Peter Jackson has revealed he “seriously considered” getting hypnosis because he wanted to forget all his work on the Lord of the Rings films.
Jackson’s trilogy of fantasy adventure films, based on the novels by JRR Tolkien and released between 2001 and 2003, grossed nearly $3bn (approx £2.5bn) worldwide and won 10 Academy Awards.
The filmmaker told The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast that he wanted to wipe his memories of the franchise so he could watch them like a regular 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 coming-out-of-the-blue films,” Jackson said.
“By the time they were screening, I was immersed in them for five or six years. It was such a loss for me not be able to see them like everyone else.
“I actually did seriously consider going to some hypnotherapy guy to hypnotise 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 mentalist] Derren Brown about that and he thought he could do it.”
Jackson added that he will be able to enjoy Amazon’s new mega-budget prequel series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, as he has not worked on it.
In the same interview, Jackson said that Amazon never sent him scripts forThe Rings of Power – despite telling him they would.
The Rings of Power will be released on Amazon Prime Video on 2 September.
