So indelible was Elijah Wood as Lord of the Rings‘ Frodo that it’s difficult to imagine him in any role not requiring furry feet. I enjoyed his small, weaselly role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I’m still trying to wipe from my memory his gruesome walk-on in Sin City.
He looks just right, though, in this clip for Everything Is Illuminated (far left, opens Sept. 16), playing another wide-eyed young man on an impossible quest, this one in present-day Eastern Europe.
Which is good because, in his movie Green Street Hooligans (near left), which opens the previous weekend, he seems utterly miscast as a Yank who falls in with a Fight Club-esque crew of English soccer thugs. Wood’s career-defining role is a hard hobbit to break, but that’s not the way to do it.
Elijah is always at his best as a small dude who overcomes overwhelming odds. He was tremendous in that role in the LOTR trilogy, and excelled in a similar role in “the Faculty”. However, he seems a little misplaced as a tough guy. Though who knows? Maybe he joined the fight club already to toughen himself up. After all, the first rule of fight club is that you can’t talk about it…
I think Elijah Wood is an amazingly versatile actor. He’s been in Deep Impact, The Good Son, North, The Lord of the Rings, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sin City, etc., and he’s been good in all of them. Green Street Hooligans isn’t a movie I would be interested in seeing, but I think he fits right in as an Ivy Leaguer who gets drawn into a gang.
Doing different roles is the way to do it. To break a stereotype (small dude who overcomes overwhelming odds), you do a bunch of crazy roles so that when people think of you, they remember LOTR but that won’t be all they remember. I loved him in Sin City and having read the comics before the movie came out, I thought he was perfect in it.
So, uh, Gary, are you saying that actors should not take chances or play roles outside of what they are best known for? Hmm, that’s not surprising coming from a writer for EW, a publciation and website that wallows in a sort of rose-clored, hazy nostalgia that values the comfortably familiar (copvered by a veil of Wal-Mart cynicism and snarkiness) over anything that resembles stepping outside of the anyone’s comfort zones.
“Wood’s career-defining role is a hard hobbit to break, but that’s not the way to do it.”
Now wait a darn minute– have you seen this movie?!? I am excited about it. Elijah doesn’t look like a tough guy, and I’m no Robert Mitchum, so I will be really interested to see how they reconcile him getting in fistfights and holding his own (or being hospitalized). I don’t knwo if the movie will wind up being worthwhile– but, ye gods, can we avoid snarky speculation until it at least plays somewhere other than aintitcoolnews?
What he’s really thinking in that photo:
http://clevercaption.com/176.html
Thanks, excellent..
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hi Elijah I think you are a good actor. I meet be a movie star to same day. I will move to hollywood be for I go will do martial art I meet learn 3 style. If I was in hollywood I will make movies and do music video’s
I think Elijah Wood is hot no-matter what role he plays in!!