Elijah Wood is paying tribute to his longtime collaborator and friend, The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson.
The 45-year-old actor got up on stage to present Jackson, 64, with the honorary Palme D’Or award during the 2026 Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony on Tuesday night (May 12) in Cannes, France.
Elijah was joined at the event by his wife, Danish film producer Mette-Marie Kongsved, while Peter brought along his two kids, Billy and Katie.
Elijah Wood revealed how Peter Jackson changed his life
Elijah talked about the process of being cast as Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings movies.
“I was 18 years old when I first met Peter Jackson. He had come to Los Angeles with Fran Walsh for an ambitious new project. He had seen a VHS tape I’d made with friends in the woods of Griffith Park, and now they wanted to meet the young man who had sent it. I walked into Victoria Burrows’ casting office and there they were, Pete and Fran, together as they’d been for almost everyday since they first met sometime in the late ’80s. And when, a little while later the call came that I was going to be Frodo Baggins, I sat down on the floor of my bedroom and I understood with the whole of my being that my life had just been divided into before and after. And I know I’m far from the only person who has had their life changed by Peter Jackson.”
Peter Jackson talked about the risks of making The Lord of the Rings
Jackson credits the Cannes Film Festival with saving the film franchise.
“The media was talking about the gamble was going to fail. So the first film, Fellowship of the Ring, was going to come out in December 2001 and so we just finished shooting in December 2000, so we had a year of post-production to deal with. In that year, about February, [New Line Cinema founder] Bob Shaye decides that he wants to have 20 minutes of our film screen here in Cannes because he wants to change the press’ stories that were going out … Bob Shaye rolled the dice, and so we quickly changed 20 minutes of film, really fast, and we brought that 20 minutes here in 2001 in May, and we did some press in that castle up on the hill and had a party there, and Bob’s great gamble really changed the perception of the film. And for me obviously, it was a life-changing thing. So by the time the film came out there was an anticipation that there wouldn’t have been if not for Cannes.”
Check out more photos from the event in the gallery!
Posted To:2026 Cannes Film Festival Billy Jackson Cannes Film Festival Elijah Wood Event Photos Katie Jackson Mette-Marie Kongsved Peter Jackson
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