Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood is opening up about life outside the Shire as a proud father of two children.
“We’re well out of toddlerville and they’ve entered kid-dom,” Wood, 45, told The Times in an interview published on Friday, March 6. “It’s incredible.”
The Sin City actor shares a 6-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter with his wife, producer Mette-Marie Kongsved. Now that his children are officially out of the infamous toddler stage, Woods says he’s finally starting to introduce his kids to the world of movies and entertainment that made their dad a household name.
While The Wizard of Oz was a hit, according to Wood, his children have yet to see the trilogy that put him on the proverbial map.
“They have not,” Wood admitted. “But only because I genuinely don’t think they’re old enough. I feel like it might be appropriate when they are 8.”
Another movie that turned out to be surprisingly risqué for the younger crowd? The late Robin William’s 1995 hit and beloved classic, Jumanji.
“[It’s] way scarier and more f***ed up than I remember,” Wood said.
After Wood’s breakout role as the iconic Tolkien character Frodo Baggins, the actor set his sights on the horror genre — meaning it will be some time before his son or daughter can enjoy many of his films.
That will certainly be the case for his latest role in the upcoming film Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, in which Wood plays a lawyer for a group of wealthy and ultimately nefarious people hellbent on killing Grace, played by Samara Weaving.
“I think of it as an action movie with comedic elements,” Wood told the outlet. “Yes, it does have trappings of a horror. There are literally exploding bodies. But the reason that horror never goes away is that, as a society, we always have something to be afraid of in real life, but horror is a safe way to experience fear because nothing’s actually going to happen. It’s cathartic.”
While Wood is a bonafide Hollywood star to most, away from the camera he is simply dad. In 2021, he opened up to The Guardian about fatherhood and finding the silver lining in one of the most harrowing situations the world has ever faced.
“The silver lining of the pandemic has been that it’s enabled me to enjoy fatherhood in a way I might not have done,” he said at the time. “My son was born seven or eight months before lockdown, so we’ve had this kind of unbelievable, uninterrupted family time that we’re probably never going to have again.”
He continued, “I love being a father. It’s all-consuming and it’s everything.”
