it's been a very satisfying accomplishment."

The first Lord Of The Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, won four Oscars, while its sequel The Two Towers received two of the famed statues.

The Return of The King is nominated in 11 categories, including Best Film and Best Director for Wellingtonian Peter Jackson, in this year's Oscars, which are presented on Monday afternoon NZT. It is hot favourite to win in most categories.

Given those achievements and a phenomenal return at the box office - earlier this week The Return Of The King become the second movie to break the US$1 billion ($1.48 billion) box-office mark worldwide, and did so in record time - it seems hard to imagine making the trilogy was considered a high risk project.

"I always believe in the films," Osborne says.

"I always believed in Peter's ideas. What got hard toward the ending of each of the films is that Peter is always pushing to perfect the films and you see the deadline looming and that's where producers get nervous.

"But I never had any fears about the quality of what would be seen on the screen."

New Yorker Osborne has been involved with some big movies in his time, including Apocalypse Now, Face/Off and The Matrix, but the mammoth task of organising the shooting of three films simultaneously easily dwarfs those projects.

"We were making an epic in every sense of the word, with all these extended problems," Osborne said during The Return Of The King's world premiere in Wellington.

"The real challenge for me was to create at atmosphere that the actors and director felt comfortable with so they could act with passion and precision on the set.

"My job was to keep the rolling chaos at bay, and there was a lot."

Osborne, a former United States Army lieutenant, has more than 30 years experience in the movie industry. A former vice-president of feature production at Walt Disney Pictures, he first filmed in New Zealand in the 1980s for a movie called The Rescue.

While the country was just another location for Osborne then, now he is a citizen and one of the fiercest advocates of the local film industry. He has put his money where his mouth is, helping Dunedin film maker Robert Sarkies make his follow-up to Scarfies.

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy has being an historic movie in many ways, including box office takings and technological advancements, but Osborne suggests the films may have an impact far beyond what they themselves achieve.

"I think the lasting legacy of the films will be the facilities built for Peter Jackson and the skills film makes and technicians have learned. Those are things Peter and other film makers will use well into the future."

The Oscars will be one of the final gatherings for the team which spent so many years making J R R Tolkien's fantasy classic - long regarded as unfilmable - a motion picture reality.

Cast members have always stressed how close they became during the two year shoot, and Osborne says that feeling extended through the entire team of people who worked on the trilogy.

"We are all really a fellowship, having gone through this incredible journey together and worked so closely, and any time we get together is special," Osborne says.

"Early on John Rhys Davis (Gimli) made a very honest and astute observation to me, which was when you get an ensemble cast together, one of two things can happen: you can either have them fragment or form into a group.

"To form into a group takes leadership and we were blessed with two natural leaders, and they were leaders both because the cast respected them both for their talent and their passion - that was Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn).

"They were so committed and we had some very young actors - it was Orlando's (Bloom, Legolas) first movie - and you could see they were following the example of great professionals."

Given his pride in the team, it seems likely this week's Screen Actors Guild Award prize to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for best ensemble cast would have pleased Osborne immensely.

"Awards are awards and they're nice, but I think our film is certainly an incredible accomplishment and will last for a long long time," he says.

* The Academy Awards will be presented in a ceremony in Los Angeles on February 29 (March 1 NZT).

- NZPA