Brian Cox is finally acting in a Lord of the Rings movie. He says he’s been waiting for this moment for a long time.
I’m very grateful to Peter Jackson for introducing me to J.R.R. Tolkien because I wasn’t a Tolkien person at all. I knew of the books, but I’d never read them, so they meant nothing to me. And then the films came along, and I thought, ‘Well, clearly, I should be in this.’ But then I wasn’t. So I thought, ‘Oh well, to hell with it, my Lord of the Rings time is over.’ And then suddenly, this humongous role comes out, and you go, ‘Wow, this is really something! And it’s also an anime!’
the actor tells Entertainment Weekly about the director of the popular 2000s blockbuster adaptations.
The famous actor Brian Cox is finally part of the Lord of the Rings world in the new anime movie, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. The story focuses on an important event in Rohan’s history. Fans of Tolkien’s books and Peter Jackson’s movies may remember the Battle of Helm’s Deep. This movie shows how that fortress got its name, inspired by Helm Hammerhand, the king that Cox voices.
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Helm is an older king but still very strong. He’s so powerful that he defeats a rival leader, Freca (Shaun Dooley), with one punch after Freca suggests his son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) should marry Helm’s daughter, Hèra (Gaia Wise).
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But Helm’s victory doesn’t last long. Wulf returns with an army to take revenge on Rohan. Helm’s strength and even his sons can’t save the kingdom this time. Instead, Hèra steps up to protect her people, turning the movie into a powerful story about how relying only on men’s power can fail. Brian Cox loved finally being part of Middle-earth, but he especially liked this fresh take on the story.
It works on so many levels. It’s massively allegorical for our present day. The whole thing that’s happening to women in your country, where women’s rights are being set by men, not by women, is horrendous. There’s that moment at the end of The War of the Rohirrim where Helm closes the door. It’s like he closes the door on patriarchy and says it’s up to you girls to sort the world out. I love that, I think it’s so relevant today.
Cox says
One of the first things we learned about The War of the Rohirrim was that Brian Cox would be part of it. His voice acting was one of the first parts of the movie to be completed, so the whole film was created with him as the centre of the story.
He’s such a force of nature. When he was recording his voiceover, we didn’t actually have anything of the visual animation to refer to because it wasn’t completed yet. So, he was actually just going by his own instinct. In order to show the character’s strength and how formidable he is, we were asking him to exaggerate his voice. But he told us that it was not necessary to do that, and he just wanted to do his own way of performing. We were thinking, is that enough? But his voice has that vitality and charisma, you can hear it. So by the time we were mixing all this together, we were actually being influenced by his performance. It was seeping into how we were creating the animation.
director Kenji Kamiyama tells EW via translator
Brian Cox has a lot of experience with voice acting, from learning in drama school to acting in BBC radio plays. “I believe in the voice,” he says.
He also understands a lot about how dads treat their daughters in a world ruled by patriarchy. He recently played the famous dad Logan Roy in Succession and is a dad himself.
His performance came fully formed. He is a father of a daughter, so that side of the story really did resonate with him. He loved that journey of a father learning to see his daughter in another way. Without losing any power or stature, you had this actor who was able to be this warrior king who could then say to his daughter, ‘The day you were born, I was brought to my knees.’ It was just like, ‘Oh my God, this guy knows what he’s doing.’ When we were recording him, we just got the hell out of his way, and it was wonderful.
says producer Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote Jackson’s LOTR movies and directed the vocal performances here.
Along with showing the relationship between Helm and Hèra, War of the Rohirrim also shows how patriarchy fails through Wulf. After his father dies, Wulf becomes obsessed with revenge and starts a violent war across the land.
It’s always a problem when you have a deeply ugly father. Wulf hasn’t been helped by having the ugliest father imaginable, who he clearly loves, and we all go, ‘Really?’ There’s a very tragic element to Wulf in that he should have been somebody else, but because of his circumstances and because of being bound up in the patriarchy game, he can’t shake it off.
Cox says of Wulf and Freca
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is now playing in theatres.
Source: EW