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How
was it like to be a Hobbit ?
Billy
Boyd : Our part in the movies, particularly in this first
one, is to show the peaceful life of the Shire. Just smoking our
pipe makes us happy. There were so many kinds of tobacco. They
would bring us a box, and we could choose which one we wanted to
smoke. Its this kind of details that are fundamental when you're
shooting an epic.
Did
you experience any problem from wearing those feet ?
BB
: Peter Jackson knew exactly what he wanted on each shooting
day. But, sometimes, there could be changes to the plans. And
everything had to be perfect. For example, there could be a wide
shot of the feet that wasn't in the initial shooting schedule.
The attention to detail was unbelievably important. One thing we
found out (about the feet) was that we could only wear them
once, because the tips got damaged when we took them off. We
couldn't use them again in the next day. They had to do a pair
for each of us, every day. Then they decided to do a bigger
number of them all at once, for us to spend. That seemed like a
good idea. But after some time they gradually shrunk. Our toes
would be squeezed in. When we took them off it was such a
relief. But it was a new experience for all of us, to be wearing
so many different things, in this movie.
Did you enjoy being a
Hobbit ?
Dominic
Monaghan : The best thing about being a Hobbit, generally speaking, is that we're always happy and optimist about everything. Obviously there were some scenes in which we are worried and some battle scenes, but in most cases, the four Hobbits of the movie are always happy and confident. They appreciate life. To be happy, they need nothing more than a drink on one hand and some fruit nearby.
There were lots of places where we were all shooting at the same time. But someone told me that as soon as the Hobbits arrived on shooting location, the place's mood would completely change. It became friendlier, more joyful. Jokes were told, people laughed. The studios where blue-screen scenes were shot, for special effects addition later on, were,
from the start, those where a bigger tension was felt, because they were more technical. And actors like Viggo Mortensen and Sean Bean, due to the characters they played, had to go through harder and darker scenes. We Hobbits, it was always about happiness and harmony.
How long did it take putting the feet on?
DM
: Hour and a half. In the first weeks it could take more than two hours to put them on. But little by little they started to get better at it. It was a very technical and precise work, because you were not supposed to see the passage from our feet to the Hobbit's feet. If, by any
chance, a mistake was made, they had to patch it up with the feet already on. It could become very annoying, due to the glue
and all the stuff they used. And due to the fact that they gradually got smaller. When we put them on they seemed ok, but at the end of the day our toes would hurt a lot. I think someone was hired specially to make sure that I wouldn't play football with my Hobbit's feet on, during the lunch
break !
How was the experience of shooting three movies in
simultaneous ?
DM
: We approached the project like it was just one big movie. It would turn into a big mess if we were wondering about which movie we were in at a certain point. The only thing that I would ask of Peter Jackson was to explain me what had happened in the scene before the one we were shooting. I never asked him
whether we were in movie 2 or 3. Peter was great at making us
feel confident about the movie we were playing in. He knew the story
front and backwards, and he would spend all the time that was
needed to explain us the point we were in.
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