Cate Blanchett’s role as Galadriel in The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) was iconic for several reasons. The actress played the role of a royal elf with magical abilities and narrated the prologue scene. Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogy ended up becoming one of the most successful franchises.
The actress was a part of the later sequels of the 2001 movie, but she was not supposed to return for the prequel. This was because it was based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit prequel, which did not include Galadriel’s character. However, a playful email resulted in the movie version including the popular role, which pleasantly surprised fans.
Cate Blanchett’s unexpected return as Galadriel
Through her role in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Cate Blanchett immortalized the character of Galadriel. In an interview with GQ, the actress narrated several tidbits about her iconic role. She mentioned she only wanted to work with the director of Braindead, which was released in the U.S. as Dead Alive.
I was there to work with Peter Jackson. I was such a huge fan of his work and his reverence…all that Braindead stuff, I loved it.
Blanchett’s motivation behind joining the film was to work with the legendary director, but she slowly fell in love with her character. The actress had great respect for the original books and mentioned how she had no idea the movies will become so popular in the future.
But who could have known that it would’ve taken off in the way that it did?
She then divulged the secret about which all LOTR fans have been wondering for years, about her unforeseen appearance in the movie’s prequel. Earlier, her character was not included in The Hobbit, according to the source book. But Blanchett took the matters into her own hands and wrote a playful email to the director.
I knew there wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell of me being, reprising my role in that. But I sent kind of like a jokey email to Pete saying, ‘You know if you wanna put Galadriel in, I’m free, I’ll come over’.
This seems to have amused Jackson, who then went on to add Galadriel in the 2012 film prequel The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The actress graced the screen once again as Galadriel unexpectedly.
The Lord of the Freebies: the movie’s surprising pay
While appearing on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, Blanchett was asked by host Andy Cohen about her biggest paycheck. Many fans may have remembered the highly successful LOTR trilogy and even the host mentioned that, but the actress gave a shocking reply.
Are you kidding me? No, no one got paid anything to do that movie.
The Oscar-winning actress revealed that the actors did not in fact get large paychecks for the movie. On further questioning, she denied the same once again.
No, that was way before any of that. I basically got free sandwiches.
The Borderlands actor joked that she just got free lunches, but it comes as a huge shock that one of the highest-grossing franchises did not pay a fair amount to its leads. It does sound unbelievable, but the actress maintained her answer, firmly stating- no one got paid anything. Seems like free food and a fun experience are all that the Middle-Earth heroes got, in the end.
Watch all of The Lord of the Rings movies and The Hobbit movie on Amazon Prime Video.
