Sci Fi magazine
February 2004

Viggo Mortensen is crowned the one king to rule them all as the Rings Trilogy concludes.

By Melissa J. Perenson

AT FIRST GLANCE, Viggo Mortensen is a symphony of rugged good looks, with a deliciously dimpled chin and captivating eyes-but if you want to know who he really is, you have to know about his fake tooth.

"I just left the dentist actually, earlier this morning," Mortensen says, a bit out of breath. He's just gotten back to his car, and is talking between appointments on a typically busy L.A. day. "They checked my fake tooth and they said it's holding just fine, so it was no big deal."

No big deal? Ask anyone who was on the Lord of the Rings set that day, and they might beg to differ. Mortensen was battling an Uruk-hai when he had a near miss with a blade. The blade didn't mangle his face, but it did cut his tooth in two. Undaunted, Mortensen wanted to continue shooting, even going so far as to ask someone to find his tooth so it could be glued back on and he could finish the scene. But Jackson's wisdom to get his star to a dentist's office posthaste prevailed.

The story may go down in the annals of Rings lore, but the modest Mortensen has already tired of hearing it. By his heavy sigh, one can tell he thinks it old news.

To him, that incident, and his broken toe (suffered when kicking a meddlesome orc's helmet) and other assorted injuries incurred over the 16-month shoot were part and parcel of the job. And, to him, he did nothing out of the ordinary, and it "feels a little strange" to keep calling attention to it.

Certainly, he says, "most people that were in fights at all for an extended period, including all the stunt people, got hurt one way or another, some certainly worse than I did. The fact that a stuntman broke his leg really badly or cut his head open is not mentioned, but if I break my toe or I cut my hand open or break a tooth off, then there’s where you hear something.”

The multilingual, Manhattan-born Mortensen spent his youth growing up in South America and his father's homeland, Denmark. After returning state-side, he studied government and Spanish literature at New York's St. Lawrence University, then went back to Denmark after graduation to live the bohemian life of a struggling artist. His salvation: writing and poetry, through which he could express his innermost thoughts. Like Aragorn, he was on a journey to find himself.

"My experience in some ways is similar to Aragorn's," muses Mortensen. "Aragorn's is just one long journey. It's a journey about not so much his origin, but about how worthy he might be, [as] an orphan whose bloodline is probably, in his mind, somewhat watered down. And the journey is not over at the end, either, and neither does it just begin at the beginning [of the first film]. He's been alive already for ... 87 years or something when the story starts."

Director Peter Jackson is famed for his attention to minutiae. Viggo Mortensen is perhaps equally legendary for the way he fully immersed himself in his character, in a way few actors ever do. He reportedly kept his horse near him on set, even if the scene didn't call for his horse to appear; he wore his armor outside of working hours; at various times he slept in the forest. He regularly faxed Jackson with thoughts on how the shooting was going.

All of this may explain why Mortensen's response to a question about the nature of Aragorn's journey is so confident. For him, Aragorn's origins, not to mention his evolutionary path across the three films, was critical to forming his vision of how to craft the character. "Consciously, with the time going by, you keep adding things until you change," says Mortensen. "From the beginning I wanted to also [grow]. And I wanted to gradually have him come out. For over half a century now, for 70 years, he's been living in hiding, really his whole life, if you include the fact that he was taken as an orphan, sort of like Moses and like other characters in other stories, such that he is found and ... raised by non-blood relatives."

Mortensen is not surprised that Aragorn should fulfill his destiny to lead the kingdom of men in Return of the King. Nor is it surprising to him that there should be differences both subtle and overt between the Aragorn of Fellowship and the Aragorn of King. "He should be a leader at the dawn of the age of men," maintains Mortensen. "But when you get used to hiding who you are and speaking like someone else, pretending to be someone else ... and so the way that Strider speaks is different than the way Aragorn speaks. It's just a physical [evolution]—there's a growing confidence that he never loses." Mortensen pauses thoughtfully before adding, "It's a good quality for a leader to have, and one that's unfortunately lacking on our real leaders in the world right now, I think."

It wasn't until the early 1980s that Mortensen started down the path that led him to be Peter Jackson's ultimate choice to play the ranger Strider. After his college stint in Denmark, he returned to New York with the goal of becoming an actor. Thinking he was going to an audition, he instead ended up in an acting class with thespian Warren Robertson.

