How do you follow up one of the most successful films of all time? If you’re a hobbit, you might experiment with memory-erasing technology, take up martial arts, or head straight for the unemployment line.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” the top-grossing film released in 2003, heads into this month’s Academy Awards fresh from a Golden Globes sweep. But you can’t stay in the Shire forever. So while the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy has made its Halfling stars ? Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd ? household names, the actors are looking ahead to new projects. So what lies ahead for everyone’s favorite hobbits?
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Dominic Monaghan has been in England for a few days and he’s fighting a cold, which makes a change from fighting the monstrous orcs, ringwraiths, uruk-hai and other creatures that have been part of his life for three years.

Although Los Angeles is now home for the 27-year-old actor from Stockport, he’s back home to take a break from the whirlwind of premieres and promotional tours that come with the territory of being part of a film phenomenon.

Ever since he made his big-screen debut in 2001 as the hobbit, Merry Brandybuck, in the first film in the movie adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s novels, Monaghan’s face has been everywhere. So for someone who spent his teenage years going to local gigs, clubs and bars, the fame-fallout of his latest work comes as a bit of a shock.
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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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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.

So this is the third and final film, how do you feel now that it’s all coming to an end? B.B. How do you feel, you must be running out of questions! D.M. (to Billy) How do you feel? B.B. Just hungry. It’ll be lunch soon. D.M. There have been so many ends to this film, the end of principal photography, and the last time you do that line, the last time you do a premiere. I don’t think the end can truly be realized. If this is the end then what is behind it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it. We’re going to go from here in December on this tour. I think that might be a little bit more poignant because it will be the last time we’re on the tour together. But the things that you take from the film, that you keep alive, and the mates that you make; that’s going to continue.
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You first saw them in the Shire two years ago. Now, Pippin and Merry complete their journey in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. During the first two films, the Hobbit friends have been side by side, but moviegoers will finally see how their stories divert as the two are separated for most of the movie in The Return of the King.

Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry) were in New York City recently to give their thoughts about the ending of the trilogy.

Q: Can you guys talk about the sentiments going through your head, now that the trilogy has come to an end?

BILLY: Mmm, yeah, it’s sad that we won’t be working on this. It was such a special thing. We’ve all become good friends. If Tolkien had written 50 books, we could have just had a career doing this!
DOMINIC: That would’ve been great!
BILLY: Except in the fourth one, it says that the Hobbits’ feet got a lot smaller. (Laughs) It’s good that there were three books, and that there were three films, and that the story makes sense. In the future, people can watch it as one story. It’s not [like] we made one movie and it was a success, and we said, “Oh, let’s make another one.” It’s just one story.
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