Green Street Hooligans
An Interview With Elijah Wood

Since the Lord of the Rings series, Elijah Wood has really been off the big screen. But he hasn’t stopped shooting movies. In fact, he’s shot 4 films since his time in New Zealand. One, being Green Street Hooligans, where Elijah plays an American who travels to London after being kicked out of college. The moment he gets off the train, he’s thrown into the world of football (don’t call it soccer), and not playing the game – fighting the fans.

Hooligans is directed by Lexi Alexander, who is a world class karate and kickboxing champion so she knows how to fight. And she knows what fights should look like; training for the fighting scenes were crazy:

Elijah Wood: “I didn’t get hurt; it was actually intense training two weeks prior to going to London with Pat Johnson, who was our trainer. During those two weeks of rehearsals, we were all together choreographing the fights. It was a lot of fun to be trained, male and masculine. We all thought those days of shooting would be the easiest, but they were the most exhausting; those scenes actually took the longest to make it look manic and make it look chaotic. The last fight actually took two days to shoot, there was only one major injury.”

So does Elijah think he could handle himself in a fight:

Elijah Wood: “Yeah, I think I could; I’m certainly not looking for it, but not bad.”

Elijah was brought to London after the rest of his cast-mates, however, he didn’t feel alienated being the last one there:

Elijah Wood: “No, the experience of traveling to London for those two weeks for rehearsal was incredible. It very much mirrored what my character went through; an American, who had never been exposed to football before and getting to know these guys, it was sort of perfect. For me, I didn’t need to put in as much research because my character comes in not knowing about the culture and so innocent. But it really cemented the guys and we became a real unit which is important.”

The real question is if Elijah is now a football fan:

Elijah Wood: “I appreciate it a lot more, just going to the matches is really electrifying, it’s like no other sporting event I’ve ever been to; but largely, I don’t follow sports.”

In his free time, Elijah has started his own record label; he told us a little about it:

Elijah Wood: “I’ve always been really passionate about music, and a few years ago I thought how interesting it would be to start a label; I love music and it would be fun to find bands that I’m really interested in and be a part of that process of putting out music. The people who I have now are friends, but the style of music will be varied because my taste in music is varied.”

Green Street Hooligans also stars Charlie Hunnam, of Cold Mountain and Undeclared fame. It rumbles into theaters September 9th, rated R