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Rejoice
! Peter Jackson delivers The Return of the King, and we
toast the trilogy's heart and soul : Elijah Wood and his band of
merrymaking hobbits.
Hobbits are cute.
And
short.
And
filled with joy.
And they're
currently charging into Los Angeles's Woo Lae Oak, a Korean
restaurant that they frequent when they're in town, looking
wide-eyed and excited.
Playfully
jostling one another, Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy
Boyd enthusiastically descend upon a large booth that nearly
envelops them. The fourth hobbit, Sean Astin, soon joins us to
chow down on strips of meat, shrimp, scallops, and mushrooms,
washed down with large bottles of beer. "Hmmm, hobbits
like mushrooms," Astin says sweetly, with an
English-inflected accent, channeling his character, Samwise
Gamgee.
When Wood excuses
himself from the table, Monaghan cocks his head and seizes the
moment. "All right. While Elijah's away..." he says,
looking over his shoulder as Wood disappears.
"He cried
a lot," Astin confides, speaking of Wood's experience
spending 15 months shooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy
in New Zealand.
"He was
always crying," Astin continues as Boyd shakes his head,
looking grim. "We were always consoling him."
"He
missed his mom. He missed L.A.," agrees Monaghan. "He
had a blanket that he forgot."
Astin adds,
"He would say, 'I don't think I can make it, you know, I...'"
"'...need
you guys, I need you,'" Monaghan completes the sentence
with a frown.
"'Nobody
understands me,'"Astin continues. "Sad, really.
Pitiful."
"Am I
straight ? Am I gay ? Why am I confused ?" Monaghan says,
imitating his fellow hobbit.
"Why won't
Dom touch me anymore ?" Astin says.
"Why do I
feel this way ?" Monaghan echoes.
"Why
won’t he look at me that way ?" Astin whines. "For
the first three months, it was constant attention—and now what ?"
"Do you
know if Billy's single ?" Monaghan recalls Wood saying.
"Do you know..."
Before your mind
races to images of hobbits in hot homosexual embrace (actually, a
popular subject on the Internet), bear in mind the British
expression, "to take the piss," meaning to make
fun of someone in a playful, ironic way. It'll take you a long way
to understanding what it's like to be in a room with these guys.
The Lord of
the Rings has many faces : pretty-boy Legolas, played by
Orlando Bloom; Viggo Mortensen's hardened ranger, Aragorn; the
ethereal women, played by Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto, and Cate
Blanchett; and the lovable genius behind it all-New Zealand
director Peter Jackson. But it's the hobbits-these four leading
lads who make up the heart of this grand epic-whom we've seen most
persistently, trotting down red carpets; smiling for
photographers; in group hugs at awards shows, premieres, and other
star-studded events. Their friendship has become part of
pop-culture lore : There have been countless stories telling how
they would go surfing together, how they all got the same elvish
tattoo, went bungee-jumping, and DJed at clubs in Wellington.
"The
power of the bonds that we've all talked about to so many
different reporters is unimpeachable," Astin says. "And
I think people who are interested in The Lord of the Rings have
one of two extreme attitudes about it. One is they just love the
idea of the bonds that were forged among the cast. The other
extreme is this sort of dismissive, out-of-hand 'It couldn't be
that good : That's a good story but I’m sure that there's a more
seedy truth.'
"My
feeling is that it's complicated. Most interviews don’t focus on
the complexity of the relationships. And so we always fell back on
something that's true : That it was an unbelievable experience; it
was the most meaningful, the most powerful, the most close that
you could ever imagine."
'The Lord of the
Rings' has been wondrously stretching the limits of imagination
ever since J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world of men, elves, and
dwarves fighting an epic battle between good and evil hit
bookstores in the mid-fifties. The general consensus is that
Jackson's film adaptations of the first two segments of the saga, The
Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, continue
that tradition, having stretched the limits of cinematic
possibility. And for some of the real-life actors, the
experience of filming Rings went beyond their wildest
dreams.
"The film
has been life-changing for people who watch it, thinking, 'Wow,
this film's incredible-I've never seen anything like it,'"
Monaghan says. "But it was also a huge turning point in
all of our—the four hobbits-lives. It's profound what we all
went through."
