While promoting Borderlands, Cate Blanchett said she “basically got free sandwiches” as payment for Lord Of The Rings. More on the story below.
Back in the early-2000s, Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy was one of the most expensive and ambitious projects ever committed to film. The three films’ budgets combined were a whopping $281m, which is over $500m in today’s money adjusted for inflation.
It seems that not much of that budget went towards the cast’s wages. Cate Blanchett, who is currently promoting her new video game adaptation Borderlands, told host Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live (picked up by Variety) that “no one got paid anything” for the films.
When Cohen suggested Lord Of The Rings were Blanchett’s highest paying films, the actress quickly denied this.
“Are you kidding me?” the actress said. “No, no one got paid anything to do that movie.”
Blanchett played Galadriel, an ancient, powerful elf, in all three films. The final film in the trilogy, The Return Of The King, was crowned Best Picture at the 76th Academy Awards and after winning all 11 categories it was nominated in, the film shares the record of highest number of Oscars with James Cameron’s Titanic.
Blanchett also noted that she didn’t get anything after the films’ release, such a cut of the box office winnings, saying The Lord Of The Rings happened “way before any of that”.
“I basically got free sandwiches, and I got to keep my [elf] ears,” Blanchett reminisced and also noted that she signed on mostly because she wanted to work with “the guy who made Braindead.”
Blanchett also noted that “women don’t get paid as much as you think they do.”
Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas in the film, also revealed his low wage for appearing in the films. The actor said on The Howard Stern Show last year that he was paid just £175,000 for his part.
