Elijah Wood famously portrayed Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings film series, and now the actor has shared some new details on his unusual and elaborate audition process for the movie. It involved filming three different sequences at a time when audition tapes were not common. Before telling his story, Wood recalled the earliest days of The Lord of the Rings and why he was excited from the get-go.

Speaking to GQ, Wood said he wasn't actually surprised when he learned in the late '90s that Peter Jackson, a relatively low-profile New Zealand filmmaker known for independent movies like Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners, would be tackling The Lord of the Rings. Wood said 1994's Heavenly Creatures stood out to him in particular because it established what Jackson was capable of as a filmmaker. The movie combined fantasy with emotional honesty and depth, and he thought Jackson would do right by The Lord of the Rings by keeping these elements in mind.

Wood had read The Hobbit but not The Lord of the Rings at the time, and when his agent called to tell him they were looking to cast roles for the film, he jumped at the chance to try out for Frodo. The studio wasn't sending the script to actors, so he drove to the studio office and sat by himself for two hours reading the script.