He plays a druggie castaway on a blockbuster television show.

But in real life, Lost star Dominic Monaghan is a keen environmentalist who bought an Indian mango farm to save it from destruction, and was even upset when his pet spider died last year.

“All these supposed problems that we have are going to pale in insignificance when we all die because of how we treat our planet,” said the 28-year-old actor, who bought the farm in Bangalore, India, in 2003.

“It seems really bizarre that people are hung up on other issues when essentially we’re kind of careening out of control with our world.
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Getting stranded on an inhospitable island with a bunch of nefarious characters and a blood-thirsty beast that lurks in the bushes has turned out to be a good thing for Dominic Monaghan.

The British actor acquired cult fame status by playing the hairy-footed Hobbit Merry Brandybuck in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. And now his smoldering portrayal as tortured rocker Charlie on ABC’s “Lost” (tonight at 8) has positioned him as one of the hit show’s breakout stars.

“It’s great to be in a show that people actually watch,” Monaghan told the Daily News recently.
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No more Mr. Nice Hobbit.

Dominic Monaghan, the beloved Merry Brandybuck in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, stars as Charlie, a one-hit-wonder musician turned drug addict, in “Lost” (tonight at 8 on WCVB, Ch. 5). What the Frodo is going on here?

“I struggled for the past three or four years or so with most of the people internationally knowing me as a very cute, adorable, sweet-hearted, nonthreatening kind of boy,” Monaghan said in a recent telephone interview.
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Dominic Monaghan conquered the big-screen in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and is now grabbing the brass ring on the small screen with ABC’s new drama, “Lost.”

Monaghan plays Charlie, the one-hit rocker on the show about a group of airline crash survivors stranded on an island – which has become one of the few breakout hits of the season. He says he’s enjoying the challenge of playing a character coping with withdrawal from a heroin addiction, but is more intrigued by Charlie’s struggle with issues of faith.

“I was brought up in England in a relatively Roman Catholic faith,” says the 28-year-old Monaghan, who was born in Berlin and later moved to Manchester with his father, a teacher, his mother, a nurse, and his older brother.
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Dominic Monaghan is calling from paradise. Currently residing on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, The Lord of the Rings star is shopping for a birthday present for his mother. An avid surfer, he is enjoying his time on the tropical isle, but this is hardly a vacation. Instead he is starring as Charlie, a washed-up musician who survives a plane crash and must start a new life on a deserted island on ABC’s Lost, one of the fall’s most anticipated television shows. The brainchild of Alias creator J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof (formerly a writer/producer on Crossing Jordan ), Lost features a large ensemble cast and some ongoing mysteries that are sure to keep viewers guessing. Little is initially revealed about Charlie–the bass player in a one-hit-wonder band whose members, he insists, are still together and due for a comeback–and early hints indicate he’s hiding a pretty big secret.

Occasionally during our interview he stops to chat with a passerby who recognizes him from his role as the mischievous Hobbit, Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck, from the Rings trilogy, and the actor is always gracious and friendly. He relished his time on the epic and remains close with his co-stars; three of the four hobbits will be reuniting in Hawaii for New Year’s Eve. But he is clearly excited about his new project. Monaghan won the role of Charlie, even though the role was originally conceived for an older actor. “He was supposed to be a has-been rocker whose band had fallen off the map, like, 15 years earlier, but Dominic is 25 years old,” Lindelof told Back Stage West . “So, he came in and read and just brought this great sense of humor to everything, [so] that we just rethought the character and said, ‘Well, what if he wasn’t an ex-rocker, but he was a one-hit wonder, and he just didn’t realize it yet.’”
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