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Sean Astin said in a new interview with The Guardian that he was forced to sell his house amid “The Lord of the Rings” fame in the early 2000s because he negotiated
such a small salary to play Samwise Gamgee in Peter Jackson’s landmark movie trilogy. The reveal may come as a shock to fans considering the “Rings” movies were cultural phenomenons that grossed $2.9 billion at the worldwide box office between 2001 and 2003.
“I was not prepared for that level of visibility and access,” Astin told the publication. “And there was a disconnect between the attention that I was getting and how much money we had. It was not a lot of money! In fact, I had to sell my house because I negotiated such a small amount on the trilogy.”
Astin noted that he is “very comfortable financially now,” but that wasn’t the case when “The Lord of the Rings” was dominating box office charts. Peter Jackson and the team behind the “Rings” trilogy famously shot all three movies at once, meaning there was no opportunity for the cast to renegotiate their salaries based of the success of each installment.
“Because we weren’t making one movie and then renegotiating a contract for the next, it wasn’t the sort of lucrative scenario that you could sort of rest easy for the rest of your life,” Astin’s “Rings” co-star Elijah Wood told Business Insider last year. Wood noted that New Line Cinema took a “real gamble” filming all three movies at once. To mitigate financial risk, the ensemble cast was offered “not massive salaries,” the Frodo actor said.
“The benefit of that was that we were also signing up for something that was going to be a part of our lives forever,” Wood added at the time.
Astin previously revealed that he earned around “$75,000 a movie,” brining his total “Rings” salary to around $250,000. Co-star Orlando Bloom (who played Legolas) said in a 2019 interview on “The Howard Stern Show” that he was paid just $175,000 for the trilogy.
“The Lord of the Rings” franchise is currently developing its big screen return courtesy of “The Hunt for Gollum,” which Andy Serkis is currently directing, and a new movie co-written by Stephen Colbert. Astin is not confirmed yet to reprise his role in either project, but he will certainly fight for better pay if he is, telling The Guardian: “Goddamn right.”
