How a Surfing Accident Led to a Dramatic Lord of the Rings Shot

Every single person who has ever watched a movie knows the bit about Viggo Mortensen hurting his toe while shooting The Two Towers. The fact that Mortensen broke two toes when he kicked a helmet has become stuff of movie legend, or at least obnoxious boyfriend factoids, alongside Ridley Scott not warning the Alien cast about the chest burster or the storm trooper bonking his head in Star Wars.

But now, another accident story has emerged to further enrich the legend of Viggo in Lord of the Rings. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Peter Jackson revealed how a surfing accident involving Mortensen forced him to change the way he shot the film.

When Jackson gathered the actors to film the Mines of Moria sequence from The Fellowship of the Ring, Mortensen “comes in, and he’s got his eye is bulged out, black eye, shut, like a boxer swollen.” Turns out, Jackson learned, that “Viggo had been out with the Hobbits during the weekend, and he’d been surfing, and he had sustained an injury surfing, like the board had flipped in the air and whacked him in the face,” and so “all I could do is to shoot him from the side. I couldn’t shoot [head on].”

Frustrating as it surely was for Jackson in the moment, his ingenuity in handling the scene is part of the legend of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In addition to crafting a faithful but user-friendly adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien‘s dense, idiosyncratic works, Jackson earned praise for in-camera effects that brought Middle Earth to life. Tricks such as forced perspective to make Ian McKellen as Gandalf tower of the Hobbits helped move DVD copies of the film, filled with behind-the-scenes footage that showed how it was done.

While not directly part of the filmed finished product, the camaraderie that led to Mortensen’s shiner also helped sell the film. The actors who played the members of the Fellowship presented themselves as best buds, given to pranking one another and, famously, each getting the Elvish word for “nine” tattooed on their bodies.

For those reasons, Jackson can’t be too upset about cast revelry forcing him to adapt his shooting style once again. And, as the ever-jovial director makes clear, he wasn’t angry and Mortensen was deeply apologetic. “He says, ‘I’m sorry, Peter. I’m sorry.’ And I said, ‘Oh God,'” recalled a laughing Jackson.

He can laugh with good reason. Not only did the shoot work out, but the profile shots make Aragon look more determined, amping up the drama for the film’s standout sequence. And, even better, we now know one more bit of trivia about the making of The Fellowship of the Ring, which means we’ll never again have to hear someone talk about the toe breaking helmet kick.