The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers’ famous Gollum monologue was not directed by Peter Jackson: ‘Had no time’

In the now-iconic monologue from The Two Towers, the multiple personalities of the hobbit — Gollum and Smeagol — argue with each other about their past sins. The camera work by Andrew Lesnie was stellar as it cut between the different sides of Smeagol — the good and the evil. Despite the obvious differences in their physicality, one could not help but be convinced that both Gollum and Smeagol were the same person. Apart from practically introducing a new technology (creating a character made out of CG and animation simultaneously had never been done before), the sequence is also important as it shows us the fatal effects of possessing the ring. We know the hobbit is suffering from hallucinations, possibly schizophrenia and constant anxiety about the ornament and owning it. The bit where Smeagol says he is finally free is heart-rending, because the audience is aware of his burden at this point, and they also realise that perhaps Smeagol can never be truly free.

But one more pivotal detail about this scene is that it was never directed by Peter Jackson. Yes, you read that right. Since the filmmaker was busy with other production details at the time, he asked his co-writer and co-producer Fran Walsh to take up directing duties. “We were shooting Two Towers and it was introducing Gollum. A key thing with Gollum is that most people know he’s Sméagol and he’s Gollum, it’s like a split. But we hadn’t got a scene where you really got the idea of it…‘This guy is two people.’ So we knew that we needed it but we had no time to shoot it,” said Jackson while speaking with Late Night host Stephen Colbert sometime ago.

“Fran wrote a scene where Sam and Frodo are asleep, so they can be just lumps in the bed, we don’t even have to have Elijah [Wood] and Sean [Astin]. We didn’t have anyone to direct it, so I said to Fran, ‘You wrote it, you should shoot it.’ So she went in for a day and she wrote and directed a scene which has become pretty famous now,” Jackson revealed.

The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers turned out to be a massive critical and commercial success, with the feature getting nominated for Oscar in multiple categories. It ended up minting an impressive 948 million dollars of its 94 million dollar budget.

The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers can be streamed on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video.