Christopher Lee
From Tolkien Gateway
Christopher Lee | |
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Lifetime | b. 27 May 1922 |
Portrayed | Saruman in: |
Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings | |
IMDb | IMDB |
Christopher Frank Carandini Lee portrayed Saruman in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films. Lee has a long history with J.R.R. Tolkien's fiction; he is one of the few living actors that knew Tolkien personally and makes it a habit to read his books once a year, which he has done for the past five decades. [1] He had originally tried out for the part of Gandalf, but it was later areed that he would be more suited as Saruman. During the filming of the trilogy, Lee often acted as a consultant on the material.
Lee has also performed with the Tolkien Ensemble on their CDs At Dawn in Rivendell and Leaving Rivendell. He sang the role of Treebeard, as well as reciting numerous other poems.
Quotes
- "(on Tolkien) The greatest inventor of language and legend in my lifetime."
- ― Christopher Lee
- "It's just going to be...I'm trying to think of the right word - without making it sound like the usual fashionable superlative. I think it will create film history. I think it's going to have the biggest impact, on screen, of anything of the last 40 or 50 years"
- ― Christopher Lee, SFX Magazine June #65
- "Saruman is number one. Saruman is, very definetly, the most brilliant, the most powerful, with the greatest intellect and the greatest knowledge. Gandalf...well he's number two. But Saruman's whole character becomes perverted and distorted and he lusts for power and gradually, as it very often does, the old famous quote 'power corrupts and absoloute power corrupts absoloutely'."
- ― Christopher Lee, Fox's Quest for the Ring