Elijah Wood on ‘Bookworm’ and why he still loves Austin

The new film “Bookworm” opens with a disclosure that there are no man-eating predators in New Zealand, at least not on the land. But that didn’t stop filmmaker Ant Timpson from making a movie centered around the search for a mythical panther.

The film is also about a developing relationship between a girl and her estranged father, played by Elijah Wood.

And whether it’s because there’s just a little bit scary in the film or because both Timpson and Wood have made strange movies before, the family-friendly “Bookworm” has been embraced by genre film festivals.

It premiered in the U.S. at Austin’s Fantastic Fest and it’s hitting theaters more widely Oct. 18. We caught up with the two while they were in Austin. Listen to the interview in the audio player above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity.

Texas Standard: Elijah, you lived in Austin for a couple of years. Were we not “keeping it weird” enough for you?

Elijah Wood: Oh I love it. I love it here. It still feels like home. I’ve got family here and come here every year.

So it – yeah, I don’t know. I had a house here for five years. I spend most of my time in Los Angeles, so the house just didn’t make sense anymore. But I still spend time here. I love it. Austin’s a great, great place.

Thank you, we like to hear that. And we know one thing that draws you back is Fantastic Fest, where you can find plenty of weird. So it wasn’t pulling your arm to get you back here for the U.S. premiere?

Elijah Wood: No. Any excuse to get to Austin!

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And same for you, Ant? You’ve had several films that have passed through Fantastic Fest. Is it a scene that just understands you?

Ant Timpson: They get me.

To have a film like this, which is really unusual, it’s a family-friendly movie. And I’m usually involved with films with slightly darker edges to them.

That’s exactly where I was going to go. So this is “Bookworm” we’re talking about. There’s plenty of strange, but it’s also a lot of sweet. So after something like your film “The Greasy Strangler” or “The ABCs of Death,” how do you get to this family story?

Ant Timpson: I think it was – I work with a writer called Toby Harvard, who also wrote “The Greasy Strangler,” and the film that Elijah and I did called “Come to Daddy.” And it was kind of based on something that happened to me in my family where I was supposed to be like the heroic movie character. And I didn’t. I dropped the ball considerably.

So that’s where the whole idea of the story came out with an estranged father and his young daughter – two fish-out-of-water who, you know, have issues with each other. Put them together under intense pressure and see how it all goes.

And it’s a throwback to those sort of family films where they’re not message-based. They don’t pander to kids and hopefully families can enjoy it.

Well, Elijah, I’m pretty familiar with your work. I’m not sure I’ve seen every single thing, but is this the first time you’ve played a dad on screen?

Elijah Wood: I think it is. Yeah.

You’re a dad in real life – how was it to play this role? You kind of can do the young – I think you’ve gotten to do that for a long time. And you play these sort of strange characters sometimes, but a dad who also, we should point out, is pretty strange.

Elijah Wood: He is. Yeah. And not particularly adept at being a father yet.

I mean, we’re watching a character who isn’t a father, comes to New Zealand to sort of be there for his estranged daughter that he’s never met and, you know, tries to rise to the occasion to be a father. But he’s not really.

And it’s really over the course of this journey that they have out in the wilderness of New Zealand that he starts to learn how to be a dad and sort of, you know, they develop a really lovely relationship. But I didn’t have to rely on any of my own experience of being a father to play him. He’s kind of useless.

So you got to go back to New Zealand for this film, which fans know you shot “The Lord of the Rings” movies there. It’s a pretty special country, I think, in general. But is it especially special to you?

Elijah Wood: It is. I mean, I spent, you know, formative years of my life in New Zealand.

I was 18 when we started shooting “Lord of the Rings.” I was 22 when all was said and done. So the better part of four years and, you know, formative years of growth in my life as a human being. So it imprinted on me in a really particularly special way. And it has always felt like another home to me.

I love the people there. I love the natural beauty of the country and I have such deep roots there. So it does feel like an extension of, you know, the world of my life. And that was a really attractive idea to kind of go back to New Zealand and make this sort of movie. It was a thrill.

The beauty of the country is really featured here. It’s a story that played, I don’t know, like 90% outdoors, right? Ant, was that something that was part of the very beginning of the idea?

Ant Timpson: Yeah. And I just threw it back to when I was a kid. And, you know, those days where we weren’t cotton wooled and there was no parental supervision and we just ran wild.

So I had that sort of freedom as a kid in the 70s and just a kind of – yeah, it’s a tribute to that era where everything seemed more mysterious and more adventurous. There was no tech. You can’t just Google what’s over the mountain. You had to actually go over the mountain. So, yeah, it’s a love letter to that time.

Nell Fisher and Elijah Wood in “Bookworm.” (Courtesy Vertical)

So coming to theaters Oct. 18. What do you want folks to know? I mean, this is a movie for the whole family. There are some, kind of, little bit scary elements, but I don’t know. It’s fun. Would you take your kids?

Elijah Wood: I would. In fact, my son sat through the entire premiere at [Fantasia International Film Festival] up in Canada and I wasn’t sure if he could handle it, if it would be too scary. Because there is panther action in the film and he loved it. So that’s a five-year-old. It’s kind of amazing.

There’s a weirdness and an appeal to our – and older generation – that sort of is an undercurrent to the storytelling.

Ant Timpson: I love how you put me in your generation. That’s so kind of you.

Elijah Wood: I said “our and older…”

You know what I mean? Like there’s sort of something for everybody in this particular film. It is also just really funny and it’s heartwarming. It’s charming. It kind of has everything.

That’s quite some high praise, Ant, but anything else you would add for potential moviegoers out there?

Ant Timpson: No. I mean, just as a parent, I used to take my kids to films and just – I suffered through them. Like I just found them so… Like the fast food tie-ins… I don’t know. They just seemed like very sort of homogenized products, right?

So I just felt like this, for me, it’s something that I’m surprised that it’s playing at these genre festivals to, you know, 25-to-35 kind of audiences that I just didn’t think would be the audience for this film.

And then I’ve been going out to do a lot of Q&As in New Zealand and talking to the young kids who go to it. And the ones who really connect are the ones who do read and they sort of align with the bookworm.

But it’s also – kids seem to love other children sort of dominating adult figures and sort of like having their own authority and their own agency and not being like the small kid who’s the sidekick. They’re front and center. And I think that really appeals to kids and also to adults who are like minded in a way – who’ve never grown out of that kind of sense of wonder.

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