Disclaimer: The views expressed in this web log are the personal opinions of Ian D Smith, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff or members of the Official Lord of the Rings fan club. Comic-Con Day 3 - "Hoorah for Hollywood"
Today I took photo's of some people you might recognise (it's been quite a day!). Click on any individual image to see a larger version.

Breakfast with Dominic Monaghan
		An 8.45 start saw a sizeable queue (below, left) gathered at the Hiatt for the breakfast with Dominic. Punctually at 9 we were let into the dining area, after a very prompt ticket check from Decipher staff at the entrance. The small dining room had eight or 9 round tables, each able to seat 10 fans, with a small podium and microphone in the corner. As we were sorting out seating arrangements Dom arrived, smiled and apologised for "not being very good at mornings" and advised us to grab as much food as we could to " get your $30 worth. Take a couple of chairs if you can't get $30 worth of food", he quipped. After he (and we) had eaten, he walked to a small podium where he spoke a little about the recent re-shoot and then took questions. For those who thought the "scintillating" conversation from our meeting yesterday was insufficient, here's some of what he covered, but remember I can't type as fast as he can talk, and anything in quotes is a general quote rather than a direct one as I wasn't taping the session, just making general notes. After he (and we) had eaten, he walked to a small podium where he took questions. For those who thought the "scintillating" conversation from our meeting yesterday was insufficient, here's some of what he covered, but remember I can't type as fast as he can talk, and anything in quotes is a general quote rather than a direct one as I wasn't taping the session, just making general notes.

