Peter: [Gandalf attempts to pick up the Ring] The book is very different in this whole area, and in a way it was tricky to figure out how to get Bilbo on the road, how to make the Ring stay behind with Frodo, what Gandalf’s attitude was. The book is, kind of, vaguely similar, but very, very different; and we grappled with this: we basically wanted to make the film a little bit more… tense, I guess, to keep the pressure on more so than in the book, and so we concentrated on making the Ring, and the threat of the Ring, foremost in the way that these scenes played themselves out.

Philippa: It was very difficult to give the audience a sense that Gandalf had, up until this moment, had no suspicions about this Ring, and that it was just a trinket that Bilbo had found – maybe a trinket that he had always been uneasy about, but nothing more than that – but, I think, if you remember back to the prologue, very soon Peter wanted a sense that something had been activated, and that’s what we tried to set up in the prologue: that the time was coming soon, and… that is actually what happens at the end of this scene. You get a sense that evil has awoken, and the Ring – almost like a machine – has been activated.

Peter: [Gandalf hastily walks through the hall of Bag End after giving Frodo the Ring] Here’s Ian McKellen, in his small, little set; and here’s Elijah in his big set.

Philippa: But in that shot they’re both in the same set? [screen cap] Do you have Ian up on a high…

Peter: Yeah, Ian was up on a box, and then we did all sorts of tricks. [Gandalf bands down to warn Frodo] I mean, that’s not Elijah there, that’s little Kieran, who was only four-foot tall. A lot of it’s pretty low tech, quite simple. (beat)