The Poster Memorabilia blog

My Fellowship with Middle-earth

Frodo at Comic-Con, Gandalf at the stage door, Aragorn in awards season — one Fellowship poster complete.

By an anonymous Hollywood insider

Tolkien's Middle-earth is a fantasy world I gladly return to again and again. It's just so vast, magical, and enchanting that you can't help but get sucked in. Every time I watch The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, I feel as if I'm joining the hobbits in their adventure all over again.

My love for the movie is such that I actually got my copy of the movie poster signed by the cast themselves. It took me a long time to be satisfied, but it was all worth it.

I went from movie premiere to movie premiere, awards show to awards show, and convention to convention, all so I could ask the movie's big stars to sign my poster. And they're huge celebrities, even now! The cast includes Sir Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, and Viggo Mortensen, to name a few. Just meeting these A-listers was already pretty wild, but getting their autographs was out of this world.

I'm not gonna talk about each encounter, but I will highlight three: meeting Elijah Wood, Sir Ian McKellen, and Viggo Mortensen. They also gave my three favorite performances in the trilogy. I always considered Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn as the story's main heroes—sorry, Samwise fans—so I was also the happiest when I met them and got their autographs.

✦ ✦ ✦

Elijah Wood was the first of the three I met. I went to the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con because I knew he was gonna be there for the Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency panel. Seeing him in real life, I realized that no one else could've ever played Frodo Baggins on screen. The guy was small, gentle, and kind, the very hobbit we watched travel all over Middle-earth with the One Ring.

The same goes for Sir Ian McKellen. I had the privilege of meeting the legend when he played King Lear at the West End production in 2018. I never felt so riveted in the theater before. He truly is one of the best actors ever, and we should be honored that he even agreed to play Gandalf in the first place.

Always so down-to-earth, my encounter with him was one of the best. I met him at the stage door after watching his performance, and he happily greeted us fans despite how tired he was. He wasn't even annoyed at how loud we became. He practically reveled in it. And when I asked him to sign my poster, all I could see was a huge smile on his face.

✦ ✦ ✦

Later that same year, I finally got to see Viggo Mortensen in person. I saw him at one of Green Book's awards-season events in Los Angeles, and though I'm not a huge fan of the film, I still liked his performance. I also consider him a very underrated actor since most people only remember him as Aragorn.

“I had to stop myself from kneeling down in front of his majesty.”

Could you blame them, though? He's so good in the role that, like Wood, I can't ever see anyone else in it. And when I asked him for his autograph and saw him up close, all I could see was the rightful King of Gondor and Arnor. I had to stop myself from kneeling down in front of his majesty.

I don't think Hollywood, or maybe even Peter Jackson himself, can ever produce a film franchise quite like the early 2000s Lord of the Rings trilogy ever again. The industry certainly has the money and technology to do it, but I doubt they'll find a cast as good as this one. And this makes this autographed poster even more special.

Some things you watch. This one you keep.

Guaranteed authentic for life • 90-day returns, any reason