25 Years After 'Lord of the Rings,' One Star Is Finally Starting to Read the Books

In the first Lord of the Rings movie, Frodo Baggins famously tells Gandalf "You're late" when the wizard arrives in the Shire. The same could be said for Elijah Wood, as the actor who played the heroic Hobbit in the iconic fantasy trilogy is very late in reading the books. 

In an appearance on The Late Show on Tuesday, host Stephen Colbert confronted Wood. 

“I have this other rumor I need to get into with you,” Colbert, a noted Lord of the Rings super-fan, asked the actor. "I don’t want to put you on the spot here, okay? Is it true that you still haven’t finished reading The Lord of the Rings?”

Wood Admits the Books Haven't Been a Priority

Wood was only 18 when filming started on The Lord of the Rings trilogy back in 1999, and he played Frodo in all three films. As he sheepishly admitted to Colbert, he did this without having read J.R.R. Tolkien's original books. He didn't read them when he first got the role, and reading them apparently wasn't high up on his list of priorities over the past 27 years. 

“To have it be from you, I feel almost the most embarrassed, Stephen,” Wood told Colbert. “Because I know no one else in my life that loves Tolkien more than you and has read the books more than maybe anyone.”

"I’ll at least say this: There’s an update,” Wood revealed. “I have started them. And they're incredible.”

Elijah Wood Is One of Many Actors Who Never Read Their Source Material

While it's fun to laugh at the Ring-bearer not being a page-turner, Wood's not the only actor to not have read the book before starring in the movie. For every Christopher Lee, a major Tolkien fan before he played Sauruman in the films, there are actors who just read the script they've been given and knock it out of the park. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn, hadn't read the books prior to being cast and he initially wasn't too interested in the role until his son told him about the fantasy epic. 

As to why Wood didn't read the books at any point in the past quarter-century since The Lord of the Rings trilogy came out? Well, he kind of already lived the story, as Colbert joked on The Late Show.

“Listen, I don’t want to tell you how it ends, but I’ll give you a hint: You know how it ends,” Colbert quipped. 

“I do, yeah,” Wood replied.