BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
(FOUR) MOVIE CHOICES
Elijah Wood’s first movie role was as the video game playing kid in “Back to the Future” Part II. How cool is THAT? Then he turned around and rocked it in “Avalon” and put him on a lot of people’s radars. He would do a few other random movies, but I have to say the ones that stand out to me were “The Good Son”, “The War”, “Radio Flyer”, “Black and White”, “North”, “Deep Impact”, and the awesomely underrated “The Faculty”. Then he did those “Ring” movies for awhile, but still made some good stuff in “Ash Wednesday”, “Sin City”, “Bobby”, and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. There have been talks of him playing Iggy Pop in a bio pic called “The Passenger”. It’s still in preproduction hell, but in the meantime he’s been working on a new TV series called “Wildred” for FX. I know I just basically rambled off the majority of his filmography but I had to. He picks awesome roles and has been in some of my personal favorite movies from the past twenty or so years.
(THREE) VIDEO GAMES
Since 2006, Wood has voiced the video game icon “Spyro”. From “The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning” on. So three “Spyro” games, the “Happy Feet” game, and the dude even does the voice of “Goomba” in “Super Mario Galaxy 2”. If he plays “Link” in a Zelda movie, he might be the coolest guy ever.
(TWO) HIS OWN RECORD LABEL
In 2005, he started “Simian Records”, his own record label. The first band to sign was “The Apples in Stereo”. Elijah directed their first music video and stars in a short film to promote their album “Travelers in Space”. The label has one other band, “Heloise and the Savior Faire”, on the label but it’s at least a start. Wood is a huge music fan and it shows. He played a little and sang a little on Viggo Mortensen’s album. He’s slated to play Iggy someday hopefully soon. I even read that he owns a few thousand CDs and favorite band is Smashing Pumpkins. Just the fact that his love for music and his tastes are cited on his “Personal life” section on Wikipedia is pretty cool. You don’t see that often.
(ONE) HE’S A NERD
Autograph Collector Magazine listed him as #7 of the “Best Signers”, which means he’s cool with making people’s day simply by scribbling his name on something. I have an autograph collection of my own so I’m not discrediting this because as simple and inane as it sounds there are PLENTY of “famous” people who are dicks about it. I never really took into account how awesome Elijah Wood is. He’s been in some of the most successful movies of the past quarter century, but still seems to stay down to earth, laid back, and just a complete nerd. He’s into music, does video game voices, and even made an appearance on “Yo! Gabba Gabba”.
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