Jason Mustian
Any good Lord Of The Rings nerd knows the behind-the-scenes story of how Viggo Mortensen broke two toes kicking an orc helmet in Two Towers, but did you know each link on each piece of chainmail worn by each man (and orc) was handcrafted, one chain at a time, by two crew members over the course of two years?
Aragorn’s scream was real, just like the nightly screams of the two dudes who had to make all this chainmail, I’m sure.
In a recently surfaced clip from LOTR BTS footage taken from the DVD extras, you can see the two gentlemen responsible for making each piece all while going slowly insane over the course of two years.
Now, personally, I would have just ordered some chainmail from Spirit Halloween or something, or hit up a few local Rennisannce fairs to see if I could borrow some, however, crew members Christopher Smith and Carl Payne decided the best way was the old-fashioned way — to assemble it piece by piece.
According to Smith, each chainmail suit is made of 13 thousand metal rings, and each has to be linked with pliers.
They also mention in the video that each suit takes about 3 days to make, and their fingers basically became giant callouses throughout the course of production.
But there was a deeper psychological effect, as you can see after the clip flashes from 5 months to a full two years in, finding the men living in a bubble and showing off a bound and gagged Papa Smurf toy they call their “hostage” and it’s at least somewhat implied maybe one of them has tried to have intercourse with the “hostage.”
(Ok maybe that’s not implied, but they’re clearly nuts, so let’s assume anything is on the table.)
Full video:
https://twitter.com/EmmaTolkin/status/1686827154909298689
You can’t blame them though, I would have lost it and taken a real human hostage after two days. Makes me realize all the more that the strikes in Hollywood are warranted — pay these people more!