CS: What are you most excited about to have the opportunity to be a part of the prequels? Since it wasn't necessarily built into the original novel that you guys from the "Rings" films would be there.

Wood: Yeah, not at all. Look, I'm just looking forward to going back to New Zealand and spending a bit of time there. There will be plenty of old friends that will be a part of it. Largely I would imagine the entire crew would be relatively the same. So in some ways I think it's going to be a very surreal journey. It will feel like traveling back in time a little.

But I'm excited. There's a lot of new elements to this. They're shooting on the Red [camera]. They're shooting in 3D, so that should be interesting.



And I'm excited to read the script. I'm very excited to see what they've done with "The Hobbit." They've stretched it out over the course of two films – I'm so curious as to what other elements they've woven in, because there are certainly additional works that refer to that same time period that they could weave into it. So I'm just very excited to sort of see what the ultimate vision is.

I was down there about a year ago, February, and I saw some of the design. This is when Guillermo [del Toro] was still attached. So I've seen a lot of the design work. I mean, it's extraordinary! And Alan Lee and John Howe are back in the art department doing designs for it. I think it's going to feel very familiar, and different as well.