There was just a story out last week about Viggo Mortensen complaining about Peter Jackson and his growing reliance on special effects through the making of the LOTRs trilogy. The first pic, good experience; then, all CG all the time. Mortensen seems to think it hurt the storyline and film.
The actor playing Gandalf almost quit in tears because acting all alone in a green room, to portray chatting with a quaint roomful of dwarves, was not anywhere close to why he acts.