Lee Pace is no stranger to playing with swords after starring in The Hobbit trilogy. It turns out, though, that Pace kept his sword from the Lord of the Rings movies and has been using it to perfect his swordplay in his new film Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Bodies Bodies Bodies is a black comedy movie that sees Pace get trapped at a party during a hurricane. While there, he finds himself caught up in a ‘murder in the dark game that quickly gets out of hand, by which we mean people start dying. Pace plays the older and slightly out of touch Greg, and in one scene, he uses a sword to open a bottle of champagne.
It turns out that Pace did the stunt himself, practising with his old Hobbit word. “I used my Hobbit sword,” he told Mr Porter. Apparently, he keeps it “lying around the house” and doesn’t get many chances to use it (clearly no works orcs or goblins where he lives), so he whipped out the blade to practise the stunt.
Pace, of course, played no one’s favourite Lord of the Rings character, Thranduil – the ruler of the elves of Mirkwood and the father of Legolas – who captured Bilbo and his Dwarf friends when they tried to cut through his forest.
While Thranduil isn’t exactly popular, everyone loves Pace. Director Hobbit Peter Jackson wanted him for the role ever since seeing him in the 2006 fantasy movie The Fall. Critics loved Pace’s take on the character and vastly Thranduil’s expanded role in the story.
If you want to know more about Middle-earth, check out our guide to Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series.