The only ‘Lord of the Rings’ actor to have personally met J.R.R. Tolkien
Doing proper justice to The Lord of the Rings in a live-action setting was long thought impossible until Peter Jackson absolutely mocked any lingering claims suggesting the seminal literary fantasy trilogy was unfilmable.
He was helped immeasurably by a cast and crew firing on all cylinders from the first frame to the last, all of whom proved perfectly suited for their jobs. Of the sprawling ensemble, though, only one of them had the pleasure of meeting J.R.R. Tolkien in person.
As to be expected of somebody who lived one of the most fascinating lives imaginable, the distinction inevitably fell to Christopher Lee. He was already a noted fan of the books who would re-read them every single year without fail, but his encounter with Tolkien happened entirely by chance.
“I met him with a group of other people in a pub in Oxford he used to go to, The Eagle and Child,” he explained in an interview with Cinefantastique. “I was very much in awe of him, as you can imagine, so I just said, ‘How do you do?’” Despite going on record calling The Lord of the Rings “the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime,” Lee still couldn’t muster the courage to go full-blown fanboy with Tolkien.
That being said, he did make it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t rest until he was cast in Jackson’s trilogy, having kept a close eye on its development ever since the ambitious undertaking was announced. In fact, he agreed to star in the TV series The New Adventures of Robin Hood for the express purpose of saying he’d played a wizard, which he used to showcase his credentials to the filmmaker.
“The only reason I did that was to show anyone who was watching that I could play a wizard and that I would be ideal casting for The Lord of the Rings,” he said. Lee would then send the picture directly to Jackson “more in the nature of a joke” than anything else, but he was confident he was already a lock.
“I think Peter had already made up his mind. That’s what I’ve been told anyway, that he never thought of anybody else for Saruman except for me, so it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference.” Gandalf was always the part he’d dreamed of, but Lee was aware that he was probably too long in the tooth by the time Jackson began casting The Lord of the Rings, with Saruman an acceptable substitute.
There’s simply no way Lee would have allowed the trilogy to unfold without him, but fortunately, Jackson was in the exact same boat, with his brief face-to-face interaction with Tolkien placing him on a pedestal of his own among those involved.