The foursome
suspects that the genesis of their intense friendship-they were
asked to come to New Zealand before the rest of the principal cast-was
no accident. "We had become great friends within the first
two months of preproduction. It was an absolute blessing that we
were given that kind of time," Wood says. "'Cause
not only did it give us the chance to figure out the material and
understand the process of the film, but it gave us the opportunity
to form the relationships that were necessary to fulfill those
roles.
"Pete
related to hobbits the most. We embodied not only what he loved
most about the film but I think what he loves most about life-that
kind of carefree nature; the positivity, affection, friendship,
and warmth. When we came on the set, he was at his happiest."
And they're also
the characters whom audiences can identify with best. "They
can look at these guys and feel the reality of the film,"
Bloom says. "The hobbits are the audience's emotional
vehicle-they're the heart and soul of this film."
So, much as the
crafty old wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) handpicks the innocent
hobbit Frodo (Wood), who’s joined by his hobbit pals Sam
(Astin), Merry (Monaghan), and Pippin (Boyd), to defeat Sauron,
Jackson cast Wood, who was eagerly followed by his fellow actors
into a life-altering journey in a foreign land.
And it's coming
to a close-the third and final film, The Return of the King,
is due in theaters on December 17. Eager fans are burning up the
Internet, wondering whether Jackson will create the adequate
climax to his so-far masterpiece. But, on a personal level, what's
to become of these actors who've been so deeply moved by the
experience ? Usually, when a set breaks, the relationships also
unravel, and everyone moves on. But, three years later, these guys
still have hobbit juice-mixed precariously with equal parts
Generation X/Y mojo-pumping in their veins. As Monaghan lets a
fart rip during dinner, prompting Boyd to grab a spoon and dip it
in the air and say, "Yummm, I can taste your essence,"
one has to wonder, what's to become of the hobbits when there is
no more Middle-earth ?
PREMIERE :
Dom, weren't you telling me that there was a real boys club during
the making of the movie ?
Monaghan :
Yeah, how there were no women there.
Wood :
Well, Cate Blanchett came over.
Boyd : And
Orlando, who's quite feminine, was there.
Wood :
Yeah, he was kind of the girl of the group, wasn't he ?
Boyd : He
was a bit of the bitch.
Monaghan :
He would tidy up for us.
Boyd : We
had parties, and we'd dress him up in an apron.
Monaghan :
And he would have to clean up afterwards. Otherwise, he wouldn't
be invited to the party.
About this "taking
the piss"-it's rooted in the cross-the-pond humor of the
two Brits, Monaghan and Boyd. "In America, it's about
making people feel good. You know, it's like, 'Hey, good job, man,
good job." Whereas in England, it's 'You’re a dick,'"
Monaghan says. "I think when Elijah and Sean first turned
up in New Zealand, they didn't really know what was going on with
us, because all Billy and I did as soon as we met each other was
just fucking take the piss out of each other. Elijah used to get a
little bit freaked out. He was like, 'I don't know if these guys
like me.'"
On set, tough
love and roughhousing became a staple of behavior, with the
hobbits constantly sneaking up on one another, laying punches in
the kidney or slaps to the head. Joining them in the fray were
Mortensen, Bloom, and many of the other cast and crew. But not
everyone : Blanchett, who was only on set for three weeks, escaped
getting too sullied. "I was the queen of the elves : They
were terrified," she says. "They're all into
action figures. It's not a world that is my own."
During dinner,
the four are constantly finishing each other's sentences, riffing
off one another, listening respectfully when one is making a
serious point, and teasing someone when the point gets too
serious. In separate interviews with each hobbit, they're
constantly getting calls from one or the other (or from Bloom, who
dubs himself "an honorary hobbit" and who, by the way,
denies he wore an apron. "Maybe in their wet dreams,"
he says. "They're suffering from elf envy. But it's hard
when you're three foot six") and singing each other's
praises. They especially speak highly of one another's odors. They're
particularly proud of the smell of Boyd's farts, which,
apparently, is inhuman.