Mortensen found himself increasingly intrigued with the craft and went on to a smattering of stage roles before getting the first exposure that made it to film, in a small role as an Amish farmer in 1985's Witness. Another leading man might have gotten the attention then (ever hear of Harrison Ford?), but nowadays it’s Mortensen who's getting all the notice.

His career is famously eclectic, and his parts are equally hard to pin down. With each role-be it as a lieutenant in 1995's Crimson Tide or as Nicole Kidman's suitor in 1996's The Portrait of a Lady, or as a forbidden love in 1998's A Perfect Murder, Mortensen has an enviable knack for transforming himself time and again, molding himself to fit each character, and emerging in a makeover so wholesale and complete that he's unrecognizable.

Likewise, between the time we meet Aragorn as the ranger Strider in Fellowship and the time he fulfills his destiny as king in Return of the King, Aragorn's transformation is a complete one, according to Mortensen. "I didn't really look at it as anything other than one story," says Mortensen of his approach to his playing Aragorn at different points in the three films. "I didn't separate them in my mind at all-and we were jumping around in different places. The trick, like in any other movie, was just to remember where I had gotten to by that point, and where I was in regard to this character. What was the state of his self-confidence or lack thereof, and all the things that go with that in terms of where I had his voice pitched at, how confident or sure of himself he felt in taking certain actions or making any statements about his intentions."

The fact that his character would eventually be crowned king was something that he kept in mind in the background. "I was aware of what the trappings of [becoming king] were, and the fact that in the story it was a significant moment for him; it was the culmination of a certain part of his life," said Mortensen of his approach to the character. "But Aragorn goes on to live many more years, and he's not even halfway through his lifespan at that point. He had a long way to go.

"If there's anything that felt like a culmination or something special, it was that it represented a point at which the Fellowship had succeeded with a lot of stuff, bringing some losses, but basically the gambles we had taken and the commitment we'd made to one another and to Middle-earth had paid off."

Mortensen is divorced from Exene Cervenka, formerly the lead singer of the punk band X, and now with Auntie Christ. (If you haven't read the books, skip this, because it's a spoiler: Aragorn, on the other hand, goes on to live a long life with Arwen.)

Mortensen is tight-lipped about his own social life, but he's eager to discuss the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen. "There's an interesting, and unusual, for these days, kind of relationship between a man and a woman in the film," observes Mortensen.

Initially, there was much outrage among Tolkien fans when word got out that Arwen's role would be expanded in the films, and that we'd see more of Arwen and Aragorn's relationship. But what's been done thus far, and what is to come, is "really true to the spirit that Tolkien told about them," maintains Mortensen. "I thought it paid off in a way that was really right for the story."

Having read Tolkien's appendices thoroughly, Mortensen agrees with Jackson's choices in depicting that relationship. "I thought Peter did a good job with that relationship and how he concluded what you see onscreen. I also think he balanced the two female characters of Arwen and Eowyn well. Obviously Aragorn's story is intertwined with theirs, and I think he got the most out of both of those female characters in this last part of the story. And I think that those who were waiting to see more of the Eowyn from the book, although you get more of it in the extended version of the second movie, you definitely get everything in the third."

Bob Anderson, the guy who taught Viggo swordplay, also taught Errol Flynn. And a better swordsman Middle-earth has never seen.

Mortensen wasn't even supposed to be a part of Rings. The Irish actor Stuart Townsend, nearly 20 years Mortensen's junior, was originally cast in the role, but a few months into preproduction Townsend was let go, as Jackson realized the role needed an older, yet equally as agile performer to pull off the right look for the man who would be king.

His first scenes on Rings were going to involve a swordfight against the evil Ringwraiths—and unlike the other cast members, Mortensen found himself in New Zealand, in the set with virtually no training. But, by all accounts, Mortensen came up to speed quickly.

But first he had to learn how to wield a sword. Mortensen's castmates have called him a fast learner, but, he demurs, "I had a great teacher. [Anderson] was basically my first director on this movie, because he was the first person I worked with," remembers Mortensen, sounding a bit nostalgic when he speaks of the veteran swordmaster. "He really coached me and got me ready in those first couple of days when I was thrown into it, shortly after arriving there. I had done something with a different kind of-in a play once, a long, long time ago. But, I basically was pretty green; I had to be taught."

