It is Arwen's deep love for Aragorn that sustains the heroic warrior through the desperate struggles of the War of the Ring and which will bring her, at last, to make a terrible choice: whether to pass into the Undying Lands of the West with her father and the other Elven folk or to remain with Aragorn in Middle-earth, where she would become of mortal kind and eventually die.
It is fitting that the role of Arwen should go to an actress now ranked among the leading beauties of contemporary cinema. Making her debut in Bruce Beresford's Silent Fall, Liv Tyler played leading roles in films such as Empire RecordsandHeavy before recieving critical attention in 1996 for her performance in Stealing Beauty, from the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, a film that had cinema commentators comparing her with the young Elizabeth Taylor to the extent of breifly renaming her "Liv Taylor".
After a successful appearance in Tom Hanks' directoral debut, That Thing You Do!, Tyler costarred with Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in Armageddon, a film that won her roles in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, in the period romance-romp Punkett & Macleane and opposite Ralph Fiennes in the film of Alexander Pushkin's Onegin. She recently appeared in One Night at McCool's opposite Matt Dillon, and was reunited with Robert Altman when she starred in the critically acclaimed Dr.T and the Women with Richard Gere.
Tyler was very conscious of starring in a film dominated by male characters: "I see it as an honor to be one of only a few women in the picture and to bring the feminine touch to the story."
Arwen, however, is an unconventional woman, and her love affair with Aragorn is set against the threatening backdrop of war. "So she has to be patient and supportive and let him go off and do the things that he has to do. But she is impatient, too. When you're in love, you want to spend all your time with that person, and she finds it difficult that they can't be together."
Born in New York and raised in Portland, Maine, prior to returning to Manhattan, Liv Tyler was required to adopt and English accent for the role of Arwen. She also had learn to speak in Elvish and move as an Elf maiden might: "I had to carry myself in a certain way and be aware of my breathing. It was a challenge for me as an American speaking in a British accent, but as an Elf I had to be so erect and centered and to move effortlessly and gracefully.
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