Sean Astin, who played the Hobbit "Sam" in The Lord of the Rings, had to gain almost 40 pounds for his part.

The "Orcs" cries in the "Mines of Moria" are actually recordings of real-life opossums crying at night.

"Legolas'" bow, which Orlando Bloom had used on set for eighteen months, broke on the very last day of filming.

For the trilogy, an astounding 1800 hobbit feet were made!

In the films, each actor and actress had to wear a wig, except for the small boy who listens to "Bilbo Baggins'" stories. His hair was deemed to be perfect Hobbit hair and so he didn't need a wig - high praise indeed! The small boy was Billy Jackson, son of the film's director Peter Jackson.

The scene in "Bilbo's" house, in which "Gandalf" (Ian McKellen) hits his head, happened by chance and was not in the original script. Peter Jackson liked the scene so much, however, that he decided to include it in the film.

In the scene in which "Gandalf" (Ian McKellen) and "Frodo" (Elijah Wood) sit on a car together,  "Frodo" is actually one meter behind "Gandalf", so that the size difference between the two appears to be even greater.

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the entire Lord of the Rings novel using just two fingers - can you believe that?

For the enormous number of wigs that were made for the film, tons of hair had to be shipped to New Zealand. A lot of the hair came from Russia...

In fact, Dominic Monaghan got to play "Gollum" once as Andy Serkis arrived late on his first day of shooting.

Eight of nine members of "The Fellowship" have the word "nine" tattooed on their body in Elvish. They wanted a reminder of their time on set. After the film's premiere in New Zealand, Peter Jackson had the Elvish word for "ten" tattooed on his upper arm.

The British band Led Zeppelin incorporated elements of The Lord of the Rings in three of their songs. "Mordor", "Gollum" and the "Misty Mountains" are actually all mentioned in the lyrics.