Richard Taylor

Richard Taylor is the creator and head of New Zealand movie prop and special effects company Weta Workshop.

A close friend of Peter Jackson, he and his company created all of the props, costumes, prosthetics, miniatures and weaponry for Jackson's epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. For his work on the three films, he has shared in winning three Academy Awards.

Taylor can be seen and heard on all of the Lord of the Rings DVDs, in behind-the-scenes documentaries and on the audio commentaries on the extended edition DVDs. He even seems to have directed some of the trilogy's fight scenes.

He had a cameo with Peter Jackson and other crew members in The Return of the King Special Extended Edition as a Corsair pirate.