The extremely charming Mark Ferguson became famous with TV- rather than movie appearances. In NZ he gained some sort of cult status with his roles in 'Hercules' and 'Shortland Street'. On stage Ferguson blossoms out and reciprocated his fans by not only letting himself being filmed but also filming wherever he was.

Q: Mr. Ferguson, in the LotR-movie you are starring as Gil Galad.
A: Not only that, I'm also one of the guys inside the armour of the Witchking of Angmar. The original actor had withheld his claustrophobia, even though he had been especially asked about that. He was put into the armour, took 3 steps and fainted. 'Okay,' the crew said, 'This is really a tough job.' They got him out, reassured him and tried again the next day. He took three steps and fainted. After that he didn’t keep this job, and because I've been in very tight costumes before on the show 'Xena' which was produced in NZ, I had no problem in taking over from him.

Q: When did you first came into contact with the book 'The Lord of the Rings'?
A: At school. Previously I had already read 'The Hobbit' - it was the first book I've read on my own. But I’ve read a lot of SF-books. Dune is great, and I have enjoyed movies like 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner' for a long time, and then there is ‘2001’ - as a teenager I saw it ten times.

Q: Did you prepare extensively for your fight scenes as Gil Galad?
A: Well, nothing in this world can prepare you for what it is like to be an elf. (laughs)
But for the fight scenes: oh yes! We were trained by the fencing teacher who once had taught Errol Flynn. A very old chap but amazing! We trained swordplay with him for two months. Unfortunately Gil Galad usually fights with a spear, that was more difficult. I guess the stuntmen who had to come up against me still have bruises today. (laughs)
Having Elrond as my captain was a blessing. I’ve known Hugo Weaving since we were 17 and took drum lessons together. We also both worked as extras at the opera, without singing but having to do a lot of swordplay. Of course, he's a little envious because I'm allowed to die gloriously in battle while his character has to live on contemptibly.
In the movie Gil Galad's death can only be guessed, for a second. A reason for that might be that actually Sauron almost killed me during the filming: the technician who controlled the right arm of Sauron's gigantic armour was had not much experience. He was supposed to lift me with the arm and throw me aside. This arm was a monstrous metal device with razor-sharp fingernails. We repeated it again and again and the only comment I received for my suffering was: "Could we do it again, and this time perhaps a little faster and with more action, please?" This guy made the arm grab me by the throat and squeeze - and this with its sharp claws. When he lifted me I fainted for the first time in my life. And when I woke up nobody was looking after me. Everyone was content with the scene since I had died anyway. (grins)

Q: How many extras were involved in the initial battle scenes between the army of Elendil and Gil Galad against Sauron and his orcs?
A: About 600. They built the complete front row - the warriors behind us were added by computer. My responsibility as a leader was enormous because the orcs had to be freed from their latex masks every twenty minutes to be enabled to breath properly again. That means, every mistake held up more than six hundred actors and extras and more than twice as many of the crew. For example, at the beginning I had to walk towards the orcs for about four minutes, and the camera followed my spear in a defined direction. After many attempts all was correctly adjusted - angle, height and so on - and then I stumbled over a stone on the ground and fell on my face - and the orcs had to get out and back into their make-up and we had to start all over again.
Actually, we filmed shortly before the beginning of winter at Mount Ruapehu, that is a real volcano in NZ. The weather conditions were quite rough, often the 'barren mountain ranges' suddenly became snow covered mountain ranges overnight and we had to interrupt filming and wait for better weather - often sitting around a fire in tents. Once the wind blew the tent we were resting in away and into an abyss.
Incidently, the volcano which is seen as ‘Mount Doom’ in the movie is sacred to the Maori so its top is never shown in the film, because no one is allowed to film it, not even Peter Jackson. The volcano in the movie was completely computer generated!
But chill and other adverse conditions could not deter Peter Jackson. He always chose the most beautiful locations. In the movie it all looks fantastic, but sometimes we got the impression that Peter always had stopped at the climatically worst places of NZ and said "Oh yes, this is exactly the spot where we have to film!" (laughs)

Q: Did you often have to show a special considerations for the locations?
A: Oh yes! Before filming on this volcano a special team carefully removed all the plants, kept them somewhere else, cared for them and after months of filming replanted them at exactly the same spot where they had been before. Sometimes we thought 'This moss has survived 400 years in the icy cold on the barren slope of an active volcano - it shouldn't mind someone stomping on it’. But modern New Zealanders have attitudes which faintly remind you of the nicer people in Tolkien's Middle Earth: the Maori have a strict hierarchy, a heredity of positions, a strong responsibility of the leader towards his people and many demons. Once, a highway in NZ was built around a certain area because a Taniwha, a mythic being, was said to live there.

Q: Was your costume very strenuous?
A: Not very much. However, I had to wear contact lenses because allt the elves in Gil Galad's army have blue eyes and I do not. But that was nothing compared to the orcs. All of them had giant contact lenses in their eyes, just monstrous. Whenever I threw an orc to the ground with my spear in the battle scenes, the poor extra cried out in pain. And poor Lurtz – at one occasion putting on his make-up took twelve (!) hours!

Q: During such a long-time production, how were the relationship between the actors?
A: Everyone - including the crew – was fantastic. Especially the actors who portrayed the members of the fellowship and those of the crew who were on the set practically all the time. My scenes have been comparatively short but my elves served me food, I was the king, after all. We really hated the orcs and enjoyed slaughtering them on screen.
Though some soccer and football matches were held between the actors of the orcs and the elves and they won most of the time - orcs had to be robust while the elves were delicate and fragile (grins).
Of course, a lot can happen in nine months: relationships begin and come to an end. Some wonderful friendships started. And by the end of the battle at Mount Doom a few people swore they never would get involved with any movie again whatsoever. (laughs)

Q: What was your first reaction to the movie “The Fellowship of the Ring”?
A: When I saw my few seconds on the screen I recalled all the week-long work and thought 'That's all?!' (laughs)
However, it’s a great film, it really moved me. And it should be mentioned that the whole sequence at the beginning of the “Fellowship” almost had been cut from the script and then Gil Galad wouldn’t have been in the movie at all. For he is more a famous hero, a myth, than an active character in the books. But Peter Jackson strongly supported the filming of the past history – and he won.

Q: What are you doing, having left Middle Earth?
A: I continue working as an actor, at the moment I’m starring in ‘Spin Doctors’, a satirical comedy drama TV series in NZ.

Mr. Ferguson, thank you for this interview.