If you thought the battle of Helm's Deep was something, just wait for Return of the King. "Although he does fight quite a bit and things are quite desperate, I think it's more of a psychological challenge for Aragorn in the third movie," said Mortensen.

The main question that Aragorn wrestles with is whether he's really any better than those who've come before him. "Why should he fare any better when ultimately faced with the temptation to do the wrong thing, to be selfish?" Mortensen asked. Mortensen know his source material: He's absorbed Tolkien's work like a sponge over the past few years, ever since with his initial read on his flight to New Zealand. "He has a lot of trepidation when he goes to the Path of the Dead, or when he tries to inspire the full armies of Rohan and of Gondor as well as his companions to draw [their swords] and basically commit suicide in the Black Gates to buy some time [for Frodo]."

The fight sequences seem more desperate in King, says Mortensen, because the tone of this film is more desperate. "The odds against him and the others are greater, so it's a little more desperate, the fighting."

To commemorate filming, each cast member received a farewell trinket from the production. Viggo scored one of Aragorn's swords as a souvenir.

In Return of the King, the sword Mortensen uses is different from what we've seen before. "It's a different kind of sword, since some of the fighting is different," explains Mortensen of the switch in weapons. "It's heavier. It's bigger, so it's a little harder to handle. It's mostly a two-handed sword, and fighting one-handed is a little different than fighting with the other one, which is lighter, and moves through the air a little bit faster. But the advantage when you're going for broke with that slightly more massive sword is that once you get going with it, it does a lot of damage."

Mortensen loves horses, and was an accomplished horseman long before getting in the saddle as Strider. A good thing, considering how many hours he'd have to spend on a horse throughout the production—an odyssey that culminates in the charge of the Rohirrim.

"Just the cavalry work is going to be impressive," marvels Mortensen, remembering the sequence. "The odds are against us, not in just sheer numbers, which are much greater, but the quality of the opposition individually is greater. It's just more desperate all the way around. You have to rise to that level or you just get wiped out right away.

"The interesting thing about these fights, especially at the Black Gate, is that it's a fight you go into knowing that you haven't got a chance in hell, and it's just how long can you fight before the inevitable happens, which is the enemy crushes you. It's really a group sacrifice."

At Watertown High School in upstate New York, at the same time that he was captain of both the swim team and the tennis team, Mortensen was also known for prowling the streets with his camera, constantly taking pictures. A renaissance man, Viggo pursues painting and photography, and even writes poetry. He created all 40 of his character's paintings in A Perfect Murder himself.

Mortensen often uses a Hasselblad camera to capture his visceral images, images that have shown up in some of the gallery exhibits he's had in Los Angeles, New York and Copenhagen, and in the books he's published. Photography, poetry, experimental music-these disparate aspects of art have captured Mortensen's highly individualized sense of imagination.

"I don't separate painting or photography or writing or anything else from acting; it's all the same thing, so it goes hand in hand," explains the actor. "I don't really see [painting] as something I do that's different. Instead, they're all forms of ways of communicating or of self-expression. What it comes down to is a way of focusing, being observant, asking questions, either consciously or unconsciously, and making something based on those questions, making something that is that question, and then reacting to what comes out yourself-and sometimes other people react to it, too. It's a way of communicating in the end. Making movies is, too, as far as I'm concerned."

Mortensen is seeing Lord of the Rings parallels everywhere. Even in his starring turn in next year's Disney release, Hidalgo, which centers on Frank Hopkins, a half-Lakota Pony Express messenger, who seeks redemption by challenging another in a long-distance race. Needless to say, Mortensen—an accomplished horseman who's shown in the Rings trilogy that he can be more than at ease in the saddle—takes to the saddle again.

"It's also a pretty epic journey, but it's different," promises Mortensen, his voice reflecting his eagerness to talk of the future. "The similarity is that there's a call to adventure like there is for everyone in The Lord of the Rings, and it's up to the individual to answer that, just like it was for each of the nine of us to say 'yes' to the call to the adventure that was presented at the Council of Elrond. Once you say yes, then it's only the beginning. There's one obstacle after another, and the challenges become more and more difficult, and each step of the way you examine your conscience and your own willingness to commit to a group to work together.

