Elijah Wood claims Lord of the Rings orc was modeled after Harvey Weinstein

Weinstein initially owned the film rights to Tolkein’s books

Elijah Wood has claimed that an orc in Lord of the Rings was modeled after disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Wood made the revelation while being interviewed by Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast.

He told the comedian and actor: “One of the orc masks – and I remember this vividly – was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as a sort of a f*** you.”

Wood, who played Frodo Baggins in the trilogy of movies, added: “I think that is OK to talk about now, the guy is f***ing incarcerated. F*** him.”

Weinstein’s company, Miramax, was the initial holder of film rights to JRR Tolkein’s book series but the company and director Peter Jackson could not agree on budgets and how many films would be in the series.

Miramax allowed Jackson to take the movie to other studios if he could make it happen over one weekend and if the other studio agreed to make all three films at once. Weinstein did not expect him to be able to land a deal.

New Line Cinema agreed to make the trilogy which went on to gross billions at the box office. As a result of the deal and with the films becoming so successful, Weinstein made millions.

Accusations against the movie mogul were first reported in 2017 (Getty)

Weinstein was once one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood before being found guilty of numerous charges of sexual assault.

He was subsequently sentenced to 23 years in prison and awaits further charges.