- Here's what you were doing on April 23rd, 2020.
[remote clicks]
Oh, right.
I can't believe I forgot this.
[upbeat music]
"We've quantified your digital footprint
so that you can see the impact you've had on the internet."
[upbeat music]
Oh, [beep]
[energetic techno music]
This is what happens when you Google Elijah Wood.
Oh, boy.
About 40,000...
40,400,000 results.
Top stories, "The Toxic Avenger Reboot
Rumored to be Adding Elijah Wood."
This is true.
Although, it was a leak. It wasn't an official announcement.
[laughs]
Elijah Wood, American actor,
a series of photos of me over the years.
Born January 28th, 1981, yes, 40 years.
Height, 5'6", yeah, on a good day.
"There are a lot of posts saying
you and Daniel Radcliffe look alike.
Do you see the resemblance?"
I mean, in truth, I do see the resemblance,
but I also think we look very different. [laughs]
And it's that thing of like,
being a part of similar fantasy sagas
that I think is part of the confusion.
I think had Daniel been a part of other films
that didn't have a sort of fantasy crossover,
perhaps we would not be considered to look alike
as much as we do.
"Have you ever seen a photograph of Daniel Radcliffe
and thought it was you or vice versa?"
Definitely not.
No, I've never been confused.
"Please read the following quotes
Google has attributed to you."
These are very funny.
And I was very young when I said these things,
so, apologies.
"Dream the impossible, because dreams do come true."
[whimsical chimes]
"I think being different, going against the grain of society
is the greatest thing in the world."
"I am not a star.
A star is nothing more than a ball of gas."
Now, I did say these things.
So I remember that last one, specifically,
my mom, she was so focused on humility
and bringing me up with humility.
That was actually something that she would say
for me to say as a sort of answer to that notion of like,
"What's it like being a star?"
And so I remember that really specifically.
It's very sweet.
"Dream the impossible, because dreams do come true."
Sure. [laughs]
But that second quote just seems like something
that you would needlepoint and put on a wall.
I don't know. That's a little too...
Or, it would be in that like, motivational poster
with the dolphin jumping [dolphin squeal]
out of the water.
Right, so, people always ask these questions.
Can you answer them?
"Is Elijah Wood a nice guy?"
I think I'm a nice guy, yeah.
"Why did Elijah Wood stop acting?"
I didn't. [laughs]
"Is Elijah Wood in a band?"
I get that. I'm not, but I do play records.
I play other people's music from time to time.
"Is Zach Woods related to Elijah Woods?"
Well, I don't know about the Woods, but Zach Wood
is related to me, yes. [bell dings]
"This is a Google Trend graph of your name
searched over the last 15 years.
Can you guess what these labeled points are?"
Okay.
December 2006.
I don't know.
Wow, "Happy Feet" and "Bobby" released on the same day.
That, I don't remember. That's amazing.
July of 2011.
Was that the release of "The Hobbit"?
That is, I'm really bad at this.
I'm gonna tell you,
the rest of this is gonna go horribly wrong.
I'm not great at dates.
All right, December 2012.
That is the release of "The Hobbit," for sure.
Yeah, the first Hobbit film
that I had a tiny little part in.
April of 2020. I don't know why this is spiking.
Oh, right.
I can't believe I forgot this.
I was playing Animal Crossing,
and I became really, really keen
on the turnip market, specifically.
But there's this one girl on Twitter
that posted that she was...
that her turnip price was X amount.
And then I just direct messaged her.
And I was like, "Hey, would you mind
if I come to visit your island?" [chuckles]
And she let me onto her island,
And she and her friends were big Rian Johnson fans,
specifically "The Last Jedi,"
And so when we were chatting on the island, that came up,
and I left the island by saying, "Long live Rian Johnson."
And I believe Rian put that on his banner on Twitter
for a brief period of time. [laughs]
Very funny. All right.
All right, so, "Speaking of important dates,
does October 21st, 2015 mean anything to you?"
2015?
See, I told you, I'm not great at dates.
What is October...
What happened?
Oh, right.
It's the day Marty McFly traveled to the future
in "Back to the Future: Part Two."
That's amazing.
"We broke down some of the data points comparing you
in the fictional 2015 and the real 2015."
This is great, okay.
"Here you are in the fictional October 21st, 2015.
Fav fashion choice, green colander hat,
and the fav hangout spot would be the Cafe 80s."
Okay, "And here you are in real life on October 16th, 2015."
Coming out of an airport. [laughs]
All right, so stats.
Age, 34. Screen credits up at that time, 101.
That is crazy.
Favorite fashion choice...
I'm literally wearing the exact same jeans.
So these have been mainstays for me for a very long time.
So these are APC Raw Denim Jeans.
And then favorite hangout spot.
You know what, I would say, the Alamo Drafthouse,
which still remains a favorite spot for consuming films,
maybe the best place to consume films in the world.
All right, "Let's switch over to IMDB.
You have a lot of acting credits."
I guess so.
Oh my God.
"You have a total of 115 acting credits."
That is staggering, and I've never, truly,
I've never counted.
So that is news to me.
