Elijah Wood rose to fame thanks to his role as Frodo Baggins in Elijah Wood wasn’t a newcomer when he was cast as Frodo Baggins, as he began his career in the entertainment industry when he was very young. His first break was in Paula Abdul’s music video for “Forever Your Girl”, directed by David Fincher, in 1989, and that same year he had a minor role in Back to the Future II. His first big role arrived the following year in the TV movie Child in the Night, where he played the lead role of a kid who’s the only witness to his father’s murder.
It didn’t take long for Hollywood to take notice of Elijah Wood’s talent, and in 1990 he also appeared in the drama movie Avalon, followed by Paradise in 1991 and Radio Flyer in 1992. His role as Stuart Simmons in Jon Avnet’s The War earned him a lot of recognition and praise, with Roger Ebert calling him “the most talented actor in his age group”. All these projects and more ultimately led to his big break in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, where he played the lead character, Frodo Baggins. Wood reprised his role as Frodo in the sequels The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and once his time at Middle-earth was done, he took things a bit easier.
Sin City (2005), where he played Kevin, a cannibalistic serial killer.
His next project was the comedy-drama Everything Is Illuminated, followed by the independent drama Green Street Hooligans and Bobby. Wood has since appeared in a variety of movies (though none of them big productions, except for his brief return to Middle-earth in No Man of God and the reboot of The Toxic Avenger, alongside Peter Dinklage and Jacob Tremblay.
Despite the impact of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and its legacy in the entertainment industry, Elijah Wood has opted for a more relaxed career that has allowed him to escape typecasting and branch out to other areas of entertainment, which in turn has helped him remain active in the industry. Elijah Wood continues to have a place in the hearts of the audience, who have been very welcoming of all his projects post-Middle-earth, whether they’re on the big screen, television, video games, podcast, or something else.