And then there
are the stories : There was the time that Monaghan and Wood
created a fake turd, which they placed on the front step of
Mortensen's trailer (as retaliation for Mortensen's sabotaging
Monaghan's trailer). Or, last year, when they were in Mexico to
visit Boyd, who was shooting Master and Commander, and they
bought Viagra and planned to spike a punch bowl (Boyd brought them
back to reason). One favorite memory is the night, just a few
months into shooting, when Wood challenged Monaghan to a drinking
contest at the Matterhorn, their regular drinking hole in
Wellington. The two downed six shots of Jägermeister each,
sending Wood into oblivion. They stumbled out of the bar, headed
over to New Zealand’s version of a 7-Eleven, and Wood entered
and screamed to an audience of late-night shoppers, "I
want porn and chocolate !" After the two acquired the
requisite booty, they went back to Monaghan's place, and according
to Wood, he passed out. According to Monaghan, he indulged-but he
admits to not liking chocolate.
Affectionate,
cheerful guys who love to tell stories of drunken nights... sounds
like "a merry folk... Their faces were as a rule
good-natured rather than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed,
red-cheeked, with mouths apt to laughter, and to eating and
drinking. And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and
heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times." That,
of course, is Tolkien describing hobbits in the Rings
prologue.
Referring to the
four actors as "the hobbits" comes quite naturally to a
journalist-as they often do so themselves. "They all
merged with their characters," says Mortensen, with whom
his younger costars enjoyed philosophizing, fishing, and monkeying
around. "I found, generally, that whenever I was around
the hobbits, I'd be laughing."
Embodying the
true hobbit spirit was a priority for the four, but first they had
to figure out what that really meant. "The innocence and
naïveté of the hobbits was something I was very intent on
capturing," Boyd says. "And a lot of that came
from watching children : If you watch a child who’s just
learning to talk, they’ll sit and look at someone as if they can
hear every word that they're saying, and understand it, but they're
not. That’s kind of the way Pippin is."
For Monaghan, an
important element was the physical affection. "They're
very childlike, and they're very emotional. And they have no
qualms about being loving to each other. Whatever they feel, they
go with, which I think is a really beautiful way to live."
But the childlike
descriptions don't sit well with all the hobbits. Astin, for one,
resents the implications. "I think Peter looked to the
hobbits to be a kind of comedic relief. If you look at the scene
in the Council of Elrond when I say"-Astin takes on a
goofy tone-"'Oh, you're not going anywhere without me.' To
me, that was over the line of being too hokey. And yet I think
Pete loved that. He loved the sweetness of that. There’s an
element of Sam's personality that's staunch and stoic and
reserved. And I preferred living in that space more than the Ralph
Bakshi [who created the ill-received animated version of Rings in
1978] interpretation of the hobbits."
Wood shakes his
head and smiles, suggesting he's heard this talk before. "I
was so proud to be a hobbit. I walked every day out on that set
with such pride. Not only did I love the characters and what
hobbits embodied, but I loved you guys."
"I just
wanted to make sure the hobbits were getting the respect,"
Astin says.
"I always
felt like we did," Wood responds, taking a bite of a
pickled vegetable. "And I think Sam’s innocence is
beautiful. A lot of Sam's comedy is the fact that he's just so
innocent and so pure."
Samwise Gamgee, the stalwart companion to Frodo, is best known for
his devotion to his friend. "Samwise Gamgee is a yeoman-the
enlisted soldier whose job is to be in service of the officer that
he’s working for. That's how Tolkien cast him," Astin
says, with marked pride. But there are many sides to Sam, and
Astin found himself, at times, at odds with Jackson on just how to
portray him.
Astin is a child
of Hollywood-his mother, Patty Duke, the famous '60s film and
television actor, "hardwired" him to deliver what a
director asks for. "My mom raised me to believe that you
hit your mark, you say your lines, until such time as the director
identifies himself as being unworthy. But Peter Jackson was never
going to fall into that category," Astin says. "[But]
I felt, interestingly, like I was psychologically caught between
Peter's conception of me and [Jackson's long-term girlfriend and
Rings coscreenwriter] Fran [Walsh]’s conception of me as a
hobbit."
