Archive for 2001

Brooding Lord Of The Rings hero Viggo Mortensen almost got thrown out of a trendy Wellington bar, jokes were played off-set with duct tape, rotting fish and fake excrement, and Liv Tyler liked to show off her push-up bra.

Those were just a few of the antics the young male stars of the movie revealed yesterday.

British actor Orlando Bloom, who plays elf warrior Legolas, said he was so awestruck with Tyler’s beauty that he was quick to take up her suggestion of sporting a mohawk. “I was having my make-up done when she arrived and my hairline (was) raised to give me an elven featured face. She said, ‘Why don’t you shave it off at the sides? You’d really look cute in a mohawk.’ I had a mohawk for 18 months.”
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You won’t find bigger fans of our place than the four young actors who returned for the New Zealand premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Ask variations on that tired old question, “So what did you think of New Zild?” of American star Elijah Wood and Brit newcomers Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd and Orlando Bloom, and they gush like a Whakarewarewa geyser. And despite having spent 15 months here shooting the three films back-to-back, they are considering staying even longer. The four have been applying for residency and have talked about buying a house together they can use as a timeshare. “You guys might be stuck with hobbits. I’m sorry,” says Wood . English actor Bloom, who plays the elf Legolas, even goes as far as to say it’s “the sort of place I would want to raise my kids one day”. The day after the premiere we encounter the three hobbits together – the fourth, Sean Astin, couldn’t make it. They make a fine triple-act with the various accents – Wood is Californian, Monaghan English and Boyd Scottish – as they talk about encountering everything from Wellington nightlife to dolphins in Lyall Bay and Milford Sound and earthquakes in Te Anau.
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Were you aware that the shoot would be so physically demanding?

We were told the days were going to be long, and that there was going to be a lot of physical exertion. So we had personal trainers and we were sword fighting and eating well. We all got bigger and fitter and took up surfing. New Zealand is a great place for surfing. A few of our friends were surfers, and they introduced Billy [Boyd, who plays Pippin] to it, and then they got the rest of the Fellowship into it. We would spend most weekends trying to surf.

How did you get on with the other hobbits?

I think it would be impossible for a group of people to be together and not make friendships and we have become, in every sense of the word, a Fellowship. As the nine boys, but also the actors on the periphery, we are so close – we call each other all the time. I stayed with Sean [Astin, who plays Sam] and Elijah [Wood, who plays Frodo] in LA.
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Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry) are the Abbott and Costello of The Lord of the Rings cast. They’re writing a comedy for themselves to star in, and if it captures even half the humour of their interview, they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

National Post: Billy, you starred in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. What was it like?

D: Last night I was congratulated on Master and Commander. They said, “I very much enjoyed Master and Commander.” I said, “So did I.” I’ve been asked to sign pictures of Billy. I was asked by a Japanese journalist, what is the melody of your character.
B: What do you say to that?
D: G sharp.
B: The happiest of all keys.
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There’ve been plenty of amazing transformations during the making of Lord of the Rings . Rural landscapes have turned into bustling villages. Mild-mannered extras have been done over as snarling Orcs. Oscar-nominated actors have gone toe-to-toe with dazzling special effects.

But perhaps nothing connected with director Peter Jackson’s trilogy has undergone a more dramatic reworking than the lives of Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd.

Monaghan, a 23-year-old Brit, and Boyd, a 32-year-old Scot, were plucked from near obscurity to play happy-go-lucky Hobbits and Fellowship of the Ring members Meriadoc Brandybuck (Merry) and Peregrin Took (Pippin), respectively.
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