A decade after they first came together to be a part of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film adaptations, the four hobbits – Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd – came together for a photo shoot and interview to celebrate their decade of friendship.
Elijah Wood, who was just eighteen years old when he first flew out to New Zealand to play the story’s protagonist, Frodo Baggins, told EMPIRE magazine that, “It feels like… It’s 12 years ago in August that we all flew out there, so it feels crazy to conceive of that span of time, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like that much time has passed.”
“We fit into our dynamics easily enough, which makes you feel as if no time has passed,” noted Dominic Monaghan, famous for his role as Merry Brandybuck. “There’s shorthand we have which is always there. I’ll be in my office or something and I’ll go to a bookshelf and pull out something and there’ll be a picture of all of us.”
“Whenever you experience something that’s as intense and life-defining as we did together, it never goes away,” added Sean Astin, who played Frodo’s gardener and loyal companion, Samwise Gamgee. “You see it with people who were at war. Nobody has to say more than a syllable on the telephone and you know who it is. Just the tiniest sound of someone’s voice.”
Wood, who has returned to New Zealand to reprise his role as Frodo for Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit, says of his return: ‘I expected the feeling to be really surreal, to be back in wardrobe and make-up again, and it was. But it also felt normal, as if it’s built into my bone structure. It’s beyond the movies. Beyond what they became.’
You can find the full interview in this month’s copy of EMPIRE Magazine, on sale now.
