It’s been 21 years since Elijah Wood last trekked the wilds of New Zealand, but somehow he found himself doing it again — under very different circumstances.

In the newly released comedy adventure film Bookworm, Wood plays Strawn Wise, an unsuccessful magician and absent father of the bookish young Mildred (Nell Fisher). Strawn flies to New Zealand to meet her for the first time after an accident puts Mildred’s mother into a coma, and finds himself unwittingly pulled into Mildred’s quest to find the mythical Canterbury panther, despite being woefully unequipped for the trek.

“The idea of getting to play a character like that in the context of a movie like that… and then go back to New Zealand to shoot in the wilds of New Zealand, the entire proposal was pretty attractive,” Wood tells Inverse.

Elijah Wood found himself wearing a wig in New Zealand again.

Rialto Distribution

The last time Wood hiked through New Zealand was, of course, while shooting Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, the franchise that launched Wood to superstardom. When I cautiously broached the topic with Wood, knowing that he’s had to talk about the franchise in every interview he’s ever done, the actor was surprisingly game to gush about the upcoming Hunt for Gollum, which is bringing back Andy Serkis as the tortured victim of the One Ring.

“I am excited,” Wood says. “I am obviously a fan of the creative team. I’m invested because it is the same creative team behind Lord of the Rings.”

The Hunt for Gollum is being produced by Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, who were all involved in Jackson’s original Rings trilogy. Serkis, meanwhile, is set to direct The Hunt for Gollum, a prospect Wood is excited about.

“It’s revisiting that character, giving Andy a movie to direct… There’s no better person to shepherd that particular movie than the person who really created that character and knows that character through and through,” Wood says. “It just feels like getting the band back together in a really cool way for a really unique piece.”

Elijah Wood with Peter Jackson, Andy Serkis, and Viggo Mortensen at the Return of the King premiere.

Junko Kimura/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Wood doesn’t share some of his fellow cast members’ cynicism for the new Gollum movie, or for the other new movies set in Middle-earth being planned by Warner Bros. He does, however, believe that they can succeed in one scenario.

“I think the idea of there being more films in that universe is only exciting if it’s being shepherded by Pete, Fran, and Philippa and the rest of their creative universe in New Zealand,” Wood says, acknowledging that Rings of Power, now being filmed in the United Kingdom, is “its own thing.”

Wood continues, “When it comes to, and I think we’re all a little bit sensitive to this, this world of trying to make more films within a certain kind of franchise, there can be a degree of cynicism associated with it. There can be this sort of, ‘Oh, f***, are they going to mess the thing up that I love? Is it just this kind of cash grab to exploit a specific thing?’”

But Wood says he has faith in Jackson and is excited to see what comes next — as a fan (Frodo, after all, has nothing to do with Gollum’s story at this point in the timeline). “Apparently, there’s going to be another couple of movies all telling new stories within that universe, adjacent to the Lord of the Rings,” Wood says. “Honestly, there’s so many different stories they could tell, so I’m excited to see what comes of it.”