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1. Who performs Gollum through voice and motion capture?
Andy Serkis
Serkis was hired for a few weeks of voice work and ended up acting the part on set in a skintight suit so Weta's animators could copy his movements. The voice came from the noise his cat made coughing up fur balls.
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2. What was Gollum's earlier name?
Sméagol
Sméagol was a hobbit-like river dweller before the Ring stretched his life over centuries, and Frodo uses the old name to reach what is left of him. The two halves argue it out beside a pool, and Sméagol orders Gollum to leave and never come back.
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3. Who is the king of Rohan?
Théoden
Théoden, played by Bernard Hill, spends the first act wasting away under a spell that Saruman works through a whispering adviser, until Gandalf breaks it at Edoras. Thranduil is the elf king of Mirkwood, Elrond rules Rivendell and Denethor is Gondor's steward.
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4. Who whispers poisonous advice to that king?
Gríma Wormtongue
Gríma is Saruman's agent at Edoras, keeping the king feeble and the kingdom leaderless while Rohan's villages burn. Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play films, shaved off his eyebrows to make Wormtongue that bit more unwholesome.
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5. Who plays Éowyn?
Miranda Otto
Otto plays Théoden's niece, a shieldmaiden sent to the caves with the women and children while the men hold the walls. Liv Tyler is Arwen, Cate Blanchett is Galadriel, and Liv Ullmann is Ingmar Bergman's leading lady, with no Middle-earth credit.
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6. What is the name of the great walking tree who meets Merry and Pippin?
Treebeard
Treebeard is voiced by John Rhys-Davies, who also plays Gimli, so one actor is both the shortest and the tallest in the cast. Fangorn is Treebeard's own Elvish name, hence the forest's, and in the book Gandalf calls him the oldest living thing under the sun.
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7. What kind of beings are Treebeard and his companions?
Ents
Treebeard calls the Ents shepherds of the trees, and what finally rouses them is the sight of the forest Saruman's orcs have felled to feed Isengard's furnaces. Their council, the Entmoot, takes most of a day just to decide that the hobbits are not orcs.
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8. What fortress shelters the people of Rohan during the major battle?
Helm's Deep
Helm's Deep is the old fortress in the White Mountains where Théoden shelters his people, and the siege took about three months of night shooting at a quarry outside Wellington. Osgiliath is Gondor's ruined former capital and Minas Tirith its current one.
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9. Who commands the forces attacking that fortress?
Saruman
Saruman sends ten thousand Uruk-hai from Isengard and watches the rest of the war from his tower. Christopher Lee, who plays him, had hoped to be cast as Gandalf; the Witch-king and the Mouth of Sauron are Sauron's servants, not Saruman's.
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10. What is the name of Gandalf's white horse?
Shadowfax
Shadowfax is the lord of all horses, and Gandalf summons him with a whistle at the edge of Fangorn; an Andalusian stallion played him. Asfaloth is Arwen's horse, Arod is lent to Legolas and Gimli, and Brego is the horse Aragorn sets free and later rides.
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11. Which Gondorian captain captures Frodo and Sam?
Faramir
David Wenham plays Faramir, whose rangers catch the hobbits spying on them from the ferns. The book's Faramir refuses the Ring outright and lets them go; the film has him march them to Osgiliath meaning to send it to his father before he relents.
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12. How is Faramir related to Boromir?
He is Boromir's brother
Both are sons of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, who made no secret of preferring the elder one. Wenham was cast partly for his resemblance to Sean Bean, and it is Faramir who breaks the news of Boromir's death to Frodo.
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13. What marshland does Gollum lead the hobbits through?
The Dead Marshes
The marshes cover a battlefield from the war against Sauron an age before, and the faces in the water are its dead; Gollum warns the hobbits not to follow the lights. Tolkien said the landscape owed something to the Somme, where he served in 1916.
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14. What does Sam hope to do with the rabbits Gollum catches?
Cook a stew
Gollum brings the rabbits back alive and Sam insists on cooking them, lecturing him on potatoes: 'Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.' Gollum prefers his meat raw and wriggling, and the smoke from the fire brings Faramir's rangers down on them.
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15. What do the Ents use to flood Isengard?
Water released from a dam
The Ents tear down the dam on the River Isen and let the water pour into Saruman's pits, drowning the furnaces and the orcs with them while he watches from his balcony. Weta built Isengard as an enormous miniature and really did flood it for the shot.
