Fans of the J.R.R. Tolkien’s work hold the author’s texts close to their hearts. Peter Jackson was universally lauded for his Oscar-winning adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, but fans have taken issue with some of the liberties his chosen to take with his return to Middle-earth for The Hobbit trilogy.
One significant change that cause Tolkien lovers some consternation was the addition fo an entirely new character, not present in the books, to The Hobbit films. Tauriel, an Elf played by Evangeline Lily.
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Speaking at a press conference for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies at Comic-Con International: San Diego, Jackson and Lily discussed what went into the creation of Tauriel.
“The creation of Evangeline’s character came about in a very scientific way,” Jackson explained. “It’s not very exciting. In the book The Hobbit, the storyline passes through The Woodland Realm, they escape in the barrels, Tolkien writes a little bit about the Woodland King, and he doesn’t even name Thranduil, I don’t think. There aren’t really any other Elvish characters.
“That’s The Hobbit. That’s our primary source material. There’s no actual kind of story, it’s just kind of event that happens along the way. As we developed our scripts out, and our treatments, we wanted to develop an Elvish story arc. Each storyline has three characters. You can’t really create a storyline with two, you’ve really got to ideally have three. Thranduil, he had a son, Legolas. That’s why Orlando [Bloom]’s back in the movie. It’s an obvious choice for two of the characters, the king and his son. We needed a third.”
“Besides the fact that I thought the fans were going to eat me for lunch, I thought I had struck gold,” Lilly said, “because nobody had any preconceived idea in their head of how I was supposed to look and behave, so I had carte blanche. Really, nobody could tell me how Tauriel should be, other than Peter Jackson, Fred Welsh, and Philippa Boyens. Whereas, somebody like Martin [Freeman], I just pity that man, because, what perfect casting, but how?”
Jackson said that they trusted Lily to help bring something special to the character, and Lily set out to differentiate Tauriel from the Elves audiences had already seen.
“What we wanted to do was to create a clear distinction between Tauriel, who was a low caste Elf, who was a Woodland Elf, and the High Elves that you’d seen in Lord of the Rings,” she said. “So, I intentionally didn’t rewatch Lord of the Rings, because if I had, because I’m so completely enthralled by Cate [Blanchett]’s performance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I would have just been trying to copy her. I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. So I made sure not to watch it, so whatever we did create would be completely unique to a female, woodland warrior Elf.”
Tauriel will be a part of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, opening December 17.
