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Trivia: While they were waiting between takes on set, the extras who portrayed the Uruk-hai at Helm's Deep started chanting, singing and tapping their spears on the ground, to the beat of their singing (probably because many of the extras were Maori, the native people of New Zealand, and the chanting was a Maori haka). This is how the idea evolved for Peter Jackson to use it in the movie. It developed into the dramatic piece of the chanting and pounding of spears, by the Uruk-hai, at the stand off in Helm's Deep. As heard on the Appendices DVD.

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Trivia: Many of the Riders of Rohan appearing with Éomer when they meet Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, are accomplished horse women in beards. The crew knew that the set was a true traveling circus, when they actually sat down to lunch surrounded by bearded ladies. Appendices DVD.

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Trivia: In Faramir's dream, Boromir is in the boat, with water around him. The color of the water is pink, because Sean Bean's (Boromir) shirt was leaking dye into the water. Since it kept occurring in the retakes too, Peter Jackson decided to just leave it in, figuring it was a "symbolic blood-type effect." (00:31:30)

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Trivia: In order to get the stunt Elves riled up enough to be on the offensive during certain scenes, the very aggressive stunt Uruk-hai would nastily taunt and mock them incessantly on the set and even call them, "Cupcakes." It worked! Commentary, extended DVD.

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Trivia: During the location shooting at Edoras, there were very strong winds, as can be seen by the actors' hair, especially Éowyn's. During one particular day's filming, the wind was so strong that it tore Peter Jackson's glasses right off his face, and blew them straight down the hill. He had to spend the rest of that day without them.

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Trivia: Many of the Wild Men in the film were portrayed by actual groups of bikers, motorcycling around New Zealand at the time. Commentary, extended DVD.

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Trivia: There were days where Orlando Bloom (Legolas) was unable to wear his blue contact lenses, because they scratched his eyes. For those scenes his eyes were digitally colorized.

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Trivia: Gimli's prosthetic forehead had become detached by the time they were to shoot him in this scene. The senior prosthetics supervisor got on his stomach behind Gimli and pulled on a rope that was attached to the back of the prosthetic in order to pull the wrinkles out of Gimli's forehead and keep it in place. Art Director Ben Price is the very dead twitchy Uruk-hai that Gimli is sitting on. Commentary, extended DVD. (01:38:50)

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Trivia: Many of the major shots depicted in the movie are duplicates of Alan Lee's illustrations, in the LotR books, that had been published years before. In many shots, the actors were positioned in the same poses, as the drawings in the books. One example is, when Frodo pulls Gollum's head back and holds Sting up to his throat. (00:10:40)

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Trivia: At Helm's Deep, the one-eyed man who shouted, "Fire" after Theoden gives the order for a volley, really is missing an eye; it's not a CG effect. Director's commentary, extended DVD. (01:04:15)

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Trivia: Haleth, son of Hama, is played by Calum, son of Philippa Boyens. When it was time to do the ADR for the movie, Calum's voice was much deeper by then, so another young boy's voice was dubbed to say these powerful lines, "...The men are saying we will not live out the night. They say that it is hopeless." Director's commentary, extended DVD. (00:56:40)

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Trivia: When Sam's cooking the rabbit stew, Sam says, "Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish," and Gollum spits. Andy Serkis is very proud that something of his is on screen, because it is his spit we see, not a CGI like the rest of Gollum's body. Appendices of extended DVD. (01:42:20)

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Trivia: Elijah Wood describes this as "spontaneous, violent love." Apparently Viggo Mortensen and some stunt men enjoyed greeting co-workers by 'head-butting' each other. One night he persuaded stunt man Sala Baker to head-butt Orlando Bloom, who jokingly swears he saw 'white light', after their heads smashed together. A bright red mark on Bloom's forehead was not appreciated by the make-up artist the next day. Mortensen was amused because Bloom had the "perfect, pale Elven complexion." Appendices, Extended DVD.

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Trivia: John Rhys-Davies is missing the end of his middle finger on his left hand due to a farming accident as a child. The make-up artists made artificial, gelatin fingertips for him to wear in the movies. Davies one day, cut the tip in half, put 'blood' in it and closed it up. He went over to Peter Jackson (unaware of the gelatin tip) and said, "Boss, I've had an accident, look what happened". Jackson saw a small cut, but Davies bent the tip back and it split open, gushing.

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Trivia: The Warg scene that includes the infamous shot of Legolas leaping onto the horse, was filmed on the same day that Orlando Bloom fell off his horse and cracked his rib. He landed on a rock and Gimli's scale double (Brett) fell on top of him. So the filming crew could not film Bloom actually jumping onto his saddle, because of the injury. Later in post-production, about six months before the release of "The Two Towers," Bloom had grown a beard, for the filming of "Ned Kelly" (2001). He was not permitted to shave, which meant he could not do the pickups for this scene in "The Two Towers," so the CG animators at WETA created a CG Legolas to do the actual springing onto the horse. (00:10:35)

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Trivia: Andy Serkis (Gollum) did the voices of three Uruk-hai and Orcs in the scene outside Fangorn. Some of the lines he says are, "We ain't had nuthin but maggoty bread for three stinkin' days," and "Why can't we have some meat. What about them? They're fresh." (00:28:40)

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Trivia: It is Christopher Lee's voice mixed with Ian McKellen's that is heard when Gandalf speaks while he's hidden by the white light in Fangorn Forest. It is also Lee's voice heard when King Theoden is speaking to Gandalf, while he is still under Saruman's power. Confirmed on the commentary.

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Trivia: The filming of the Battle of Helm's Deep was so long and grueling (months), that by the end of the shoot, the actors, crew and extras had T-shirts made up that read, "I survived Helm's Deep," but with the letter "m" crossed out.

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Trivia: During the filming, Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) and Orlando Bloom (Legolas) would rib each other quite a lot. Mortensen would tell Bloom to go brush his long, blond hair and get another manicure, because the Elves are so prissy. Bloom would call Mortensen a dirty human (which is entirely true as he rarely bathed during filming) and say that at least the Elves live forever (which is entirely false and is based on a popular misconception of how long they live).

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