"...I think it's unfair to say to an audience, 'Come to The Fellowship of the Ring and, if it's successful, we make part two'. That's not what we're doing. We are making the entire trilogy, one long film shoot and then we'll cut them all together. I guess it's a certain form of madness." -- Director Peter Jackson

"After this brief warm shower together, Harry [Knowles from Ain't-It-Cool News] and I return to our different sides of the line - us trying to maintain secrecy ... and he using his low-life methods to publish it all on the net." -- Director Peter Jackson

"You shouldn't think of these movies as being 'The Lord of the Rings.' The Lord of the Rings is, and always will be, a wonderful book - one of the greatest ever written. Any films will only ever be an INTERPRETATION of the book. In this case my interpretation." -- Director Peter Jackson

"You do realize, don't you, that whatever you do, some percentage of rabid Tolkien fans are always gonna attack you for 'butchering' their bible? God, I wouldn't be in your shoes for quids, mate!" -- Fan comment to director Peter Jackson in the first Ain't-It-Cool News Q&A.

"[This project] gives me a chance to break new ground in the movies. Every film genre has been done well over the last 100 years, but not this type of fantasy story. If we get it right, it will be the first time. No film maker could ask for a greater challenge than that." -- Director Peter Jackson

"[There] is no better way to make steel armour and weapons than the way it was done 600 years ago ... we have a foundry set up at Weta. Steel is heated red-hot and beaten on anvils! It looks very authentic!" -- Director Peter Jackson

"The films we are making will be PG13. However, let me assure you that there is no pressure from New Line to gear them towards a children's audience. They are smart enough to know that The Lord of the Rings was huge in the sixties, and most of those readers are now 50 years old. The intention is to make it neither childish, nor overly dark ... a good solid action adventure with intelligence and depth." -- Director Peter Jackson

"Harper Collins told me that they usually sell about 100 copies of The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand per month ... since the trilogy was announced, sales have risen to 1000 copies per month! At the end of the day, a half-decent movie has got to inspire many new readers. It can't do anything else." -- Director Peter Jackson

"So much of this business is about trust. New Line are trusting us to make this book into an expensive trilogy of films ... and we are trusting New Line not to deluge us with bad ideas. The trust factor in this relationship feels pretty good." -- Director Peter Jackson

"The playwright Ronan O'Donnell told me just to use the scripts, but that would take a braver man than me. So many people have read the books and have their mind set on how it should be played, you have to do your homework. You look on the internet and they are discussing scenes you don't even know about." -- Actor Billy Boyd (Pippin)

"I'm a gambler, like everyone else in the film business, but this is a project that could capture the imagination of a global audience." -- New Line Cinema Chairman Robert Shaye

"A Christian can be forgiven for not reading the Bible--heck, it's a pretty big book after all. But there's no salvation for a fantasy fan who hasn't read the gospel of the genre, J.R.R. Tolkien's definitive three-book epic, The Lord of the Rings." -- Paul Hughes, in a user review on Amazon.com

"The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read it." -- The London Sunday Times in their review of the Rings novels

"FRODO (V.O.): When we turn away from the darkness of our past to take comfort in our peaceful lives, we sometimes forget how dearly that peace was bought. But there is much worth remembering in the darkness..." -- The first line of Fellowship of the Ring, from an early draft of the script

"The Lord of the Rings films, baby... another three reasons not to commit suicide." -- comment from reader Mostholy on the Ain't-It-Cool News talkback

"For the last 30 years our cinemas have been ruled by science fiction and horror.... We’ve had some very good Fantasy films in that time period, but for my tastes I still haven’t seen fantasy done to absolute perfection. That is the hope I have in this project." -- Harry Knowles on Ain't-It-Cool News

"Rest assured, the material is in the right hands. It's obvious from the first page of the first script." -- Moriarty on Ain't-It-Cool News

"Forget STAR WARS. This has a chance at being the film myth of our time. Every element is in place. ...Despite the epic size of the project, there's not one single moment when Jackson loses track of his characters against the massive backdrop." -- Moriarty on Ain't-It-Cool News