Dom started by saying he was having a lot of fun at Comic-Con: "I'll tell the cast how much fun it is and then maybe next Con we'll have all nine of us here". You won't be suprised to hear there were loud cheers all round at this. He went on to discuss the recent re-shoot in New Zealand: "Billy and I went to New Zealand to film stuff for the second movie. We were doing some Treebeard stuff. There's so much darkness in the second movie with Sam and Frodo and Gollum, and the battle scenes with Aragorn that you need something to lighten things so then you cut to Merry and Pippin who are just getting drunk with a talking tree!". He paused at this point, before adding "Maybe Tolkien had some strange mushrooms in his garden or something when he wrote this stuff". "We were leaving the day before Viggo was due to start his re-shoots. I was leaving the hotel and someone thwacked me on the side of the head as I was checking out. It was Viggo, just arrived for his stuff." Dom is looking forward to the next movie as much as the rest of us. "We'll probably see a cut of the movie in a month's time but you guys will have to wait for Christmas", he said with an impish grin Susan (Moochelas) asked if he ever surfed the web or the boards. (Warning: At this point my notes fell behind!) He replied that he and Elijah definitely wandered around the boards and when asked which ones mentioned TORn and then went on to talk about him and Elijah having registered with fake ids on Billy's boards when he was doing an online chat on there. Dom talked about surfing the internet and saying how scary it was reading a report that "'We went to a water park' and we're like 'How did they know?'". He said that he, Elijah and Billy were pretty Internet-savvy but that Viggo hadn't really caught on yet. The next question was what it was like working with Bernard Hill (Théoden). "It was great. He's from Manchester. He's a Man United (football team) fan, which helps. He's also a John Lennon fan too, which also helps. He did a documentary for John Lennon which h brought over to New Zealand. One of the first scenes he had to shoot was where he's been poisoned by Wormtongue and he was in make-up for six hours, which was hard. We then find Wormtongue's been a naughty boy and he has to change appearance which is less time in make-up. I just want to mention Miranda, who plays Eowyn. She is fantastic. The movie is a sort of manly grrrrr thing and then she comes along and it becomes softer." Another fan club member asked who Dom was most excited about working with when he learnt he'd got the part. "Sean Astin. 'The Goonies' is one of my favourite movies. Liv was great. Christopher Lee. We were on set when he wrapped (Ian's note: I'm assuming Dom was talking about film wrap not ganster rap!). He's in the Guiness Book of Records for making the most movies. He said he'd made all these films and he'd never be able to top the one he'd just made! He gave a moving speech, saying that he'd done his best job ever. Ian Holm of course. I had a chance to play Gollum in one scene when Andy Serkis wasn't around and Ian Holm never does the same scene twice. For a young actor to see something like that was inspiring." Dom went on to discuss what it was like when he heard he'd got the part of Merry in the film. "It was bizarre. I'd been to two or three meetings for the movie. It was five or sixth months later when I learned. During that time I forgot, or tried to forget, Lord of the Rings was being made. My agent rang me on Friday and said I'd got the part of Merry and they'd told me on Friday because they wanted me to have a good weekend. When I got the call I was driving back from a shoot in a van with this bunch of actors. I've got a big smile on my face. The whole van went (looks glum) and they opened the door and threw me out. I went out and drank a lot of Tequila! I had two to three days to finish the job, sell my house and pack everything up. I came back for a week at Christmas and then it was a year in New Zealand. It just happens. There's no time to think about it. Peter was easing me in gently to let me know how big the job was. When I went around Weta I was jetlagged and thought I was hallucinating at all the stuff I saw there! Then we went straight into rehearsals. They were keen for 9 boys to become a gang. We had a combination of kayaking, dialect coaching, gymn, telephoning. They wanted the whole group together. Within 10 days we knew each other so well we could tell what the others were thinking. The first scene we shot was the four hobbits and then Peter brought Ian in, and then Orlando and then Viggo. It was nice the way Peter organised it." A fan asked when he'd know it was to be filmed in New Zealand. "I was in Camden (London) and was told that David Bowie was coming in to read for Gandalf. I wanted to meet David Bowie but he was two hours late so I missed him. We knew from the start it was New Zealand. I can't think of any other job that would be such an opportunity. It was a chance to learn your craft, hang out with people like Christopher Lee, Ian Holm and Ian McKellen. It brings you to places like San Diego and enables you to travel the world, so there's no decision making process at all." Another fan asked about what happened when Dom and others got stuck in the snow. "That was great, man. It's those days that are hard work. It's cold, it's wet. Now it's one of my fondest moments. We were filming in the New Marshes. It got cut from the movie at the last minute by some dickhead at New Line" This last point gets a huge laugh and cheer - it seems I'm not the only one amazed by the attitude and general unfriendliness of the staff manning the New Line booth in the convention! Dom goes on. "The snow was as big as my palm. We were in to our knees, getting pushed in by Viggo every 2 minutes. Carol says we have to wrap. Peter didn't want to and we didn't want to but we had to as it was getting so bad. We head back to the hotel which takes 40 minutes. We end up sitting in the laundry room in the hotel and Viggo comes in with a big bottle of whiskey. Viggo took some pictures of us that day you might have seen" Dom adds in a reference to the prints that some of us bought at the Track 16 Gallery in Los Angeles back in March. He continues, "We are sat on the washing machines and there's a space between the machines and the wall. Elijah tells a story with a really bad punch line, and he falls between the gap and all you can see is his legs sticking up. We were all drunk as monkeys." A fan then asked about the Midgewater Marshes scene and Dom went on to explain that it will be on the extended DVD. "Peter thought it showed the passage of time really well. There's loads of stuff that didn't make it into the theatrical release that's really worth seeing. There's a scene with the lembas bread which is hilarious. There's a scene where Legolas says 'One small bite can feed a man for four days. I look at Pippin and say 'How many did you eat?'. And he looks at me and says 'Five'" There is a lot of laughter at this stage as Dom acts out the expressions on the hobbits faces, and causes Dom to respond with "See? It should have been in the movie. Wankers!" Dom went on to cover questions about where each member of the cast had their Fellowship tattoos placed (revealing that Sean Astin's daughter had a fake tattoot done for two days at the same time) and the injuries that were suffered by the cast. Since these topics have been convered fairly extensively on other web sites and in the media, I'll not repeat the stories here. Dom was then asked whether he stayed in contact with the other cast members, and how often he spoke to them. "I try not to talk to Billy too much - he's an idiot!", Dom quipped, adding "I live in LA now, close to Elijah and Sean, who is about to have a baby. Elijah and I hang out because we're both music freaks and geeks. We hang out nearly every day. Billy's in Mexico and we speak most weeks. Tomorrow I'm going to see Billy in Mexico." Upon hearing this last point I wonder if I'm going to be charged with spreading false rumours about the Internet. Fortunately, as subsequent events showed, this turned out to be a bit of a red herring! I speak to Ian McKellen when he's in town. Viggo too, but he flips between LA and New York a lot. With the Fellowship of nine, if you're not speaking you're hearing from Mark Ordesky that they've been seen, that they're doing good. You can't help but be friends with them when you're six days a week with them for over a year. We're a support group for each other. Even though we talk to you guys nobody can understand what it was like if they weren't there. And what we had to go through to make the film. So it's always a thrill to walk around with those guys. The last question asked was about Dom's favourite scene in all three movies. "I don't want to spoil it but Merry's main link is Pippin. In the third movie they go their separate ways, which is quite sad. The pinnacle of Merry is when he finally comes back again and sees Pippin. If they had been together they would have been OK. But because they've been split up they're both heavily traumatised. When they meet they don't recognise each other. Pippin has to explain who he is and Merry needs his friend from The Shire to bring him back. And they're both men now and they hug and kiss. It's beautiful." Dom then spent the time circulating the room, spending about 5 minutes on each table. I didn't catch much of what he said on our table because I was too busy trying to persuade Justin that we should be allowed to use some of our allocation to get Dom to phone one of his biggest fans not able to be present at the breakfast (sorry Stef - I tried!). By the time I'd returned Moochelas had produced the infamous Dom and Elijah cardboard cutout, used at our March moot to fake photographs with the actors. There were a hilarious few minutes of Dom posing with the cutout, smooching with the Elijah cutout and generally clowning around.

As Decipher's first organised fan event (as opposed to an event organised by the fans themselves), the breakfast was an outstanding success and considered great value by all those present. As Bill (Sauron's Truss) so eloquently put it "I'm stoked. If I were gay I'd kiss you Ian". Now there's a scary thought! This page is not yet complete. Details of the New Line presentation on Lord of the Rings to follow, but since my camera transfer software has managed to corrupt itself this will not be until I get back to the UK and can reinstall the software. In the meantime, check out some pictures on Sedona or the few that got transferred from The Grand Canyon