One of the most famous quotes from the “Lord of the Rings” films wasn’t actually in the script, but came from Gandalf actor Ian McKellen.
Which quote is it? In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf faces the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.
While he sends the rest of the Fellowship ahead, he fearlessly stands in the way of the fire demon and shouts at it, “You shall not pass.” (in German: Du kannst nicht vorbei).
This line is now one of the most iconic from the “Lord of the Rings” franchise. However, it wasn’t originally in the script in that form; it was changed accidentally by Ian McKellen.
Here you can see a trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring:
A Small Deviation from the Book
What was actually in the script? The sentence that was actually in the film’s script was: “You cannot pass”.
However, since Sir Ian McKellen couldn’t remember the exact wording during the shoot, he improvised on the spot and slightly changed the line to: “You shall not pass”.
You can see in this YouTube video how the actor talked about his improvisation. Jump to 32:00:
Although director Peter Jackson generally stayed very close to the books to adapt the films faithfully to J. R. R. Tolkien’s original work, he liked this version so much that he included it in the film.
In the German version, you don’t notice the change. Only if you’ve read the English books and then watch the original version of the film will you notice the slight difference.
You can read more about Lord of the Rings here with our colleagues from Filmstarts: This much too unknown fantasy film with Sean Connery served as a template for Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings”
Sir Ian McKellen spoke on The Graham Norton Show in 2019 about his mistake during the shooting of Lord of the Rings. However, he took his blunder lightly and humorously noted: “I’m pretty stuck with it [with the new quote] now.”
Besides Elijah Wood, Jake Gyllenhaal (Road House, Brokeback Mountain) also auditioned for the role of Hobbit Frodo. However, it went very poorly, and Peter Jackson called him the worst actor he had ever seen. You can find more about this here at MeinMMO: Peter Jackson saw Jake Gyllenhaal auditioning for Lord of the Rings and then advised him to change his agency
