Frodo Baggins - Adaptations

Adaptations

In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo was voiced by Christopher Guard. Billy Barty was the model for Frodo, as well as Bilbo and Sam, in the live-action recordings Bakshi used for rotoscoping.

In the 1980 Rankin/Bass animated version of The Return of the King, made for television, the character was voiced by Orson Bean, who had previously played Bilbo in the same company's adaptation of The Hobbit.

In the 1981 BBC radio serial of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is played by Ian Holm, who later played Bilbo in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

In the 1993 television miniseries Hobitit by Finnish broadcaster Yle, Frodo is played by Taneli Mäkelä.

In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001-2003) directed by Peter Jackson, Frodo is played by American actor Elijah Wood. The timeline in Jackson's movie trilogy is simplified and much shorter than in the novel; in the movie Frodo sets out on his adventure a few months after inheriting Bag End and Bilbo's possessions, including the One Ring. Consequently he is the same age as his friends Sam, Merry and Pippin, when he begins his adventure. However, this portrayal is accurate; due to the influence of the Ring, Frodo is described as looking like a "robust and energetic hobbit just out of his tweens", and as such would appear to be of a similar age to the three younger hobbits. Dan Timmons writes in the Mythopoeic Society's Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings (Mythopoeic Press, 2005) that the themes and internal logic of the Jackson films are undermined by the portrayal of Frodo, whom he considers a weakening of Tolkien's original. Elijah Wood reprises his role of Frodo in the three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit (2012-2014).

On stage, Frodo was portrayed by James Loye in the three-hour stage production of The Lord of the Rings, which opened in Toronto in 2006, and was brought to London in 2007. In the United States, Frodo was portrayed by Joe Sofranko in the Cincinnati productions of The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003) for Clear Stage Cincinnati. In Chicago, Patrick Blashill played Frodo in the Lifeline Theatre production of The Two Towers in 1999.