Liv Tyler: Living It Up!

Q: Do you feel you're fair game?

A: Certain things come with the territory. I have no problem when people ask if they can take a picture, ask for an autograph. Lord of the Rings fans are fun because they always ask a question about the movie and there are certain facts I can share. The only pet peeve I have is when people don't ask, they just shove a camera in your face. You could be standing there, picking your nose. It's like you're some zoo animal.

Q: You seemed a surprising choice for an elf princess because you had such a contemporary persona. But you managed to convincingly play a Middle-earth character and made it feel like you existed in a dream.

A: Because of Arwen, most people now see me as a period creature. I've had people say, She's too ethereal for this part, and I say, That's because I was playing an ethereal character, thank you very much. I have to prove again that I'm a young, normal, goofy woman.

Q: What was the hardest thing about that whole experience?

A: Arwen went through so many changes. In the original scripts, Arwen fought with the elves at Helm's Deep. She was along for the whole trip, and there was this love triangle with Aragorn and Eowyn. Peter initially used that love story as a selling point. So I went to New Zealand and spent two months preparing for these very elaborate fight scenes--but didn't shoot them. So I got very frustrated. I'd shoot one day and then wouldn't have anything to do for a couple of months, while Peter tried to figure out what to do with the character. The boys were there every day for a year and a half, and I went back and forth and felt a bit left out. I tried to use that disconnection as a focus for how Arwen would be feeling, because she was out of it, too. I still feel excited when I watch the film, but there were times I thought I couldn't take it anymore.

Q: Was anyone particularly helpful in cheering you up?

A: I spent a lot of time in the makeup trailer with Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and Bernard Hill. The Hobbits were off in another trailer, which was funny because Elijah Wood was always blasting his music. There was a private door and then a separate room with Ian McKellen in it. Quite a combination--these screaming Hobbits in the front and Ian Holm in the connecting room.

Q: So you bonded with Viggo and Orlando, both of whom are poised to become big stars.

A: Viggo is still a mystery to me, even though we shared the most intimate scenes. He worked all the time, and I only ever had one meal alone with him and that was after the last pickups we did over the summer. Orlando was my first friend because we lived really close to each other in houses along a cliff overlooking the sea in New Zealand. He would swim and surf every day, and we did training camp together, archery and horseback riding.

Q: You found time to get married last year, and buy a house and get a dog. What was the biggest adjustment?

A: There wasn't one, really. We'd been together for five years. We bought this home before we got married and we've been renovating it, restoring it to its original 1861 state. I'd never done anything like that before.

Pages: 1 2 3