Melissa sent this in from the June edition of Premiere: “The June edition of Premiere magazine has a cover story on Star Wars: Episode II. Throughout the article are references to Lord of the Rings, mostly comparisons between special effects techniques and whether or not films like Lord of the Rings and The Matrix were inspired by Star Wars. There’s one passage that’s pretty funny:
Ahmed Best, the actor behind Jar Jar Binks, would get a call, and it would be The Lord of the Rings’ Elijah Wood. “They called themselves hobbits,” Best says with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, you call yourselves hobbits for real, like a gang?’ They were happy to be in civilization, ’cause they shot in New Zealand, in the woods. We could go get coffee, and people would be looking at us, but everybody thought we were a band. I was like, ‘You all don’t realize what’s going on here, but these are hobbits, I’m Jar Jar Binks, and that’s Queen Amidala.'”