Astin is
referring to how much of a roly-poly-aw-shucks hobbit Sam should
be. At the time of his audition tape, Astin weighed 160 pounds,
and Jackson encouraged him to gain weight. "I remember
being in their kitchen at one point, and Fran said, 'You don't
have to put on any more weight.' And I remember Peter just kind of
cocking his head and looking at me. It was all fun and games, but
this is the psychological battle that I was invested in for 15
months. When I was too big, it was like emotional trench warfare
with Peter. Only he wasn’t playing-he was focused on a different
front, making a big movie."
Eventually, Astin
reached 197 pounds. "I wanted to be perfect for Sam, but I
wanted to be the heroic Sam. When people say, 'Sam is the true
hero of this story,' I want to be able to have a nice respectful
detachment from that, but also a sense of confidence that maybe if
it is true, I can own that. And at 197, I don't. And at 184, 180,
178, I'm starting to. There were moments, like when Sam and Frodo
see the elves for the first time-that, to me, was the ideal look
for Sam. I'll tell you, until I lost 40 pounds, I couldn't see the
character anymore. All I could see was that fat fuck."
According to
Astin, Peter had originally wanted to cast an Englishman for his
part. "I think he resisted the idea of a Hollywood leading
man as being antithetical to the integrity of the spirit of the
character," he says. So the added weight, in Astin's
mind, was Jackson’s way of distancing his character from America's
celebrity machine. "I think Peter senses in me a potential
for being a Hollywood sellout," Astin says."So he
wanted me fat."
None of this is
news to his fellow hobbits. "Sean's a worrier. He's a
natural-born worrier," Monaghan says. "I think he
gets himself in too much trouble with his own mind."
Astin is
disarmingly open about his proclivity to worry, self-deprecatingly
revealing how he would count every hairy prosthetic foot he had
affixed to him and how he'd mark off the days until production
would be over—to the chagrin of everyone around him. "Everybody
mocks me," he says, "but it's easy to mock me."
Still, the other
hobbits have deep affection for him, even if he tends to be the
odd man out; the main cause of his estrangement is also part of
what they find so endearing-that he's the only family man in the
group. Astin brought both his wife and daughter to New Zealand for
the entire shoot.
"The
single greatest aspect of working on the movies was having them
with me. That was the best, bar none," says Astin, whose
young daughter, Alexandra, plays one of Sam’s children in Return.
"Being able to feel like I was succeeding as a father and
a husband by being able to give them this experience."
Being himself,
Astin does have a second thought : "Having said that,
there were real heart pangs about not being able to be one of the
Beatles, really. And I would play at it, but they can all drink me
under the table-including Elijah. They all carry themselves in the
nightclubby atmosphere with real panache. And I'm the Wal-Mart guy
: I'm the guy who when the sun comes up in the morning and shit's
got to get sorted out, I'm the go-to guy."
Frodo Baggins,
the ring-bearer, is the go-to hobbit when Gandalf realizes the
evil power of Sauron may only be defeated by the resilience of
goodness, rather than brute force. But as Frodo nears Mordor, the
power of the ring increasingly weighs upon him.
"I think
the hardest thing for Elijah to do was to dramatize Frodo's
internal psychological battle as the ring is taking effect,"
Astin says. "It's a huge thing for an actor to say, 'Okay,
it's month nine and I've had a nice weekend and now I have to
exist in this emotional place of total spiritual, emotional, and
psychological suffering at the snap of a finger."
Wood agrees.
"Frodo's journey up Mount Doom in Return of the King, and
what that does to him—it's literally where he’s at his end,"
he says."It's a fuckin' trippy thing to watch yourself so
deteriorated and so completely different from who you are."
Indeed, despite
being the most prominent name and the ostensible lead in an
ensemble cast, Wood was never a whiner or a prima donna, and he
never gave less than 100 percent, according to his fellow hobbits.
"Elijah is really optimistic about everything,"
Boyd says. "And he's pretty much up for anything."
