Peter: Yeah, that’s right, establish that, yeah.

Philippa: They were also talking about that.

Peter: But the purpose of this is really to push the Arwen-Aragorn story as far, and to have a sense of drama and dramatic reversal, as we can. You know, there’s nothing stronger, really, than having Arwen leaving Middle-earth and not being with Aragorn any more. (beat) This is like the prologue, really, isn’t it? In some respects, this sequence could have functioned as a prologue at the beginning of the film, but we felt we didn’t want a prologue at the beginning of the film; but now it felt very important to re-orientate audiences to exactly what was happening. [A shadow passes over Osgiliath] We found that people at New Line got very confused between Osgiliath, which is ultimately where Faramir is heading with Frodo, and Helm’s Deep, but…

Philippa: Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.

Peter: … but there was a – sort of a geography problem. And also this re-establishes the Ring, because we didn’t really have a sense of the power of the Ring much in this movie, because the Ring never gets put on by Frodo. It never gets worn; it’s always hidden, sort of, under his shirt; it doesn’t really have that much potency in the film, so it was a chance to re-establish what the Ring actually is and why it might be important to Faramir.

Fran: Hmm. It’s also his introduction, effectively, isn’t it?

Philippa: [in agreement] Mmm.

Peter: And it sets up the concept that Faramir’s going to take the Ring. I mean, the way that Galadriel says, you know, “The young Captain of Gondor will try to take it” is just to provide that bit of tension.

Fran: [The Rangers of Osgiliath take Frodo and Sam to Henneth Annûn] I like the way those blindfolds cover their entire faces: it’s quite helpful with the doubles! [Philippa laughs]

Peter: Yeah, yeah. That’s right!

Philippa: That was Frodo and Sam!

Peter: Why use…

Philippa: It was!

Peter: Why use narrow blindfolds when great big face-covering ones [Philippa laughs] can do the job?

Philippa: And it was good to get Alan Lee’s beautiful painting back in there [screen cap].

Peter: Cate Blanchett ends up being in three shots in this movie, I think. I think she’s in two shots with her face, plus a big close-up of her eyes: it’s probably the smallest rôle that Cate’s ever done in her entire career! [laughs] I guess; but it’s –. I think it’s just great the way a character like that, though, can return from the first film and just play a very minor but significant rôle in the second. It’s –. One of the great things about having such a big ensemble cast is we can keep the texture of the world going through the three movies. (beat)