The Marriott Atrium Ballroom was electric Saturday afternoon at Dragon Con as the High Fantasy track welcomed Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Elijah Wood for an hour of storytelling and reflection. Kevin Bachelder moderated the conversation and questions from the audience.
These actors worked together on The Lord of the Rings over twenty years ago, and Bachelder began by asking the panel to reflect upon the passage of time and what that means for their perspective on the film. Wood pointed out that it had been twenty-five years since they began shooting the films. Monaghan referred to his life in “pre” and “post” Rings terms. Making the decision to take the part of Merry had real consequences and shaped the direction his life took. Wood then turned to the generational nature of the work. New generations of people are now being exposed to these films and are becoming fans. There is, he declared, “no shortage of love” for the films twenty years on. These films that people love so much, have gone from box office hits and sensations to genre defining classics that now have the standing of pop culture icons.
Boyd added another dimension to the consideration of the films: their role as a morality tale. Here Boyd focused on the nature of Hobbits. In them he saw friends who just wanted to help. They wanted to save the Shire and get back home to it. Perhaps it was a kind of naïve innocence, but the hobbits were determined to “just do the right thing.” Monaghan added that when he looked at the Hobbits, he saw characters who “just kept going.” He found this particularly true of his own character. Merry was determined to “carry on”; to put one step in front of the other until he finally fell on the field of battle at Pelennor Fields. It was, for him, an enviable quality that perhaps, in his quieter moments, he sees in himself.
When asked about the bond among the cast, Boyd gave the credit to Peter Jackson for his casting decisions. Jackson knew he was asking actors to commit years to this endeavor, and as such needed people who would be happy and content to be in New Zealand. They all had to be committed to the work, and they were. Everyone in the cast wanted to be part of something special. Wood also credited Jackson for the brilliant casting of fundamentally good people who got on together. The cast participated in and became part of and extraordinary shared experience. Four years of living and working together created a bond forged in the crucible of a unique, intense experience. Such bonds often transcend even those of blood and kinship.
Reflecting on co-writing and performing “The Last Goodbye,” Boyd noted that it was as much about the end of the cast’s time together as anything else. He was in New Zealand working with Fran Walsh when he wrote it. His castmates weren’t with him. He wrote much of the song sitting in one of the local pubs he and his cast mates used to frequent. It is, he declared, “a song of farewell, a goodbye to everyone.” Beyond the serious reflections there were many moments of laughter as the actors played off one another. Dragon Con received a special treat when Boyd shared, he believed for the first time ever, the tale of the “poo specialist” who failed to properly secure his trailer’s gray water tank (what Boyd referred to as the “bucket”) before attempting to empty it. He failed, in Boyd’s words, to “lock what should have been locked.” The result was a fire hose effect that covered everyone! “It looked like a Chocolate cake had been demolished in front of them,” Boyd declared. Monaghan interjected that Boyd’s scream was so loud and of such intensity he thought that the Balrog scene was being shot. When the panelists realized that Boyd had never shared the “poo” story at a convention before, Boyd proudly declared “Dragon Con…. you’re welcome!”
The crowd roared and by their thunderous applause at the hour’s end said, “Thank You!” to the panel. Everyone knew they’d gotten a special treat to get to spend the hour together.