Jackson could
rely on Wood's can-do spirit throughout the production : Wood was
fearless, whether it was revealing unguarded emotions for dramatic
scenes or abusing his body during stunts. His lack of inhibition
even extends to our dinner table conversation, where he suddenly
exclaims, with a laugh, "I was known around Wellington for
my large testicle. That's actually a great story." He
then tells about having suspected for years that something was a
bit... unbalanced, which led to fears of sterility and heaps of
self-denial, until, finally, he had his testicles checked in New
Zealand. Turns out, he's fine (no need to go into clinical
explanations here). When Monaghan and Astin express reservations
about Wood’s candor, he says : "I don't give a shit. I
had to go through that because I was so embarrassed about it. Now
it's funny. It's comedy."
Above ego and
self-interest, Wood loves good material-whether it's music (like
Radiohead or Yeah Yeah Yeahs; it's a passion he shares with
Monaghan), films, or storytelling-an unusual attribute in a
celebrity. "He is the famous one in the group,"
Boyd says, "so he's the one that people come over to and
ask for autographs. And I think Elijah's a great role model for
that. Seeing how he deals with it-he's always very noble."
Although Rings
has launched Wood to a whole new level of fame, he says the more
significant result has been the formation of a new network of
friends (which, in addition to the hobbits, includes Mortensen,
Bloom, and several of the crew). "Lijah's always been kind
of separate from the Hollywood set," Monaghan says.
"I think now that I live here and that Billy’s been
coming over, he's probably been going out more in L.A. than he
ever used to. Because he's got a few people that’s he's rolling
with."
Merry Brandybuck
is, in the book, the more scholarly of the hobbits. He's the one,
along with his best friend, Pippin, who was up the tree for most
of The Two Towers, and if you're having a hard time
identifying what else he does in the first two films, that’s
because Merry doesn't really stand out. The third film, however,
promises to show more of him. While Pippin rides off with Gandalf
to Gondor, Merry joins forces with King Théoden and the people of
Rohan for the climactic battle at Pelennor fields. "The
first time you see Merry in the whole trilogy, he's this cheeky
chappie," Monaghan says. "By the end of the third
movie, he’s gaunt and thin and pale with long hair and covered
in blood. And he doesn't really know who he is anymore. And, as an
actor, for that journey to take over a year to get there was
fuckin' unbelievable."
In almost every
group of friends, there is a loose cannon, the naughty one who
draws the others to the edge of bad behavior. In Tolkien's group
of four hobbits, however, there is no such individual. Among the
actors who play them, there is Monaghan.
"Dom is a
rake," Astin says, with mock foreboding. "A
rapscallion." Or, as Wood says : "There's a
virile swagger to Dom. He also brings a certain amount of cool and
style that’s different from everybody else."
Monaghan is quick
to own up to it. "I probably force people to party a
little bit more," he concedes. "I would usually
be the spark in the group. If there was an argument going to go on
between the four hobbits, which was rare, it would usually be with
me."
After principal
photography, the Manchester, England–raised actor moved to Los
Angeles, riding high on his Rings experience, but he
quickly came down to earth. "I had a terrible first year
in L.A." he says, "Oh, man-rubbish."
Monaghan arrived,
he recalls, thinking, "I'm going to come here and go for
auditions, I'm going to pick up a couple of jobs, and people are
going to be excited that I'm in Lord of the Rings. They'll want to
hang out." Instead, Monaghan found himself walking to
Bristol Farms, buying some sushi, playing Grand Theft Auto, and
going to bed-almost every day. "I was out in the
wilderness for probably about eight or nine good months,"
says Monaghan, who, without a car, didn't want to lean too heavily
on Wood or Astin.
"I was
pissed off and depressed, and I didn't really know why,"
he says. "For 25 years of my life, I'd always been pretty
positive and happy with my lot. And I just was having a hard time
processing."
He chalks it up
largely to the highs he'd had in New Zealand. Moving to the next
stage "was the comedown after what had defined me as a
person. I got to New Zealand when I was 21; I left when I was 22.
And I felt like I did most of my adult growing up there. And we
were all in this incredibly close, tight-knit brotherhood. And
then you leave..." Monaghan says. "And I don't
necessarily want to get treated like the king of the world, but I
wouldn't mind just a little bit of attention."