Okay, "Of all your acting roles,
you're best known for your role as Frodo Baggins
from the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.
We watched the entire trilogy again
and added up all your screen time in the theatrical versions
of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.
Can you guess what it roughly came to?"
Two plus hours?
Two hours and three minutes.
- [Interviewer] How did you keep track
of which film you were filming at-
- At any given time?
So the way that it initially went,
is we primarily were primarily focused on the first film,
until we had a rainstorm that washed away a number of sets.
We had some flooding in the South Island
in a town called Queenstown.
Our wet weather cover was a scene from film three,
when Frodo is on the steps of Cirith Ungol
with Sam and Gollum.
And at that point,
we'd not shot anything from the third film,
and we'd not shot anything with Gollum.
Andy Serkis wasn't there,
so we had someone standing in for Andy Serkis.
We didn't shoot the rest of the coverage for that scene
for a year.
It just goes to show how long we were in New Zealand.
We shot whatever we could for a day.
Didn't revisit that scene for an entire year.
Okay, "Also on IMDB,
it says you've produced 19 films so far."
Oh, wow, yeah. That's amazing.
Okay. So only five... [chuckles]
This is, here are the stats.
The percentage in terms of the qualifications.
Only 5.26% are classified as romance,
26.32% are classified as comedies,
36.8% are classified as thrillers,
52.63% are classified as horrors.
Horrors? Horror films.
"It looks like you're a horror fan.
What do you like about the genre?"
I grew up watching horror films.
I was never really scared by them.
I liked that anything's possible.
I think that's something I love about genre cinema
in general, is that the sort of rules of filmmaking
don't necessarily apply.
There's really a lot of room for experimentation.
It elicits an emotional response.
It gets a response out of you. And I enjoy that.
And I suppose I'm a little morbid, I guess.
All right, "Let's talk about a few
of the films you've produced."
"Mandy," oh man. Panos Cosmatos' masterpiece.
"Color Out of Space," and then "No Man of God."
That poster looks like we're about to arm wrestle.
It's not an arm wrestling movie.
"No Man of God" is actually about Ted Bundy
and his relationship to Bill Hagmaier,
the FBI agent who met him over the course of four years
prior to his execution.
"Color Out of Space" is an HP Lovecraft adaptation
that we'd been trying to get made for a long time.
It's something that we're deeply proud of.
It was wonderful to work with Nic again.
And then "Mandy," in some ways, "Mandy" is a perfect example
of what exemplifies why we wanted to start a company
in the first place, and I think, ultimately,
what SpectreVision is really, truly all about,
which is a filmmaker with a vision,
and giving that filmmaker the space
to do whatever he or she wants to do
and really playing with the genre.
It's weird. It gets classified as a horror movie.
It's not a horror movie, it's a revenge movie.
So, "You're also in these popular music videos on YouTube.
Tell us a little bit about shooting each."
[Elijah laughs]
Okay, so the first thing
is Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" music video,
directed by David Fincher before he started making films.
First job I ever had.
I had never worked on anything as an actor,
but it was so exciting.
I got to meet Paula Abdul.
She was so lovely.
Yeah, I have very fond memories of that.
Okay, Beastie Boys' "Make Some Noise."
Now this is...
[sighs] Man.
It was a gift, a true honor and a gift to be a part of that.
I'll never forget...
I was talking to a representative of mine who was like,
"I actually can get Yauch on the phone.
He'd like to explain it to you."
I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna to talk to Adam Yauch."
And then he explained it, and I laughed my ass off,
and I was like, "That sounds hilarious."
He's like, "You should read it first."
And I read it, and it was hilarious,
and everybody felt the same way.
And it was the sense of like, "[beep], we're so lucky.
We get to do this. What an incredible gift."
You know? It was awesome.
Okay, so, "We also found this late night clip.
Can you tell us the story behind this appearance?"
[host speaking in foreign language]
[audience laughing]
[Elijah chuckles]
So this is an insane thing, but there's...
and I can't remember this gentleman's actual name,
but I was in Moscow for press, partially,
for "Maniac," weirdly enough.
This guy has replicated the same format of Jimmy Fallon.
So the show is "The Jimmy Fallon Show," but in Russian.
And being on it was, it felt weirdly familiar,
but it was also, I think I had a translator in my head, so,
in my ear, so he's speaking to me in Russian,
I'm speaking to him in English.
It was very surreal, but yeah.
So Jimmy Fallon, you have a counterpart in Russia.
- [Interviewer] Actually, read this one comment here.
"Elijah Wood is a nice person
and there is some kind of sympathy for him in my soul."
[Elijah laughs]
Some kind of sympathy!
I love direct translation of languages,
because the actual direct translation
is often like a strange, bungled English,
but yeah, "There is some kind of sympathy for him
in my soul."
Well, thank you.
"Elijah is so cool, so calm, pleasant, does not interrupt.
He is just cool.
And it started to kill, and his blue can just drown."
[Elijah laughs]
That's amazing.
And, "The end. What do you think?"
Well, that was quite the journey that we just went on.
That was super fun.
And I feel like there's so much more
that we could have gotten into, but I was...
I really enjoyed that.
That was really a blast.