IGN, December 2003 : "I had to agree to be as heavy, as fat, as I've ever been in my life for the year-and-a-half that I was down there. And that was physically painful and emotionally trying, because when I think of myself or when I look in the mirror, I want to see a guy who's in good shape and is sort of a leading man – and for a year-and-a-half, the guy looking back at me in the mirror was this fat, chubby, kind of insecure guy. That was painful. And also, my energy level and my ability to protect myself – when you're fat, it's hard to bend over and tie your shoes. It's a hard way to go through a year-and-a-half, let me tell ya."

People Magazine, 2002 : About his role as Samwise Gamgee : "I was like, I can be fat !"

Pavement Magazine, October 09, 2000 : "As I was reading the books, I was reading them with an eye towards Sam, but he's just got such a warm, honest, pure good-hearted essence. And that's his position in the films and in the book. It’s to be a kind of barometer against which all of the adventure and evil is measured. Sam has an unfaltering moral compass. He always knows who he is. As all the different characters, with all their different complexities, change and evolve and grow or fail, Sam just is... good. He has a level of experience at the end of the trilogy that he didn't have at the beginning that informs his goodness. It makes his goodness that much more admirable. It's easy to be naive and innocent and good but it's another thing to have been embattled and, despite all of the trials and tribulations of an epic adventure, to remain good of heart."

'Sam I am' Interview - LOTR Fan Club Official Movie Magazine :  Q : "How did you go about gaining the weight ?"
Sean Astin : "I just didn't watch what I ate. I ate anything and everything that I wanted. I did a lot of weight-lifting right away, and didn't run a lot. But I stopped weight-lifting, because once you have the prosthetic feet and ears on , you don’t want to move around too much, because your sweat can loosen the glue, and the feet can come off. So I had 15-hour days of sitting still and eating."

Q : "Why is the part of Sam so perfect for you?"
Sean Astin : "Well, a lot of people ask me, "Was is hard to play someone who's quiet and loyal, who's patient and perseveres, and who is decent and good ?" The genuine, honest answer in my heart is no, it's not hard, because I feel like that's who I am. The qualities in Sam that I so admire are qualities that I think everybody has in them, and they are certainly the parts of myself that I'd want to focus on. I also knew from the beginning that Elijah Wood was playing Frodo, so I never looked at the stories and wondered, "Who could I be ? Could I be Aragorn, or Frodo or Legolas ?" That was never a question. They saw me as Sam, and that's how I was introduced to this world, so it's almost like that's the only thing I ever could be."

About Hobbits : "I was very careful in learning how to walk like a Hobbit, that it didn't get goofy. Hobbits aren't goofy - Hobbits are real. They're an earth-loving people. Tolkien was raging against the industrial revolution. The Hobbits are a species of the earth, and there's something magical that should be celebrated about that. To me, when you read the books you forget about the Hobbits' diminutive size. Halfway through the first book, I forgot that Frodo and Sam are little. Because as the reader, you're identifying with them. The audience will hopefully identify with us, because we're human-like. In fact, you could say Hobbits are the essence of all that's beautiful and poetic about the human form - as the Orcs are all that is ugly and bestial about the human form. The Hobbits are diminutive (compared) to the humans they stand next to, or the Elves that are fighting on their behalf, but once that gets stripped away, and you really live as a hobbit - as I have - you forget about being diminutive. The Hobbits have a kind of heroism, strength and size that's exactly the opposite of their physical description."

About Elvish : "The dialect was really hard for me. It wasn't just a straight Cockney accent. It became a West County-inspired hybrid of working class and rural English."

Q : "Had you read The Lord of the Rings before you got the part ?"
Sean Astin : "No. My whole experience of the trilogy was through the prism of preparing for the role of Sam. The first I ever heard of J.R.R. Tolkien, or of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was when my agent called to tell me there was a part in the new Peter Jackson film. She said, "It's The Lord of the Rings ! You know - they're the sequels to The Hobbit !" Somewhere in the back of my consciousness, I knew the word Hobbit, but I couldn't tell you what a hobbit was. I could have guessed it was a short-ish Smurf or dwarf or something, but I didn’t even know that for sure. But somehow I knew it was something I wanted to do. She said, "Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy for New Line." I heard, "Peter Jackson," "trilogy," and "New Line." I knew they were feature films and they were filming all three of them at once. I new it was going to be a huge, epic adventure. I just instantly got it. I didn't need to have it explained to me. There's a phrase, "There's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come," and that's how I felt. It was like someone turned on the light and I was already standing in the room. There are very few times in life when things are laid out for you like that."

Q : "I've heard you even got tattoos to cement your Fellowship."
Sean Astin : "I can confirm that I have a tattoo. Nine members of the Fellowship did get tattoos. We decided that it wasn’t going to be a publicity thing. We did it for us. I am so not the tattoo guy. If you would have asked me two years ago would I ever get a tattoo, I would have said absolutely, unequivocally, there will never be a tattoo on my body. But Elijah had this idea that the nine of us should do it, and I just couldn’t believe that I was going to get on a plane and leave, and not have any physical record of this experience. It was a great bonding thing for the nine."