And the job
offers he was getting-"shitty horror movies"-didn't
help break the mood. “People are confused about which hobbit I
am," he says. "[imitating an American casting
agent] 'Are you the guy in the tree ? Are you the funny guy ?'
They can't define you, and that is essential in the job."
Meanwhile, Bloom's
career was skyrocketing, making Monaghan's situation feel worse.
"There was a point when I looked around and every single
person I knew was working : Billy was working on Master and
Commander; Orlando was flying; Sean, Elijah, and Viggo were all
working. I started getting a little bit ashamed."
Eventually, the
darkness lifted : Monaghan's dedication to various passions-painting,
yoga, surfing-as well as a couple of jobs (two British
productions) helped him move on. "When I look back on it
now, it was a beautiful year, actually. I had amazing insights in
the fog of depression," he says. "Now I'm just
back to being Dom again."
Monaghan
continues to rely on his friendships with the hobbits, especially
Boyd, with whom he has been writing an irreverent buddy-comedy
that has begun to garner interest from studios. "Billy and
I are very, very strongly connected," Monaghan says.
"When we are making each other laugh, I don't see anyone
else in the room."
Pippin Took is
known best from two scenes in the first film-one, when he asks
Aragorn about their dining schedule, inquiring about "second
breakfast," and the other, when he accidentally knocks a
skeleton down a well, bringing all-orcan fury upon the fellowship.
Pippin is the most impulsive, and clueless, of the hobbits. He's
also the best-natured.
Though the Rings
production was plagued by almost daily script rewrites, Boyd wasn't
phased. "I could enjoy that actually," says the
Scotsman, who came up with some last-minute lines of his own for
his most iconic scenes. "I like things that seem exciting-happening-you
know. I liked Pete giggling and giving me pages 15 minutes before
I start."
"He's got
a sprightly sense of humor, and he's always optimistic, always, I
mean to a fault," Astin says of Boyd. "Even when
he decides to be disgruntled for a moment, he can't quite do it
very well." Which is not to say he's exactly like Pippin.
"Billy's got a little bit more worldly experience,"
Astin continues. "He's got confidence, grace, and poise.
And he consistently delivers for those around him."
"As funny
as he can be, and as irreverent as he can be," Wood says,
"Billy's also probably the kindest and the warmest of us."
"If Billy's
walking around naked or being a goof, and it’s making people
laugh, that's all he really wants." Monaghan says. "He
won't allow anything too serious to go on when he’s around."
Boyd is also the
hobbit with the least vested in Hollywood. He's got a Scottish
dancer girlfriend, and he says he's staying put. "I think
if you base too much of your life on your career, ninety-nine
percent of the time, it will make you unhappy," Boyd
says. "That's why I still live in Scotland. That's why I
do the things I do."
For example, Boyd
loves to travel, to "disappear where nobody can get you."
Or, this summer, he did a three-day play at the Edinburgh Festival
partly as a favor to a friend.
"He
refuses to take life too seriously," Monaghan says.
"He's a little bit older than us. I think Billy's known
for a while that life is just filled with a lot of shit, and you
should enjoy yourself in the moment."
Boyd's past was
no walk in the Shire-having grown up in a housing project in
Glasgow, and having lost both of his parents by the age of 15. His
father died of lung cancer and his mother "basically never
recovered from it," he says. Raised by his grandmother,
he had wanted to get into acting but felt compelled to work,
eventually landing a job as a bookbinder, which actually gave him
his first brush with Rings-he used to fasten the covers on
the books.
By his twenties,
Boyd made it to drama school, landed some theater and television
gigs, and finally, was cast in Rings. "I spoke to
Bill a lot about our destiny after The Lord of the Rings and what
that means and where will it be," Monaghan says. "And
Billy's just like 'Well, you know, as long as I can live by the
sea and I can surf and I can work every so often...'"
Wood : I
think what is sort of the beginning of the end was that we all
went back to New Zealand for reshoots on the last film [in June].
That was the last time that we'll ever film anything for these
movies. So that was the beginning of the end of our journey.
Boyd : It
didn't really feel like the beginning of the end to me. It felt
like the middle of the end of the beginning.
Monaghan :
Yeah. You know, kind of like the three-quarter-length part of the
middle of the end of the beginning.