"In some sense the character I play, Frank Hopkins, and his horse, Hidalgo, are a partnership. And once they say yes, they have really no idea what they're getting into, just like the Fellowship of the Ring. Once they accept the challenge, it only gets harder. And in both stories, I would say it's more about the journey, it's more about what happens to each of the individuals and to the group. Their character is forged as a result of the journey, and that, in a sense, is more important in the end than the destination."

To hear Mortensen speak of his Rings experience, it's clear that he holds it in high esteem, as something unique in the rubber-stamp machinery of Hollywood filmmaking (he even famously got a tattoo, along with his nine Fellowship castmates, to commemorate the event).

As impassioned as he was for Rings, Mortensen is more cautious about reupping for another four-year long adventure. "If it was a really great story, I might," he says slowly, and you can hear the gears whirring in his mind as he says this. "But if it wasn't, not for any money in the world."

Elijah Wood comes to terms with childhood’s end as he bids goodbye to Frodo in Return of the King.

By Melissa J Peterson

"IT'S BEEN GOING ON FOR SO LONG that we kind of felt like it would never end." There's sadness in Elijah Wood's voice as he speaks about the impending release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It's almost a wistful nostalgia, as he reflects on how four years of his life can culminate in this, the premiere of the third and final installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

"We've loved working on it so much that it is indeed quite sad to let it go." But let it go and move on he must. Just as Frodo's journey is one of self-discovery, where he comes out on the other end changed, Wood is himself changed, as an actor and as a person. At the start of Rings, Wood was just a teenager, moving on to an acting challenge that was unlike anything else he'd encountered in his career. Now, at 22, Wood is back from idyllic Wellington, and back in the real world. He lives on his own in Los Angeles, and needs to figure out what comes next in his life after Rings.

"It was a very profound life experience. I was 18 when I went to New Zealand, and that's normally the time one would go to college anyway, so it was the perfect experience for me to have at that age, to leave home and live somewhere else for 16 months and go to the ends of the earth with these people-and essentially come away with a new family."

Wood is cognizant of the similarities between Frodo's epic journey and his own experience of working through the elements of New Zealand's bitterly cold winters and warm summers, through 16-hour days, six days a week.

"I had my own weight and my own burden, to a certain degree," muses Wood. "Frodo has the Ring, and I had the responsibility of being Frodo.

"When I signed on to the movie, I signed on without any trepidation—until I got to New Zealand and realized that I was meant to play a character who was so familiar to people, that there's already a [devoted] fan base of the books, and that people already had a good idea as to who Frodo was meant to be."

Once the scope and import of the project had sunk in, Wood was humbled by the burden he'd been chosen to shoulder. “I certainly had trepidation in the sense that I now have that responsibility of carrying our Frodo in such a way that the fans can be pleased—and that I can also be pleased with the direction that he was going, and feel good about what I was doing.

"It was a rewarding experience because what I wanted to have accomplished, I did accomplish."

There's no mistaking the pride in Wood's voice when he talks about the body of work that comprises the three Lord of the Rings films.

"I was 18," Wood remembers of the time the script for Fellowship of the Ring landed in his hands. He sounds as if he's talking about a time far removed from today, one that marked a monumental turning point in his life.

After reading the script for Fellowship of the Ring, Wood knew he wanted to be a part of this project. "I thought it was the most incredible thing ever," the actor enthuses. He hadn't ever read beyond J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, but he just knew what a seminal role this would be. Not to denigrate the import of playing Frodo, but Wood admits he sometimes derives a bigger sense of accomplishment from how he nabbed the role to begin with.

He certainly showed no fear or trepidation when he brazenly decided to put together his own audition tape for director Peter Jackson. With the help of friends in the industry, Wood staged his own homespun excerpt from Rings. And doing so, he says, "was more rewarding than getting the role, in a way. The passion for the role that I had shown through this tape—that in and of itself was a triumph."

Wood took the initiative to do his own tape because he feared his passion for the project would be lost in the sterile environment of a generic casting-call room. "Not for something as important as this. It occurred to me that I could comfortably do something on my own, and make it much more interesting. And closer to the character, in a way," he remembers matter-of-factly. "So I got a hobbit costume, went into the woods and shot some footage." That night, Wood and his friends edited the footage; the following morning, he drove the tape personally to the film's Los Angeles casting office. A day later, Jackson was viewing the tape and instantly realized he'd found his Frodo.

