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The Fellowship Festival: Interview/Chat with Mr. Craig Parker (Haldir):
Sunday 29th August 2004
Interviewer: Emma Burgess
Emma Burgess (EB): How was the first day at The Fellowship Festival?
Craig Parker (CP): Yesterday was fantastic! It was the first day and Mark and I are hosting, so there’s always that responsibility where you think “Oh God it’s got to work perfectly!” and nothing blew up! It all went smoothly, so today’s a lot more relaxed, there’s a lot of trust in the system. There’s a very civilised, low-key feel to the festival… lots of people and lots of good times! And a lot of people came back the next day, so we must be doing something right.
EB: Is it pretty much what you expected or very different from what you expected?
CP: Erm… I don’t know…. They’re always slightly different, each one has it’s own flavour, even when you go to the same… a couple of events, like Ring Con I’ve done a few times… You go to the same events the year later and it’s got quite a different feeling to it, so I don’t know what I expected really. It's fun.
EB: A couple of Lord of the Rings questions, you’ve probably heard these all before and I’m sorry…
CP: [smiles] Never! I haven’t even seen the films! Don’t know what you’re talking about!
EB: Yeah…? Me neither… [Laughs]
CP: [laughs]
EB: What’s your favourite line in the films, doesn’t have to be yours?
CP: No, erm… “You Shall Not Pass” I think it’s the most fantastic vocerian opera moment.
EB Ian McKellen…
CP: Yeah he’s just fantastic! And I love the scenes with the Balrog, especially in the beginning of the third movie [err… Craig I think it was at the start of the second movie???] with the Balrog [gestates tumbling Balrog and Gandalf], just so cool!!! I Love it! … Yeah I think that pretty much sums it up!
EB: OK, how about your fondest memory from filming?
CP: Fondest memory from filming…. Erm..
EB: Or a selection of…
CP: Yeah…. there’s just so many…. I think generally the thing that I utterly adored was in the mornings where if you were in a new location you were picked up in the dark and driven someplace an hour or so away, made up in two hours and when you step out for breakfast you’re in the most beautiful place on top of the mountains looking out over the lakes. And you hadn’t seen it because it was dark. So the unexpectedness was wonderful and also just working with such wonderful people, brilliant people who are just so good at what they do in all the different areas involved. It’s inspiring. I liked it all.
EB: Not much to hate?
CP: Except getting up. I didn’t like the getting up.
EB: A lot of early mornings?
CP: Yeah…
EB How early?
CP: Oh sometimes you’d have to be up about 4.00am, not good
EB: No not good, not quite that bad these days huh?
CP: No…. Go to bed at 4, its much better. [Laughs]
EB: How was the feast yesterday?
CP: The feast was lovely, it was, we had about 80 people, um lovely dinner. It was all very much like sort of dinner at someone’s house. It was great very relaxed and we very much didn’t want to it to be an entertainer, or we didn’t want to be entertaining. We didn’t want people to feel that they had to soothing out egos or stroke our egos so it was just very relaxed and lovely.
EB: So you’re looking forward to tonight?
CP: Yeah!
EB: I’ve heard stories of this aluminium foil creation in Canberra, can you explain this?
CP: [laughs] There’s a lovely guy Glenn, who is the public relations officer at TitBanbila a great aboriginal name which is a deep space tracking centre. And they get all the mars signals back there’s the huge great spacey things [gesticulates wildly]. And we went out for a tour of that.
We’d had dinner the night before with Glenn; we’d been joking about Signs, the movie Signs, where they had tinfoil hats. And there was a whole group of us so we stopped at the supermarket on the way and bought a lot of rolls of tinfoil and we all made hats. So we turned up at his work. He had kindly offered to give us a tour around. And its like 80 people wearing tinfoil hats. Brilliant, we all looked like dicks.
EB: What was his response to all of this?
CP: Everything is filmed because it’s a reasonably high security place, cameras everywhere so people in the office “why has Glenn got people with tinfoil on???” Think he’s still got his job.
EB: Ever since appearing in the Lord Of The Rings you’ve become sort of a hero to a lot of people.
CP: Cheers and punches air heroically
EB: As you grew up what were your sort of influences, and now a days.
CP: Heroes, um yeah. I don’t feel particularly heroic. My dad was a pilot; I used to think that was terribly cool. Obviously Astronaught’s… pretty damn cool. James Bond was cool. I don’t know if I ever wanted to be an actor when I was young, but I wanted to be James Bond. I think it might amount to the same thing… because James Bond is a creation.
Um Heroes now, personal heroes now tend to be people who still maintain a passion of things they do, well-focused passions. There’s so much anger and aggression in the world. Or just apathy, when you meet somebody who’s so alive with life or so alive with what they do or what they care about, that’s heroic to me.
I tend to be a bit lazy… I’ll find a warm place and go to sleep. So when I met people who are charged and fired up about things, it‘s very inspiring to me.
[Moment of reflection] That’s a bit hippy’ish?
EB: Maybe you missed your calling?
CP: [Laughs] I’m just very tired…. Blah, blah, blah….
EB: Oh, I wont push you too much then
CP: No this is fine! Sometimes my brain switches off and my mouth keeps going…
EB: What are you reading at the moment if anything?
CP: I’m reading a book which is beautiful, and I’m just trying to remember what its called…. and I don’t think I can remember what’s its called.
EB: What’s it about?
CP: It starts in Eastern Europe, it’s a recent book and two guys go into a field, its winter, freezing cold and one guy is digging. Which seems to be a grave and the other guy a teacher from the town is supervising him. But there are soldiers, very much like 1940’s Germany but its not, it’s obviously now, perhaps somewhere in the Balkans. But I can’t remember its name. And it’s fascinating, it’s like being taught and you’re not quite sure why they’re there but you know there’s something very sinister. People are being gathered at the side and there are soldiers and a war on.
But there’s these two men just talking about good and evil really. Basically. Its brilliant but I can’t remember its name or the author.
EB: Have you finished it yet or are you still going?
CP: No, I’m still going
EB: Ah ok, no spoilers then.
EB: Here’s a questions from the dinner… [Craig smiles a looking a little concerned] as your mother would say “Have you got a proper job yet?”
CP: [laughs] See previous answer
EB: What’s the best thing you’ve been asked to sign and what’s the strangest?
CP: what’s the strangest thing I’ve been asked to sign…? [Looks sheepish and gives a dirty laugh]
EB: Or your favourite thing?
CP: There was a guy who came up before, signed various things of his, and he had two walking sticks and he said can you sign my walking sticks. That was cool, kinda metal things, that was kinda cool.
Elven swords too.
But the moment I still feel kinda guilty about is when a lady asked me to sign her back. That I did. It was a big thick pen, looked terrible. She told me she was going to get it tattooed. She had Sean Bean’s and Viggo’s and a few others, she got them signed and then tattooed on her body. And I’d done this terrible big thing, and I said “you cant do that, you’ll die!“, so I resigned much smaller and as she left I thought oh god I’d signed over her kidneys which I believe is the most painful place to get tattooed. [Turns to camera] So I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Ouch!