The Lord of the Rings: Why doesn’t Legolas wear a coat in the snow?

We are The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of Peter Jackson’s trilogy adapted from the work of JRR Tolkien. Frodo and his companions have just left Rivendell for Mordor, and their path leads them to the icy expanses of Caradras: the snow-covered mountains, where they must face a terrible storm caused by Saruman.

While the nine characters move painfully through the blizzard – some with stalactite-studded beards, others with their shoulders almost buried under the snow – we can point out that one of them is doing much better than his friends: the elf Legolas, who is being pushed around. Don’t sink in the powder and who doesn’t care about the jacket.

In the audio commentary for the feature film, his translator Orlando Bloom also explained this lightweight outfit, which was not so easy to wear during filming:

“The elves were insensitive to the cold, I was dressed the same everywhere, regardless of the place”he explained. “I couldn’t show it because an elf doesn’t feel extremes like cold.”

In addition to having to endure the low temperatures without eyelids, the actor – as well as his companions – had to endure the artificial snow that was created for the sequence: a mixture of polystyrene and real snow in a cold room.

“It was disgusting, my eyes were full”Orlando Bloom recalls. “But being an elf, I had to act as if it didn’t affect me. I had to stare at the horizon, motionless, when it was very uncomfortable. It was dirty, this whole atmosphere. All this stuff everywhere, this dust. . . .”

Legolas’ interpreter is not the only one with a rather unpleasant memory of the scene. Sean Bean (Boromir) also describes a rather uncomfortable situation:

“We were buried in snow. Styrofoam, with real snow on our heads. It was hot down there and it was freezing up there. We kept at it.”

(Re)discover our video dedicated to Legolas…