Lord Of The Rings actor Elijah Wood has admitted that he can’t listen to Metallica’s landmark hit Enter Sandman anymore.
During a new interview with NME, the 45-year-old actor, currently promoting comedy-horror film Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come, says that his son, born in 2019, listened to the popular 1991 track extensively from the age of four, to the point that it’s now been ruined for him.
“It’s specifically because of my son,” Wood says. “He was about four when I introduced him to it and then it became the only song that he wanted to hear for a very long stretch of time. It’s actually not too inappropriate lyrically. It’s a little scary, but there isn’t anything too gnarly.”
Metallica put out Enter Sandman on July 29, 1991, ahead of the release of their self-titled fifth album (AKA the Black Album) on August 12. The track was a quick hit and became a radio mainstay, charting in the top 10 in the UK, Finland, Ireland, Denmark and Canada. It crossed the billion-streams threshold on Spotify in 2023 and – as of March 2026, according to setlist wiki setlist.fm – Metallica have performed the single 1,450 times, making it the sixth most-played track in their back-catalogue.
The Black Album would expand on Enter Sandman’s commercial success, topping charts all over the world, before going on to become one of the biggest-selling albums of all time. It’s been certified two-times Diamond in the US, signalling sales in excess of 20 million units, as well as Diamond in Canada and multi-times Platinum in the UK, Germany, Australia, Argentina, Italy and many other markets.
Even though he can’t listen to Enter Sandman anymore, Wood reveals his extensive history with rock and alternative music in the NME interview. He looks back on his first-ever gig, which was seeing The Smashing Pumpkins at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles in 1996.
“It was on the Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness tour and Garbage opened for them,” he remembers. “I was just about to turn 16 and it was absolutely incredible. It was at that time when Billy [Corgan, vocals/guitars] basically wore the ‘Zero’ shirt for the better part of two or three years. It was also the first time he shaved his head. I was a huge, huge Pumpkins fan and so for them to be my first concert was so appropriate.”
Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come, the sequel to the 2019 film, sees Wood star as a nameless lawyer representing the mysterious villain Le Bail. The film came out in US cinemas on March 20 and appears to be on its way to financial success. According to Box Office Mojo, it’s already made $11.8 million US against a $14 million production budget. Reviews have been largely positive, with Deadline calling it “just what fans have been waiting for the past seven years”.
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