The Road to the Shire

Have you ever had a dream but didn’t know how to make it happen? For the last three years of my life, I have kept a secret regarding my involvement with The Hobbit films. I would like to finally cast this secretive burden into the fiery depths of Mt. Doom, so to speak, and let the truth out.

Exactly 13 years ago this week, I sat down in my room in Salt Lake City and penned a letter to Sir Peter Jackson. My request — to be cast as a hobbit in The Hobbit film I alway hoped he would make after The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Fellowship of the Ring had just been released in movie theatres across the country and my obsession had been born.

But sadly, I never sent the letter. I chickened out.

Fast-forward back to the present day. I find myself back in Salt Lake, albeit after many travels and adventures abroad, and a bigger Lord of the Rings fan than ever. In fact, I’ve now been a fan for exactly half of my life. I still get asked if I was actually cast in The Hobbit movies, and still I plead the fifth. You see, two friends of mine and I started a social media experiment back in 2011 to see if we could unite enough Tolkien fans in an effort to leave our mark in someway on The Hobbit film production that had just begun. The time had come for me to make my boyhood dream a reality. No chickening out this time.

Click here to watch the original trailer video.

If you’re not familiar with our project, that’s okay. Basically we made a lot of videos, tried to contact big name celebrities to amplify our voice, launched a Kickstarter page to raise funds for a documentary, and ultimately tried to be cast as extras in the movies. These funds, as well as loads of generous donations from people all over the world (special shout out to Alex Oakland and all of our other backers) allowed us to travel to New Zealand for the trip of our lives. So, did we actually make it in the movies?

We’ve had people asking us that question since we got home in early 2012. Well here it goes. I am about to tell you. Although you’ll please excuse the drawn-out article leading up to the nugget of information that people actually care about… It’s just that… keeping a secret… from even friends and family… for 3 years… can be, well… hard. And I’ve found it just as hard to unkeep that secret. After all, was it not Gandalf himself that said to, “Keep it secret, keep it safe?”

But, in the words of another beloved, middle-earth character, Samwise Gamgee, sometimes you have to “share the load.” And it’s time I did:

I was NOT cast in any role in The Hobbit. Nor were any of the members of my fellowship. We do not appear in any of the 3 movies. I won’t lie, we came very close several times and knew that the top dogs had actually heard of us. But alas, we ultimately had failed.

Charlatans, fakes, frauds, phonies, liars, Lucifers, thieves, dream smugglers, idiots. I’ve prepared myself for any names people want to throw at me/us. But after you get out your profanities, read the rest of the article and I think you may change your mind.

This project was called Road to the Shire. After a very long journey, metaphorically and actually, we had come to terms with the fact that we probably weren’t going to be in the movies about two days before we flew home. We found ourselves at the end of the trip driving on a farm road to the site of Hobbiton in Matamata, New Zealand — the literal road to the Shire. And that’s when it hit me. Not an answer, but a question. What is success?

Was everything we had done worth it? Or had it been a complete waste of time? Let me list parts of our experience and then perhaps you can tell me:

-We traveled in arguably the most beautiful country in the world for 2 and half weeks.

-We met Sir Richard Taylor of WETA Workshops and shot the breeze with him on the front steps of his studio for an hour.

-We were taken in by total strangers who housed, fed and entertained us for nothing.

-A man called James literally gave me the sandals (jandals) off his feet when he learned that I had forgotten mine.

-We saw loads of LOTR sites and memorabilia and met heaps of people who had actually been cast in the movies as well as worked on them in many different ways.

-We built life-lasting friendships with everyone who was part of the project as well as a number of Kiwis that I will hold as special friends in my heart for this life and the next (Even as I type this, I do so with a Kiwi accent in my head).

-A number of students, including yours truly and the other 2 hobbits who worked on the project, acquired jobs because of their involvement.

-Thousands of fans expressed love and support and encouraged us to continue following our dreams.

-We donated $2K to the New Zealand Red Cross earthquake relief.

-And last but not least, we journeyed the actual Road to the Shire and walked barefoot in our homemade costumes to the front door of Bag End.

So did we succeed? Depends on who you ask, I reckon. For that is the question I wish to leave with you — what is success? Is it important to chase dreams? Or is it a waste of time? If the original dream never comes true, was the trip even worth it? Will you regret trying at the end of the day if things don’t turn out how you had planned?

Ask yourself these questions. And regardless of what your answers are, please share this message with someone you think might benefit from it.

I bid you all a very fond farewell,

Mitchell

(aka Berilac Bramble of Willowbottom)