The summer tour of the flesh-and-blood ‘hobbits’ on the 25th anniversary of the release of ‘The Lord of the Rings’

Twenty-five years ago, on December 19, 2001, a cultural phenomenon hit the cinema screens around the world with the same expectation as the total solar eclipse will arrive on August 12. The first installment of The Lord of the Rings, a audiovisual adaptation by director Peter Jackson of the work by J. R. R. Tolkien, inaugurated a cinematographic universe that continued the literary success of the British writer, who had already sold more than one hundred million copies and had been translated into 25 languages.

Among all the actors and actresses that made up the privileged cast of The Fellowship of the Ring —many of them repeaters in the successive deliveries of the trilogy—, four faces stayed living in the heart of those who surrendered to the saga, those of the honorable hobbits (or halflings), converted into improvised bearers and defenders of the dangerous ring of power and embodied by Elijah Wood (Frodo), Sean Astin (Sam), Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry).