Elijah Wood wasn’t very helpful after Sean Astin’s foot injury on the set of Lord of the Rings. Wood starred in all three installments of Peter Jackson’s cinematic trilogy as Frodo Baggins alongside Astin’s fellow hobbit, Samwise Gamgee. After Frodo inherits the One Ring from his uncle Bilbo (Ian Holm), he is tasked by Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) with traveling across Middle-Earth to toss the One Ring into the fiery depths of Mount Doom. Sam, a gardener eavesdropping in the bushes, overhears these secret plans and is assigned by Gandalf to accompany Frodo on his journey.

Frodo and Sam don’t leave the Shire alone though, as they are also joined by two more hobbits, Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd). The four soon arrive in the town of Bree, where they meet Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and travel to Rivendell to meet up with the rest of the Fellowship: Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and Boromir (Sean Bean). Wood and Astin both reprised their roles as the faces of the franchise in the second and third installments, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

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In a recent interview with Esquire commemorating the 20th anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring, Wood looked back on the time his co-star Astin impaled his foot on set. They were filming the scene in which Frodo parts ways with the Fellowship at the end and begins paddling off to Mordor. Sam begins wading the water to chase after him, at which point, Astin stepped on a branch that “punctured the bottom of his foot and left a massive gash.” While Astin was being tended to, Wood remembers being “fascinated by the blood” instead of being concerned for his co-star. Read what Wood had to say below:

He pulled the branch out and there was this slit in his foot and a blob of coagulated blood came out. It was so big and I was so fascinated with it that I grabbed a stick and he was being tended to and I was like, “Man, this is f**ing crazy.” And he’s like, meanwhile, being seen by a doctor and here I am fascinated by the blood, knowing that he was absolutely fine.

This isn’t the first time Wood or Astin have regaled fans with the story of how he impaled his foot while on set. Though in honor of the first film’s 20th anniversary, many Lord of the Rings actors have recently been reminiscing about the production process and sharing various stories from the set, which apparently wasn’t too kind to the stars’ feet. Mortensen also suffered a painful injury in which he broke his toe kicking an Orc’s helmet, a take which was used in the film.

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Lord of the Rings was one of the most intricate and ambitious trilogies ever created, so there were bound to be some injures on set. In retrospect, it’s a relief that none of these injuries were ever life-threatening, and the cast can now look back and joke about them. While it would be advantageous for them to learn from these past mistakes, Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings series has also suffered numerous on-set injuries and even faced allegations of an unsafe work environment.

Source: Esquire

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Adam Bentz
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Adam Bentz is a movie and TV news writer for Screen Rant. From a young age, Adam has been interested in a wide range of movies and television, but it was talented auteurs like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Aaron Sorkin who ultimately sparked his interest in the craft. Motivated by his love for the screen, Adam studied creative writing with a concentration in screenwriting at Southern New Hampshire University.

After graduating, Adam interned as a writer with The Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization working to end extreme poverty. Other than writing for Screen Rant, Adam reviews films on his website adambentz.wordpress.com

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