Jackson had no doubts about Wood. "We didn't have any idea who to cast as Frodo," Jackson recalls. "[But] when I put the tape in, I just saw Frodo. It was honestly that instantaneous, and at that point in time the casting for Frodo just came to an end, because I thought Elijah was fantastic."

The thing about Wood that caught Jackson's attention? It wasn't Wood's slender physique, or boyish good looks. It was his piercing, expressive blue eyes, eyes so bottomless that you can see a thousand different things—and nothing—in them at once. "You can look into Elijah's eyes and you can see through into his heart," affirms Jackson. "[It's] what is great about Elijah, and why I think he works in the way that he needs to [as Frodo]."

Wood's wide-eyed expressiveness—evident anytime you see him on screen, or stand near him in person—will be key to helping audiences bond with Frodo, even as the character undergoes a dramatic transformation across the three films. By the time we see Frodo in Return of the King, the Ringbearer is no longer the naive halfling from The Shire who welcomes Gandalf's visit with childlike glee. His very being is affected, irrevocably, by the Ring he carries; and though Frodo will reach the fiery pits of Mordor and destroy the Ring, the question remains, does it destroy him as well?

"There is finally going to be a sense of completion, especially with this particular movie."

It's early Friday evening, usually a key social hour for a Hollywood 20-something. But Wood isn't enjoying an evening out-at least not just yet. For now, he's on the phone with this journalist, evangelizing about Return of the King. "It's the movie I've most anticipated and the movie I'm most excited about coming out, and actually seeing," he enthuses. "It's the one I most look forward to."

Even though Wood hadn't yet seen the final cut of Return of the King at the time we spoke in mid-October, he confirms that King will have a palpably different tone than its predecessors. "It's going to be quite emotional," Wood says, saying he could tell that there'd be a difference even during filming.

"You really get a sense that without [the Fellowship], Frodo would not be able to succeed," says Wood. "And without Frodo succeeding, obviously they wouldn't either. I don't know if people are necessarily prepared for what is about to come. Certainly, people who have read the book know what the ending is and what eventually happens," he amends quickly, "but it's quite an intense move forward, and an intense shift from the other two films, in terms of emotion and what these characters have to go through-and what they end up losing as a result of what they ultimately go up against."

Though it's true few characters will emerge from Return of the King unchanged, or unscathed, perhaps it's Frodo's loss of innocence that will seem most bittersweet in the end.

"Frodo ceases to be Frodo anymore."

So dramatic is Frodo's turn, so great is the Ring's pull toward the dark side, says Wood, that "he's lost a piece of his soul. He'll never be the hobbit that he once was."

Frodo's transformation is perhaps the most extreme—which is exactly the intent of Wood and Jackson, in adapting Tolkien's masterful prose. But taking Frodo to such extremes wasn't a simple task for the actor—after all, since the three films were shot at the same time, it wasn't uncommon for Wood to be working on a scene from Fellowship or Two Towers before switching gears to do a scene from Return of the King.

That's where the New Zealand director's vision and leadership—two qualities Wood repeatedly ascribes to Jackson—came into play.

"Before we would do any major sequence that would require quite a lot of change, where there would be a massive shift in tone in terms of where Frodo was going, there was a lot of discussion as to how it was meant to be played and what would be going through Frodo's mind," recalls Wood of Jackson's gently guiding hand. "We would just try and get an understanding as to where Frodo was at this particular point, and then, depending on the sequence, things would get kind of specific, in terms of how evil Frodo was meant to look and how he was meant to react, and we would talk about those kinds of things-right down to how [Jackson] wanted Frodo's eyes to look."

It all comes down to the eyes again. Which is not surprising, given how different Frodo really does look in the films, depending upon how Wood, and his eyes, played the scene at hand.

Wood agrees, and adds that Jackson's meticulous attention to detail "makes all the difference. I quite enjoyed it when it would come to that, when it would come down to those very specific details where they would have a close-up of my eyes, and he'd actually say, 'Give me the Kubrick stare,' which he sort of got from The Shining, where they're looking up through your eyes, that very kind of evil look."

Take the example of one climactic scene from Return of the King—Wood's personal favorite. The scene epitomizes the intense road that Frodo travels in his quest, when he collapses on the side of Mount Doom, with no knowledge of who he is, or where he comes from, so consumed by the Ring's powers is he. And as he lies there, explains Wood, "he's completely overcome by evil and fear and doubt, and all these horrible things. It was a real extreme place to take a character, and it was definitely a challenge for me to take him there. But at the same time I think that was my most favorite part of the journey for Frodo-taking him to those places and really fine-tuning his evolution, his de-evolution and where he was meant to go."