PREMIERE :
Okay.
Monaghan :
If that, you know, if that clarifies it.
Over the past
four years, the cast of 'Rings' has undergone a 15-month
production, reshoots in 2002 and 2003, multiple ADR sessions
(layering in dialogue in postproduction), and three multiweek
publicity campaigns. But, finally, the end is nigh. This summer,
the four hobbits joined the rest of the cast for a last round of
filming, which included touching up scenes between Sam, Frodo, and
the giant spider Shelob ("just to make it a little
scarier," says Wood) and a dramatic scene between Merry
and Pippin (so that there is a greater sense of "jeopardy"
when they split up, according to Monaghan).
"There
was a sense in that first movie that we didn't really know what we
were playing. We didn't know how it would play in the context of
the film, because we were filming so much footage," Wood
says. "There were so many scenes and so many different
characters and so many plot lines. I think it made it a
lot easier going back for pickups, 'cause we had a real concept of
what the fabric of these movies were."
And,
by the way, all the hobbits agree that this third film, which they've
just completed work on, will be better than the previous two.
"We got all three scripts when we turned up in New
Zealand, and number three was the best. That was the one that Pete
was the most psyched about," Monaghan says. "There's
something so brilliant about the long journey that we take and how
all our stories come right back together. There's something so
beautiful about it. But it’s also easily the saddest movie."
"It
was always our favorite," Wood says of Return,
which he says should clock in at around three and a half hours.
"It's the part of the story in which all of the characters
are given their true test."
If
you’re a die-hard fan, and you don’t want to read any
spoilers, then skip to the next paragraph...
Much anticipation focuses on the fight with Shelob, who Wood says
looks "wicked," resembling an actual arachnid rather
than a monster-he says the sequence adds a "horror film
element." And then there's the battle at Pelennor fields,
which Monaghan says makes The Two Towers' battle at
Helm's Deep look like "a catfight." But the biggest
concerns revolve around the ending of the trilogy, especially when
the hobbits' home, the Shire, is plundered. Tolkien's "Scouring
of the Shire" chapter won't be happening in Jackson's
version, according to the hobbits. "We were really keen to
do it," Monaghan says, but after talking with Jackson,
they were convinced that "in the film, the ultimate
objective is the ring, and that's what the audience is invested
in. You can't take them through three films and have the final
destiny of the ring fulfilled and then keep them involved for
another 40 minutes. We were all pretty bummed out because, yeah,
four hobbits riding into the Shire on horses and kicking a lot of
people’s asses would have been brilliant. We would have loved
it."
When
the hobbits get to talking about how good The Return of the
King will be, they develop a gleam in their eyes that is not
far afield from that of their fans. "Guys, I don't know if
anybody knows this yet, but they're releasing the coolest thing in
the world," says Wood, who then excitedly describes New
Line's plan to release extended versions of the first two films so
that audiences will be able to see them back-to-back and then
watch Return immediately after. They discuss plans to be
there, in the audience, that first night.
The
hobbits will also, no doubt, be making arrangements to attend
February's Oscars. King will have some stiff competition-including
Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai and Russell Crowe's (and
Billy Boyd's) Master and Commander-but the front-runner,
and sentimental favorite, will have to be Peter Jackson's grand
epic, which has yet to win any of the major awards. And when Boyd,
Monaghan, Astin, and Wood traipse down the red carpet, tugging at
one another, whispering in each other's ears, they’ll finally be
reaching the last hurrah for The Lord of the Rings.
And,
yes, it will mark a new beginning for their friendship.
Or,
perhaps, it will be a sort of end.
Or...
just somewhere in the middle ?
Monaghan
: We're all
going to hang out. We're all going to work together. And we’re
all going to have the opportunity to be brought together as often
as we want to do the Lord of the Rings conventions, and
other things. You know, I said to [New Line's] Mark Ordesky and
Pete, "When The Return of the King finishes, you have
to promise that on a yearly basis you invite the cast to some sort
of dinner."
Boyd
: And they
both said, "Fuck you, mate."
Astin
: That's
when they started cutting down his part, you remember ?
Wood
: Yeah,
exactly.
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