Peter Jackson Considered Hypnosis to Forget ‘Lord of the Rings’
The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson revealed that he once considered hypnotism so he could forget the years of work he put into the trilogy.
In a recent conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he's always wanted to watch the mutli-Oscar-winning movies like a fan without any insider knowledge.
“When we did The Lord of the Rings movies, I always felt I was the unlucky person who never got to see them as a coming-out-of-the-blue film,” Jackson noted. “By the time they were screening, I was immersed in it for five or six years. It was such a loss for me to not be able to see them like everyone else.”
He added, "I actually did seriously consider going to some hypnotherapy guy to hypnotize me to make me forget about the films and the work I had done over the last six or seven years, so I could sit and enjoy them.” Referring to a leading British mentalist and entertainer, he said, "I didn’t follow through with it, but I did talk to Derren Brown about that and he thought he could do it.”
Jackson recently revealed he was asked to become involved with the upcoming Netflix show The Rings of Power, based in a period of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth history before The Lord of the Rings takes place. But he also said that he heard nothing after the initial approach. “The one thing that I am looking forward to is actually seeing it as a perfectly neutral viewer,” he explained.
The Rings of Power premieres on Sept. 2. Jackson recently said he was planning a Beatles film to follow his documentary series Get Back.