In spite of Frodo's disorientation at that moment, Wood believes that Frodo fully comprehends the terrible power the Ring holds over him. After seeing what the Ring has done to Gollum, °Frodo knows that he is holding something that could very well exact the same type of change on him," asserts Wood. "There's a sequence in this film where Frodo is sort of robbed of the Ring at a certain point, where Sam suggests that he take it for a little while, and Frodo asks for it back, not necessarily out of his [own feelings of] loss for the Ring. 'No, Sam, you can't have it, the Ring is mine.' It's also about wanting to protect Sam from the evil of the Ring, because he knows what it's doing to him."

Frodo's selfless motivation in that scene-indeed, his selfless motivation in accepting the quest to destroy the Ring to begin with-reflects the real sense of heroism for the character. Says Wood, "it plays into where the true heroism, and the true nobility, of Frodo is: He does realize what's happening to him, and he knows he's the only one that can handle this, and that it may kill him, but he's decided to take this on and he won't let it affect anybody close to him.

"There's a real sense of Frodo in this film of knowing that he may not make it. That there will be no journey home."

Frodo's actions are heroic—there's no question about that. But ask Wood whether his Frodo is a hero on the Joseph Campbell-scale of mythic proportions, and the actor suddenly seems more modest, and less certain about that prospect ... until he ponders the question some more.

"I don't know," he admits. "I see him as heroic. I don't know if I see him as a hero, but I guess he is a hero on a very small scale, on the human scale. I think what's most heroic about what Frodo does is simply his deciding to take the Ring to Mordor, and his understanding what that responsibility is and going through the inner turmoil that he has to go through. And, ultimately, [losing] what he sacrifices in the process."

Although Wood would like to branch into producing and directing, his future plans don't include going to school to study these aspects of filmmaking. Why study, reasons the actor, when you have already experienced moviemaking first-hand?

"I feel like I've been going to film school for the last 15 years of my life, to a certain degree," maintains Wood, his voice reflecting the confidence of a veteran child actor who, as an adult, has made a successful transition to the big leagues. "I still have a lot to learn, but I don't know if I'll go to school for it necessarily. There's also something to be said for going out [and doing something] simply based on instincts and ideas of your own, having a trial and error where you learn throughout the process as well."

As an adult, Wood has made very specific and conscious decisions to continue pursuing the craft he loves. "I love the filming process as a whole. I love movies, I think it's a great art form," explains Wood, who goes to his local multiplex when ever he can, and "can't wait" for when the back-to-back showings of the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers hit theaters this December. "To be an actor, to play a character within the fabric of the film is an exciting thing. I like identifying with the character, and I enjoy the challenge of bringing that character to life in the most realistic way possible. And I like what comes along with that journey: the logistics of being on set, traveling on location, working with the director, working with other actors."

All journeys end at some point, though, and for Wood the end is at hand for The Lord of the Rings. It seems fitting, somehow, that Return of the King is an emotionally wrenching film. For the cast and crew, it marks the culmination of effort on a project more than five years in the making.

As the group gathered one final time to film pickups for Return of the King this past summer, and for the final wrap party, the impact that this was the end, and that there would be no more annual trips to Wellington, hit Wood hard. "It's kind of difficult to accept, really," admits the actor, who knows he wasn't alone in his experience. "It's this very surreal reality, and it's a bit strange. It set in when we went back for pickups of this last movie, because that was the last time that we would be in New Zealand filming anything for these movies. When we each had our last day, they gave each actor a farewell, and it was very emotional." Among his mementos from the shoot: the Ring that Frodo carries to the bittersweet end.

"I'm kind of excited about [the future]. It'll be nice when Lord of the Rings is finished, in that we'll be able to continue with our lives again. Look to the future, which is good."

While Wood has a couple of projects "on the horizon" for 2004, he's not talking about his post-Rings life just yet. But, he admits, as hard as it is to let go,

Wood pauses, and you can tell he's reflecting again, on the impact these past four years with Rings has had on him.

Four years is a long time for anyone to commit to a project, but there's no question that Wood considers it a choice well made. When asked whether he'd do it over again, his response is immediate:

"Yes, in a heartbeat."