For some reason or another, people are really gravitating toward Elijah Wood nowadays. A lot of this has to do with Elijah seemingly being at the start of a massive Hollywood comeback. It may also have to do with the fact that he's just so undeniably likable. He's a polite, soft-spoken, and talented man. But more than likely it's because Elijah has been part of some of the most beloved movies of all time.
Elijah Wood has been acting since he was nine years old but after he was cast as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he became a household name. This is basically what allowed him to get invited to join the star-studded cast of 2005's Sin City. Of course, the R-rated, highly-stylized, crime film wasn't everybody's cup of tea. But what does Elijah think?
How Elijah Was Cast In Sin City And What He Really Thought About Being Part Of It
In his retrospective about his biggest movie and TV roles with GQ, Elijah explained that he was deeply thankful for being asked to be part of Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City. This is mostly because he was a massive fan of the graphic novels.
"It was weird, the timing of [making the movie]," Elijah Wood explained to GQ. "I read through all of it. Then went out to dinner with [director] Robert [Rodriguez] and he said, 'I'm making Sin City'. And I was like, 'Holy s***, I just read these books and in my head I was thinking wouldn't it be amazing to see this animated because the artwork is so beautiful and so specific.' And so we were out at dinner and he's like, 'Our next project is Sin City, do you want to see some of it?'"
It turns out, Robert Rodriguez had already shot the opening sequence with Josh Hartnett out on the roof. He did this as a proof of concept in order to prove to Frank Miller that he could do his graphic novels justice and to get the movie made with the studio.
Robert took Elijah out to his car and showed him that first scene on a computer. Because Elijah was so blown away with what Robert had achieved, as well as Robert's friendship with the Lord of the Rings star, he asked Elijah if he'd audition for the role of Kevin in the movie. However, because the murderous role that Elijah ended up playing had no lines, his audition was simply to stare as Robert read lines from the script.
Elijah Spent Very Little Time On Set And Didn't Even Get To Work With The Actor Opposite Him
"It was a joy to be able to work in that space."
The main reason Elijah was so thrilled to be filming Sin City was because of his love of the graphic novel and the fact that Robert was really doing his best to copy it frame-for-frame.
The graphic novel ended up being a blueprint for most of the filming process. So, in terms of designing and executing each shot, a lot of mimicries were required. This was incredibly appealing to Elijah since he was such a fanboy who geeked out whenever he got to do a shot-for-shot from the source material.
However, Elijah didn't have too much time to enjoy himself...
"I shot all of my scenes in two days," Elijah explained. "Predominantly, the movie was shot against blue or green screen. There were a few sets. The bar was a set. And there were a couple of others. But most of it was a green screen."
Elijah also didn't get to work with former MCU star, Mickey Rourke.
"And Mickey Rourke [who played Marv] had already shot his scenes... so, I shot everything with Mickey's stunt double."
This meant that Elijah had absolutely no time on set with Mickey nor did he have him to act off of. However, he was thrilled to be able to work with the stunt double as well as do some major action sequences for the very first time.
"It was awesome. It was so much fun. And fun to play a villain. I had never played a villain or psychopath before. Certainly not a mute one."
Playing a murderous cannibal like Kevin didn't end up being as hard as one may think. This is because the character in the graphic novel has no dialogue nor displays any real facial expressions. Because of these limitations, Elijah was able to find the character quite quickly.
But none of this really mattered to the Wilfred star. Even if finding the character of Kevin was a lot of work, Elijah would have done it. He just loved the graphic novel THAT much.
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