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Peter Jackson says he considered hypnosis to forget making 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy

Peter Jackson in a burgundy shirt and black jacket
Peter Jackson at the world premiere of "Mortal Engines" on November 27, 2018 in London, England.ANTHONY HARVEY/AFP via Getty Images
  • Peter Jackson said he felt like he missed the experience of watching "Lord of the Rings" as a fan.

  • The director said that he considered hypnosis to forget making the movies.

  • Jackson told The Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" podcast he even spoke to a mentalist.

"The Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson admitted that he once thought about hypnosis to forget making the hit movies so he could watch them for the first time as a fan.

Jackson directed, adapted, and wrote the screenplays for the hit fantasy movie trilogy, and its prequel "Hobbit" trilogy, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's books of the same name.

Despite the movies' massive success, including receiving winning three Oscars and receiving an additional four nominations, Jackson told The Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" podcast last week that his one regret was not being able to watch the films as a fan.

"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," the award-winning director said. "By the time they were screening, I was immersed in it for five or six years. It was such a loss for me not to be able to see them like everyone else."

The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf in "The Fellowship of the Ring."New Line Cinema / Warner Bros

Jackson continued: "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. I didn't follow through with it, but I did talk to [British illusionist] Derren Brown about that and he thought he could do it."

The filmmaker added that he was looking forward to watching the upcoming Amazon series, "The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power," as a "perfectly neutral viewer."

In the podcast episode, Jackson also said that he was asked to read scripts for the upcoming show, which is set thousands of years before Jackson's movies, but they never arrived.

"They asked me if I wanted to be involved — [writer-producer Fran Walsh] and I — and I said, 'That's an impossible question to answer without seeing a script.' So they said, 'As soon as we get the first couple scripts, we'll send them to you.' And the scripts never showed up," he explained.

In a statement to THR, Amazon Studios said the new series had to be kept separate from the film trilogy, which is owned by Warner Bros.

Read the original article on Insider