Peter Jackson was both excited and honored when he was able to work with the great actor Ian Holm during his Lord of the Rings films. During that time. a friendship was formed. So when Mr.Holme passed away Friday, Jackson took to Facebook to honor the late actor. During his tribute he mentioned recruiting Mr. Holm to reprise his role as Bilbo Baggins for the Hobbit.
Recruiting Holm
Over a decade later [from the Lord of the Rings films] we hoped that Ian would play Bilbo again for the opening scenes of The Hobbit. Fran and I had dinner with Ian and his wife Sophie in London. He told us that he was very sorry, but he couldn’t do it. Adding to our shock, he confided that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Because of this, he could no longer remember lines. He had difficulty walking, and certainly couldn’t travel to New Zealand. Always a private man, he told us that he’d basically retired, but wasn’t announcing it.
This was a blow because we had worked out a nice way to hand the role over from Ian as Old Bilbo, to Martin Freeman as Young Bilbo. I described this to him, and he liked it. I also told him how my mother and an uncle had both endured Parkinson’s for years, and I was very familiar with the effects of the disease.
At this point, our dinner – which we thought would be about us describing the new scenes we’d like him to do, and Ian thought would be about him explaining why he couldn’t do it – suddenly turned into a think tank, with Ian, Sophie, Fran and I trying to figure out a process that would allow Ian to play Bilbo one last time.
We’re shooting the movies in New Zealand – but what say we came to London and shoot his scenes close to home? By the end of the dinner he nodded slowly, and said, ‘Yes, I think I could do that’. But I knew he was only doing it as a favour to me, and I held his hands and thanked him with tears in my eyes.
His Last Role
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 50 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove head first over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 18 year old boy with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.