Filmmaker Peter Jackson has revealed that he once tried to seek out hypnotherapy so that he could forget The Lord Of The Rings films and re-watch them all again.
Of course, many of us wish we could experience watching the live action Lord Of The Rings franchise for the very first time once again, but for creator Peter Jackson, his reasoning is a little unique. As a matter of fact, he wanted to be able to watch the films like a regular fan, without knowing he had worked on them at all.
In a recent episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, Jackson explains, "When we did the Lord of the Rings movies, I always felt I was the unlucky person who never got to see [them] as a coming-out-of-the-blue film.
“By the time they were screening, I was immersed in it for five or six years. It was such a loss for me to not be able to see them like everyone else.”
He continues, “I actually did seriously consider going to some hypnotherapy guy to hypnotize me to make me forget about the films and the work I had done over the last six or seven years so I could sit and enjoy them."
In fact, Jackson was so desperate to wipe his memory clean in order to get the traditional LOTR fan experience, he contacted a British celebrity illusionist for their help.
"I didn’t follow through with it, but I did talk to [British mentalist] Derren Brown about that and he thought he could do it," he adds.
Elsewhere in the podcast, the LOTR director spoke of Prime Video’s highly-anticipated The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series and of how he was contacted by Amazon Studios to work on the show. Fortunately for Jackson and his dream of experiencing the world of J. R. R. Tolkien with a clean slate, Amazon never got back in touch after he asked to see a copy of the script.
“The one thing that I am looking forward to is actually seeing it as a perfectly neutral viewer because I always felt when we did the Lord of the Rings movies, that I was the unlucky person who never got to see them as a … coming-out-of-the-blue type film" he confirms.
Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will premiere on September 2.
In the mean time, watch the trailer below:
