Elves have this superhuman strength, yet they're so graceful. Tolkien created them to be angelic spirits, but I also saw Legolas as something out of the Seven Samurai.

When I was filming, I imagined that Legolas was a meditative character who was very thoughtful and had a certain amount of depth to him. I started working on trying to find this focus that Legolas has, which wasn't really like me.

Eomer: What business does an Elf, a Man, and a Dwarf have in the Riddermark? Speak quickly!
Gimli: Give me your name, Horse-master, and I shall give you mine.
Eomer: [dismounts his horse] I would cut off your head, Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground.
Legolas: [fits an arrow to his bow at
lightning speed] You would die before your stroke fell.
[Rohirrim point their spears at Legolas]
Aragorn: [signals for Legolas to lower his weapon] I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn. This is Gimli, son of Glóin, and Legolas of the Woodland Realm. We are friends of Rohan, and of Théoden, your King.
Eomer: Théoden no longer recognizes friend from
foe. Not even his own kin.
[takes off helmet]
Eomer: Saruman has poisoned the mind of the king and claimed lordship over these lands. My company are those loyal to Rohan, and for that we are banished. The White Wizard is cunning. He walks here and there, they say, as an old man hooded and cloaked. And everywhere his spies slip past our nets.
Aragorn: We are no spies. We track a party of Uruk-Hai, westward across the plain. They have taken two of our friends captive.
Eomer: The Uruks are destroyed. We slaughtered them during the night.
Gimli: But there were two Hobbits! Did you see two Hobbits with 'em?
Aragorn: They would be small. Only children
to your eyes.
Eomer: We left none alive. We piled the carcasses and burned them.
Gimli: Dead?
Eomer: I am sorry.
[Éomer whistles a signal]
Eomer: Hasufel! Arod! May these horses bear you to better fortune than their former masters. Farewell.
[puts on helmet, mounts his horse]
Eomer: Look for your friends. But do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands.

Narzug: [to Legolas and Thranduil] Your world will burn.
Legolas: What are you talking about? Speak!
Narzug: Our time has come again. My master serves the one. Do you understand now, Elfling? Death is upon you! The flames of war are upon you.

Thranduil: Legolas said you fought well today. He's grown very fond of you.
Tauriel: I assure you, my Lord, Legolas thinks of me as not more than a captain of the guard.
Thranduil: Perhaps he did once. Now I'm not so sure.
Tauriel: I do not think that you would allow your son to pledge himself to a lowly
Silvan elf.
Thranduil: No... You are right, I would not. Still, he cares about you. Do not give him hope where there is none.

Kili: [Kili hears the elves having a feast up above them in the kingdom] Sounds like quite a party you're having up there
Tauriel: It is Mereth Nuin Giliath; The Feast of Starlight. All light is sacred to the Eldar, but the Wood Elves love best the light of the stars.
Kili: I always thought it is a cold light, remote and far away.
Tauriel: It is memory, precious and pure.
[they look at each other for a moment]
Tauriel: Like your promise.
[she holds his stone in her hand and he takes it back, she turns and looks up]
Tauriel: I have walked there sometimes, beyond the forest and up into the night. I have seen the world fall away and the white
light forever fill the air.
Kili: I saw a fire moon once. It rose over the pass near Dunland. Huge! Red and gold it was, it filled the sky. We were an escort for some merchants from Ered Luin, they were trading in silverwork for furs. We took the Greenway south, keeping the mountain to our left, and then it appeared. This huge fire moon lighting our path. I wish I could
show you...
[as Tauriel sits next to his cell to listen to his story we see Legolas standing above where the cells are located, not looking happy as he listens to them]