Fran (cont.): … because he, too, is on the brink of something. When he gets his answer, “that there’s some good in this world and it’s worth fighting for,” he understands that he will be forever [Philippa: Can never…] outside of Frodo’s…

Philippa: He can never be a part of that goodness ever again.

Fran: Yeah.

Philippa: It’s lost to him. It’s not lost to Frodo, because of Sam’s friendship.

Fran: Well it was something that, ironically, Sméagol believed in: for a brief window of time [Philippa: That brief moment.], he believed in – that there was some good in this world [Philippa: Yeah.] and he tried to hold onto it. It ultimately failed him.

Philippa: I love that… yeah.

Fran: So I kind of –. I like that in the end there’s some complexity to that thought, that it’s not just a simple, sort of, tub-thumping [Philippa: Yeah.] notion of good versus evil: I wouldn’t want that.

Philippa: No. We never wanted that; but it’s also that infinite sadness, too, that you see in the CGI character: just see that level of sadness and, kind of, internal grief, and understanding at the same time that he can never again be part of that world: that moral world is lost to him now.