Elijah Wood Presents Peter Jackson with Honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes

 Director Peter Jackson received an honorary Palme d’Or on Tuesday night as the 2026 Cannes Film Festival kicked off at the Palais Grand Lumiére.

The famous filmmaker joked that he never thought of himself as a "Palme kinda guy," but said Cannes had changed his mind. He accepted the award from Elijah Wood, who starred as Frodo Baggins in Jackson’s massive Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In his tribute, Wood looked back on the "life-changing" moment he first found out he’d landed the role of Frodo.

His words:“I sat down on the floor of my bedroom and knew my life had been divided into before and after,” he told the audience.

 Praising Jackson’s journey from New Zealand to global acclaim, Wood noted that the filmmaker came from a country that “barely had a film industry at all” at the time. “But in true Pete fashion, that was not about to hold him back,” he added. “When I was just 18 years old, The Lord of the Rings was not just the beginning of Frodo’s journey, but the beginning of my own.”

Jackson also looked back on his early days, remembering how he spent four years filming his first feature, Bad Taste, at the weekends while working as a photo engraver in New Zealand.