"It's funny to read the fan musings on why we might make certain decisions. Like the guy who thinks that because we had a slow year at the box office... we need to run to the box-office safety names. Lemme tell ya, there are about ten people in the universe who are box-office, and none of them are in LOTR." -- Michael DeLuca, CEO of New Line Cinema

"If it weren't the director of 'Heavenly Creatures' in control, with a strong vision of all those precise, quirky, majestic locations, I should not much look forward to a full year away from my home in London. But Peter Jackson's designs, script and his unshowy dedication to the task are irresistible. Had I been unable to play Gandalf... I should have hoped for another less time-consuming part later in the trilogy." -- Actor Ian McKellen (Gandalf)

"I've always said since first reading the three books, and I've always felt this, that I was born to be in it. And now I can say I am! I'm very happy. And Saruman, he's the head wizard. An enormously important role." -- Actor Christopher Lee (Saruman)

"'Lord of the Rings' is wonderful source material, an amazingly intricate epic story with wonderful characters. We're just trying to take all the great stuff from the books and use modern technology to give audiences a night at the movies quite unlike anything they have ever seen before." -- Director Peter Jackson

"First impressions: It’s a circus. Tents and marquees everywhere, pens of horses and cattle at full and half-size, and a Clydesdale horse being led past which would make anyone look hobbit-sized next to it. People wandering around in and out of costume. A fake Gandalf went by in a dark grey robe, followed by a hobbit double, or maybe a real hobbit actor– even the film people weren’t always sure unless they were up close." -- Tehanu, proprietor of TheOneRing.net, upon visiting the set of Hobbiton

"Everything is thought about. The scene being filmed had Gandalf talking to Frodo about pipeweed, I presume, for he mentioned its Latin name. The linguists worried about whether he’d use a Latinate pronunciation or not. ‘Nicotiana.’ Gardeners say it ‘nic-oe-chana,’ but Gandalf, being ‘learned’, could be expected to say it more precisely, ‘nicoteeahna.’ The linguists beat the subject into the ground, made phonecalls, established that the accepted pronunciation was changing with time..." -- Tehanu, proprietor of TheOneRing.net

"He says of his Everest that it's the biggest film ever made technically and logistically. He is not so foolhardy as to think he could ever make these three films by himself. We are all on his team." -- Ian McKellen (Gandalf), on director Peter Jackson

"I was told I had to gain a lot of weight because Hobbits are very portly. Peter Jackson is forever suggesting I have more food. 'A little more shepherd's pie for Mr. Astin.'" -- Sean Astin (Sam)

"At the start of the film, you see Merry and Pippin at a party, having fun, living it up in the town where they live, where everyone knows them. They're the Fonzies of the town. Everyone thinks they're cool--they're the Danny Zukos of the Shire. [For Merry, losing Pippin is like] losing his strength, the other side of his personality. [But it's interesting to see his character] grow up, split up from all the people he loves and trusts and relies on, and then to be put back together with them again." -- Dominic Monaghan (Merry)

"It was literally my agent calling me and asking, 'Do you want to go to New Zealand tomorrow for a year to make this movie?'" -- Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), on his last-minute casting

"I hope I'm still around to see the results." -- 78-year-old Christopher Lee (Saruman), upon completing filming

"It's just going to be...I'm trying to think of the right word - without making it sound like the usual fashionable superlative. I think it will create film history. I think it's going to have the biggest impact, on screen, of anything of the last 40 or 50 years." -- Christopher Lee (Saruman), in SFX Magazine (June #65)

"What I've really connected to about the books is that there's an enormous sadness at the passing of time. Treebeard says the world is changing--he feels it in the water, he feels it in the air. I think that's something Galadriel feels. She's able to sense her position in the changing order of the world. There's a joy in the melancholy of what that means--that she can be released." -- Cate Blanchett (Galadriel), July 2000 E-Online interview

"Celeborn is more fixed in his beliefs and methods than Galadriel, which is his failing, perhaps. As a team, they work well, although apparently they only have sex once every 2,000 years or so." -- Marton Csokas (Celeborn), July 2000 E-Online quip

"I will be there until December, on and off, but a year of one's life doesn't seem too much to spend on this sort of project." -- Ian McKellen (Gandalf), July 2000 Starlog magazine