After a debut in the mid-1990s TV series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, it took a small role – literally – in three minor films from New Zealand (something about Lords and Rings) before most people recognised 26-year-old Dominic Monaghan as the hobbit Merry Brandybuck. He’s currently spokesman for Future Forests and, like the Baftas and Brits, is totally CarbonNeutral.

What exactly does being CarbonNeutral involve? Basically, they look at your life and how you live it and calculate the amount of carbon they estimate, or I suppose ‘guesstimate’, that you use up in a year. They ask a few questions about how you live your life, what kind of car you drive, where you live, how far you travel, that kind of thing. Then they offset the amount of carbon that you use up by planting trees in certain parts of the world. I’d been to Bangalore in India the year before so I made a request that some be put there, because I’m sure I’ll go back. So I had 40 mango trees planted in a forest that Coldplay are involved in.

You’re worth 40 mango trees? Yeah, but that means that it’s not only releasing all the correct gases into the air, putting a lot of carbon dioxide out and all that sort of thing, but its also producing fruit for the people in Bangalore.

They should name the forest after you. I think it’s called the Coldplay forest because they planted 300 or 500 trees. I’ve only planted 40.

So they outbid you? They sure did, those rock’n'roll bastards. But at some point we’re hoping to get some link between The Lord Of The Rings and plant a couple of forests in different parts of the world; one called the Shire and one called Mirkwood, one called Lothl?rien. That would be very cool.

Did the CarbonNeutral people come to you, or you to them? A little bit of both. If you’re turned on by that kind of idea, then those people will approach you. While I was finding my feet in LA, I was hanging around with people I’d gotten to know the year before, and at a dinner party I met a group of people from splinter groups of Greenpeace and who working on charities and I was interested in what they were talking about. So I started hanging around with them more and got involved.

Do you catch yourself listening to a CD thinking: ‘Oh, that’s a couple of leaves I owe’? A little bit. You can’t go over the top with it. Once you become CarbonNeutral there are more things you can do. You can recycle, and there are a couple of old trees in danger of being cut down in LA that I’m keen on trying to save.

If you’re saving local trees, do you feel quite at home in LA now? I enjoy it. I like the weather and the people. The lifestyle choices that you make don’t seem to be questioned too much. You can get up when you want, go out when you want. Clubs and bars open all night – it’s very easygoing. I’ve got the beach here, and I like surfing, so in terms of where I want to be and what I want to do in my free time, LA is a great place to be.

If nature’s your thing, you must have really enjoyed filming The Lord Of The Rings? Yeah, that was one of the main things that kept me involved with the environment when I finished filming. You can find yourself on top of a mountain or beside a huge lake and you can feel the power of nature coming up through your body. I’ve been in places in Ireland and Scotland where you just feel how incredibly special certain parts of the world are.

Are you still in touch with the rest of the Fellowship? Sure. We made a pact and we all got this tattoo, and promised to stay in touch, which we do. I saw Ian McKellen a few weeks ago and Billy Boyd I see all the time. Elijah [Wood] and Viggo [Mortensen] live in LA, Orlando [Bloom] is in and out of LA as well, so we all keep in touch. We see each other at least two or three times a year for work anyway.

Does it feel like it’s over, or with all the promotion still going on does it still feel like you’re working on The Lord Of The Rings? I don’t think it will ever feel like it’s finished. It will probably be the film that will define a lot of our careers. But we’ll always hang around with each other, and we’ll always have fond memories. I don’t think any of us particularly want to ever feel like it’s ended because it was so much fun.

I suppose it’s quite nice talking about something other than hobbits for a change? Yeah, sure it is. It’s nice to be involved in an industry where you don’t always have to talk about the actual job that you do. You can talk about things that you find important. It’s a good state.

What are you up to at the moment? Just taking a lot of meetings, trying to organise my year. I’m probably going back to LA in May or June. There are a couple of jobs in early summer or early autumn that are probably going to be happening. But in terms of immediate future, I’m just having a lot of meetings and keeping things in order and keeping myself busy working for Future Forests.

You mentioned Ireland. Where do you go? My family are from Galway, I’ve got relatives in Sligo, and obviously somewhere along the line my family are from County Monaghan. I really like Dublin; there are a lot of places that I go in Ireland, but mainly Galway, which I think is beautiful. There’s great surf there as well, if a bit chilly.

Do you do much surfing in LA? I try. I don’t do as much as I’d like to because my main surfing mate, Billy Boyd, who was in The Lord Of The Rings with me, isn’t here. He’s coming over in about a week and we’re going to take a trip up to San Francisco and stop off at a few surf places on the way, because it’s always good to go with a mate. I was out a couple of weeks ago, but it can get a bit intimidating out here, and I’m a bit of a longboarder, so I like to take it easy.

Did you get into surfing out there? In New Zealand. We turned up and within about two weeks we met a runner on the movie who taught us all how to surf. Very cool.

Cafe Metro

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