Elijah on Ellen

Anyone see Elijah Wood on the Ellen Degeneres show this Wednesday? Mr. Wood was there to promote the release of the upcoming Sin City. Since stalking former hobbits is one of my past times, I TiVoed it, and boy, was it one of the most awkward interviews I've ever seen in my life.

First of all I'd like to know who had the bright idea of booking Elijah Wood on Ellen? Ever see Ellen? Next time you get a chance, take a look when the camera pans around to the studio audience. You might not be surprised to discover that the audience is filled with middle aged mommies, not desperately geeky fan boys. What's more is I doubt that the female heavy audience is pumped to go see Sin City, nor is it likely that that many of them are familiar with Frank Millers work. (Isn't it awful, I'm stereotyping my own gender, oh well)

Maybe it was the marketing department at Dimension Films, maybe it was Elijah's publicist. But regardless of who's decision it was, the results were fairly disastrous.

Here's a rundown on what happened.

Ellen announces to her screaming audience to "welcome young actor Elijah Wood who appeared in the Lord of the Rings films and is in the upcoming film Sin City!!!" The mommies clap and scream, though surely some of them are wondering if Sin City is a retelling of the story, Sodom and Gomorrah. He runs out onto the stage looking jovial enough, and greets Ellen like a long lost friend. They complain about LA traffic in the rain, and Elijah tells her it took him two hours and fifteen minutes to get to the studio from his home in Venice. He alludes to the fact that he had a driver, who gave him a choice of DVD's to watch in the car on his way there. One of the DVD's the driver had was Lord of the Rings, but Frodo being the modest man he is declines to watch that one! Wood reveals that he chose a DVD which, set classical music to soothing images, and he ended up falling into a slumber, much like most of the studio audience has probably done by this point.

Then, in an apparent effort to change the subject of the interview to more exciting topics than say, napping, Ellen asks Elijah if he has kept to his New Year's Resolution to stop biting his nails. He says no. Here, word for word, is a portion of the acutal transcript:

Ellen: The last time you were here you made a new year's resolution to stop biting your nails....have you stopped?

Elijah: Uhhh...no.

Ellen: You didn't?

Elijah: No, I think its almost worse than it was last time.

{Ellen gingerly takes Elijah's hand in her own and examines his nail beds.}

Ellen: Oh my Lord!

Elijah: Isn't that terrible?

Ellen: Horrible!

Elijah: I know.

Ellen: That's not right.

Elijah: No, it isn't.

Ellen: Put gloves on or something, so you can't get to them.

Elijah: But you used to right?

Ellen: I did. But I stopped. Now I get manicures, but they just you know...

Elijah: That seems to be the way to go. To get manicures, which makes you sort of..

{Elijah clenches his fist and shakes it with meaning}

Elijah cont'd: you know, take better care of your nails, cause your mind is into taking care of them.

Ellen: Yeah.

{There is a strange chirping sound coming from the audience. Crickets perhaps?}

Ellen: You can't keep doin' that.

Elijah: No, I know.

Ellen: No!

Elijah: It's bad. And the skin around it...its really awful.

Ellen: No, you're gonna hurt yourself.

{No Ellen, the audience is wanting to hurt themselves}

Ellen: No. Well, make a resolution now, its not New Year's, but make it right now.

Elijah: It doesn't have to be New Years. I'll make it now.

Ellen: Start today. Take care of yourself.

I could go on, but in the best interest of everyone's keyboards I'll stop so you don't short something out with the drool of catatonia.

Finally after more inanity, they finally get to the supposed point of the interview: Sin City. Ellen refers to it as..."very interesting looking," and its clear that she's a bit flumoxed by it.

Ellen pulls out a story board of green screen shots where Elijah is doing some wire fighting moves with Mickey Rourke's double. I can only imagine the sort of blank stares the Mommies were giving Ellen and Elijah. I mean we all love our mommies, but when was the last time your mother used the term "green screen" in any other context than window dressings. As for the term "wire fighting" the film that would probably come to most of these womens' mind is Mommie Dearest.

Ellen pulls out a publicity shot of Mickey Rourke as Marv, who she says looks "kinda scary" and Elijah tries to explain to her that the entire film is based on a comic book (come on Elijah, graphic novel, we call them graphic novels...)

Elijah tries to awkwardly explain how wire fighting works. People are fleeing for the emergency exits.

And then finally, in the most unconvincing tone I have ever heard Ellen use, she ends the interview by saying:

"So, uh, Sin City, comes out April 1st,...can't wait to see it."

Yeah, Ellen, I'm sure you can't.