Ian McKellen’s website McKellen.com has posted 10 of Ian McKellen’s “additional dialogue recordings” for his character, Gandalf, for the Return of the King.
The site goes into detail saying, “The final work for the leading actors in The Lord of the Rings was not in front of a camera, but in the confines of a recording studio, reading lines of dialogue into a microphone: “additional dialogue recording” or ADR. During actual filming, the quality of sound was often inadequate. Sometimes, too, changes might be made during ADR to clarify or improve dialogue. To simplify the process, the actors worked individually, using cue sheets that contained only the lines they were to record, rather than the complete script. As they watched the film on screen, they spoke their lines. Much of this work was done in London; the ADR cue sheets below are selected from Ian McKellen’s final ADR sessions for Return of the King in October 2003. They demonstrate that right up to the last minute, the script was being refined to create some of the most memorable moments in the film.”
