In a bizarre revelation, Elijah Wood, who played Frodo in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has said that one of the orcs in the films was directly based on the rapist Harvey Weinstein.

The orc in question is arguably the most repulsive, distorted, and horrific of the entire trilogy: a grey, putrid lump with thin wiry strands of hair snaking out from its head. Not a flattering portrait of the former Hollywood producer who is currently serving a 23-year sentence at New York state prison for a number of sexual abuse offences.

Wood said the move to model an orc on Weinstein was “sort of a fuck you”. Speaking on the actor Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, he added: “It’s funny, this was recently spoken about because Dom and Bill, (who played Hobbits Merry and Pippin) were talking to Sean Astin (Samwise) about his first memory of getting to New Zealand.”

“He had seen these orc masks. And one of the orc masks – and I remember this vividly – was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as a sort of a fuck you. I think that is OK to talk about now,” Wood said. “The guy is fucking incarcerated. Fuck him.”

The Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, reportedly had difficulties with Weinstein in his efforts to get the mammoth trilogy off the ground. Jackson wanted to make at least two films, but Weinstein, who co-founded Miramax where the films were first developed, asked him to cram all three books into one film. At one stage, he also threatened to replace him with Quentin Tarantino.

Knowing Weinstein didn’t share the vision for the project, the Lord of the Rings team reportedly leaked the scripts to other studios, resulting in it being picked up by Bob Shaye, founder of New Line Cinema, who agreed to shoot all three films.