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Lord of the Rings Throwback Photo Shows Cast Getting Matching Tattoos

The Fellowship gets tattoos.

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When filming wrapped up on The Lord of the Rings, most of the stars got matching tattoos of the number nine written in Elvish. This has been well-documented in the movie's special features and elsewhere. Now, Legolas actor Orlando Bloom has shared a throwback photo of when they got inked.

"tbt to when we all got tats cos we loved so much," Bloom wrote in his Instagram caption for the photo (via EW). Bloom, Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Dominic Monaghan (Merry), Billy Boyd (Pippin), Sean Astin (Sam), and Sean Bean (Boromir) each got the tattoo, though they are not all shown in this image. John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) did not, but his stunt double did.

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Monaghan told Entertainment Weekly earlier this year that, at first, only himself, Wood, Boyd, and Astin were going to get tattoos, considering ideas like the word "Brotherhood" or an image of the One Ring. After roping in Mortensen, McKellan, and the other members of the Fellowship, it was decided they would get the Elvish number nine.

According to Monaghan, Mortensen brought a lot of booze to the tattoo place to help numb the pain. As you can see in the image, the actors got their tattoos in different places.

"It was one of those beautiful moments, where we all felt like we had been through this war, this battle, together in a lot of different ways," Monaghan said. "That really brought together that family feeling."

It's been 13 years since the final Lord of the Rings film, 2003's The Return of the King, came out. Director Peter Jackson went on to make a Hobbit trilogy, which wrapped up with 2014's The Battle of the Five Armies.

No new entries in the series have been announced, but multiple J.R.R. biopics are in the works, according to The Hollywood Reporter. One of these, Tolkien & Lewis, will explore the author's relationship with Narnia writer C.S. Lewis and how he helped convert Lewis to Christianity. The other, called Tolkien, is more of a straightforward story about how he came to write the beloved fantasy series.

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