Archive for 2004

United’s popularity throughout the world is well documented but few would have expected it to reach as far afield as Middle-earth.

For those of you not familiar with such a place, Middle-earth is the setting for the hugely successful phenomenon that is The Lord of the Rings.

Director Peter Jackson’s critically acclaimed trilogy has altered cinema history, not to mention the lives of the actors who were lucky enough to be cast in the epic three-part screenplay, which picked up a staggering eleven Oscars in Sunday’s 76th annual ceremony.

One of those lucky few is former Stockport resident and United fanatic Dominic Monaghan .
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Question: If you could be another character in the film, which one would you like to be?

Dominic: Arwen! (Everybody laughs)

Elijah: He doesn’t appear much in this first movie, and he is tortured, bad things happen to him, but… Gollum! I’ve liked this character since I was a child.

Liv: Maybe the white horse I rode. Because it doesn’t suffer during the shooting, does it? (Laughs) We (actors) had a tough time. But, of course, it was a wonderful experience as well.
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According to actor Elijah Wood, Hobbits aren’t size queens…when it comes to their oversized feet.

“Ah, no,” the fresh-faced Wood laughs. “The bigger the feet, the more annoying they became to walk around in.”

Wood spent The Lord of the Rings film trilogy — The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King — skipping about in a pair of latex rubber feet.

So did Hobbit costars Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan.
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B.L. Did you guys get totally into character?

B.B. Pretty much. It took a lot to take on the Hobbit way of life, which I think is a good thing, because I think Tolkien wrote the Hobbits as being honorable and good people. So I think if you take some of their characteristics I think it’s a good thing.
D.M. They are big beer drinkers as well.
B.B. Big beer drinkers.
D.M. Mmmm.

B.L. So this is the third and final film, how do you feel now that it’s all coming to an end?
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“Rings” stars Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan will lead this year’s New Orleans festivities, while in New York Billy Boyd disses Viggo Mortenson.

Forget the ring: It’s all about the fellowship of the beads for two Hobbits at this year’s Mardi Gras.

Elijah Wood, best known as Frodo in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and Dominic Monaghan, who plays his Hobbit buddy Merry, will be the celebrity monarchs for New Orleans’s big carnival parades before Feb. 24′s Fat Tuesday blowout, reports the Associated Press.
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For both Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, who as Merry and Pippin experience life-changing transformations (both on and off screen) as intense as any of their marquee-name costars, the final shot was one of third-act triumph rather than the sort of tomfoolery that got them into trouble so frequently in the first two films. “My last shot of principal photography was really dull,” explained Boyd, who shows his color in the final moments of Return To the King. “[It was] a blue screen shot climbing up to like the beacon, looking around the edge of a thing that’s not even in the movie. And I remember being quite disappointed that it was my last shot.”

Thankfully, the reshoots allowed Boyd to enjoy a more fitting conclusion to the experience. “My last shot was killing the Orc that’s about to kill Gandalf (in ROTK). I thought, that’s a great shot to have shot. So that was, kind of looking at my sword with the blood on it, and I thought ‘that’s great.’”
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