Liv Tyler Still Hasn’t Watched the Full LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy
Actors aren’t required to watch everything they’ve ever been in. Sometimes they even forget a movie they’ve appeared entirely. Sometimes they avoid it on purpose. But this one still feels wild, especially if you’re even mildly obsessed with Middle-earth.
Liv Tyler recently revealed that she’s never actually watched the full The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not only that, she hasn’t even made it past the first half of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. And yes, fans have been reminding her for years exactly how big those movies are.
In a new interview with Empire Magazine, Tyler was chatting alongside fellow Elven royalty Cate Blanchett and trying to recall a scene they shared together. The memory got a little fuzzy, and that’s when she casually dropped this gem:
"I remember a scene where we're talking. I think I'm sitting in a chair? I've only seen the first half of the first [film]. I try to play it for my kids, who aren't that interested."
Twenty five years after The Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters, Tyler still hasn’t gone beyond the midway point. She’s even tried introducing the movies to her kids, only to discover that they aren’t exactly racing to Rivendell.
It’s funny, but it doesn’t mean Tyler phoned anything in. Far from it. Blanchett praised her Elvish delivery during the interview, calling it “mellifluous and beautiful to listen to,” which led Tyler to explain just how deep she went into preparing for Arwen:
"I used to listen to it [Elvish] on cassette tapes. I would walk around listening to it over and over. My character was so interesting because she's not in the book a lot."
So while she may not revisit the films for fun, she clearly took the work seriously. In fact, she was originally involved in much more of the action than what ended up on screen.
Longtime fans know about Arwen’s scrapped role at Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Tyler confirmed just how intense that experience was:
"Originally, when I came into the project, I was included in the Fellowship. I was in Helm's Deep, fighting [...] I was there with Viggo and everyone. It was f***g hard, man. It was brutal. And it didn't really work."
That Viggo she mentions is, of course, Viggo Mortensen, and imagining Arwen battling alongside Aragorn still feels like a fascinating alternate version of the trilogy. Another deleted scene featuring both Tyler and Blanchett also came up, which was the very moment Tyler was trying to remember.
Even without those extra scenes, Arwen’s role in the films is significantly larger than in Tolkien’s books. She influences major events, sometimes directly and sometimes from a distance.
Case in point, that unforgettable Black Rider chase to Rivendell. Book purists still have to pause and remind themselves that it wasn’t Arwen who saved Frodo in the text. That honor belonged to Glorfindel, a character who might still show up in The Rings of Power at some point.
Thanks to Peter Jackson, Arwen became an emotional anchor in the trilogy, and Tyler’s performance helped make her unforgettable. She’s even said she’d be interested in returning if everyone reunites for the upcoming The Hunt for Gollum project.
She helped define one of the most beloved fantasy trilogies of all time, delivered flawless Elvish, survived brutal battle shoots, and still hasn’t felt compelled to sit down and watch the whole thing. At this point, it almost feels intentional. A personal badge of honor.
How many people on Earth can say they were in The Lord of the Rings and never watched it all the way through? My guess is still one.