As impossible as it seems to believe, looking at how he’s barely aged a day in the two decades since Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy cemented his place in pop culture history, Elijah Wood is now 40 years old. Since making his screen debut in Back to the Future Part II, he’s remained an active presence on our screens for over 30 of them, which is mind-boggling when you think about it.
Having journeyed from the youthful star of Internal Affairs, Flipper and Deep Impact to an internationally-renowned name thanks to his career-defining stint as Bilbo Baggins, Wood is arguably now in the most interesting stage of his career to date. A much better actor than he often gets credit for, he’s also incredibly active as a producer while still finding the time to expand both his creative horizons and filmography.
In a new interview, Wood admitted that he’d jump at the opportunity to appear in either a live-action Star Wars or Marvel project, given that it’s been a while since he was afforded the chance to lend his talents to a massive effects-driven blockbuster.
“I think that’s just inherently fun. I haven’t had a chance to play in a giant sandbox in a while. Star Wars gets precedent because I’m a huge Star Wars fan. So more of that, certainly in the live-action sphere, would be awesome. But working on a Marvel film, I mean, there’s obviously a whole conversation that happens certainly in film Twitter about sort of the cinematic relevance of Marvel. Is it cinema? All this sort of sh*t. And whether you like superhero movies or not, they are inherently fun. And those movies are extremely well made. I think getting to play again in that universe’s sandbox would be a blast. It’d be totally awesome, because it’s at such an insane scale.”
Wood voiced Jace Rucklin in ten episodes of Resistance, so he’s got previous experience working under the Disney and Lucasfilm banner. While he’s more than likely never going to escape the shadow that The Lord of the Rings has cast over a career that’s already seen him credited in movies and TV shows spanning five decades, he’d be a valuable addition to Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe in any number of supporting parts, whether it be on the big screen or streaming.
