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DISCLAIMER: This transcript is provided on an "as is" best efforts basis and is based on a MiniDisc recording made where speech was not always legible because of noise in the room and placement of the microphone at the back of a large room. Any errors made in transcribing what was actually said are mine, and not those of the speakers quoted, and may include spelling mistakes, incorrect names and other minor typo's. Readers should also bear in mind that statements read in cold print can often convey a completely different meaning from that intended by the speaker and perceived by the original audience. WARNING: CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE! Back to page 1 of transcript
Question: Would you like to direct a film with Sean Astin as your Assistant Director?. Andy: Sean Astin is about as likely to be a second director as ... as... the second aide to the president of the United States. He wants to be.. yeah, exactly, he wants to be the president. I can't imagine Sean ever lowering himself to be my assistant director. (FX: adopts fake 'luvvie' actor accent:) We all humoured him, pretended to go along with his idea that he was a director. We all got up on Sunday morning when it was pissing down with rain, made him think he was important. But... (FX: drops fake accent) No, but one day I'll get my own back on him definitely.
Question: (garbled - question about current status of play Dom's writing with Billy) Dom: Yeah, it's going OK. We're now in the process of separating it into three separate parts. For a month one of us takes two thirds, and the other person takes a third, and then we swap around. At the moment I've got a third and Billy's working on two thirds. And also Billy did a play at the Edinburgh Festival with a playwright called David Greig. He's a fantastic playwright and he's going to come in and structurally rework it for us. So it kind of works more fluidly for a cinema-going audience. We're going to try and get it made some time next year. We've got people from New Line who want to have a first look, and someone I think from DreamWorks who are kind of interested. But we're such big fans of comedy that we don't want to make it unless we think it's going to be a really great comedy film. So we're just working and working and working. Question: This is about Lurtz. Obviously it takes a lot of time to get into make-up. We've heard about that on the DVD. Does that help you get into character or is actually a hindrance? Lawrence: If you sat there for eleven hours wouldn't you be angry?! So, yeah, it really helped me! Brent: It's the reaction from the whole crew as well. When you just look at them with this face and they're all just going like 'Eeeuuuuuurrrgggh'! Lawrence: I looked in the mirror and I scared myself! I was, honestly, it was just incredible looking in the mirror at Lurtz. Yeah, I was shitting my pants! Question: First of all, Andy, I loved giving you a kiss today Andy: Don't tell everybody! Question: I'm kind of an emotional person. I don't know if it's because I'm pregnant or because I got to be with you or... Lawrence: Just from a kiss?!!! Question: So, my question for you is How far into 'Return of the King' am I going to need my Kleenex? Andy: Are you talking about crying? (responding to audience laughter:) I thought maybe your waters were going to be breaking or something, I don't know! But, yeah. It gets charged up pretty damned quick. The tension does really rack up very, very quickly on 'Return of the King'. Without spoiling it the major bit that will open the floodgates will probably be about an hour before the end. Dom: Yeah. It's kinda sad. Elijah and Billy and myself watched a big section of it in New Zealand with no orchestral score behind it, no special effects, just laid bare with just those guys and we were like crying our eyes out within like half an hour. It's really sad, you know! All the characters are.. they're in a lot of jeapordy. This is the final stand. It will be sad, but ultimately rewarding, like eating a bar of chocolate! Makes you cry and then you think 'Ohhhh'.
Question: (garbled) Dom: Really? When did you ever see my arse? Obviously you guys have as well... Question: (garbled, but seemingly a question asking Dom to describe each cast member of the Fellowship in one word) Dom: One word each? Billy - Funny! Elijah - Hmmmmm. That's not my word! Elijah - Oh gosh, wise I guess. He's a very wise guy. Geek can be misconstrued. Sean Astin - focussed, I guess. An incredibly focussed man, or driven, I guess. He's a very driven man. Question: For all of you, (garbled, possibly something about what was the hardest part of the film to shoot) Lawrence: Put my head back on! It's hard when your body's up here and your head's down there and everyone goes to eat! Actually the fight with Aragorn. We actually rehearsed that for about three weeks. The first week we both rehearsed it together so we had it down pat. Then I had to actually fight with him blindfolded because I was actually blind. Those spherical lenses that I wore were like ping-pong balls. They just suck on your eye and you can't actually see anything. So we had to do that blindfolded and memorise it on set, and that was really hard. It was that hard that I actually connected with his face. A punch down with my left hand actually connected. So that was scary, man, yeah! Sala: I found it really hard to get my Ring back! Dom: Careful! Careful! There are children here! Andy: Anybody here not read the books, because I don't want to spoil it. Oh I won't say then... No I can't tell you. Second hardest. Well most things were pretty tough because every scene took... you never felt, or I never felt, like I'd finished one. It was always like 'Well, right. In two and a half year's time I'm finally gonna see the end result'. It was just kind of like an ongoing thing. I finished one scene yesterday, the final scene I was involved in, yesterday. So I can't think of any particular scene. Dom: The most technically hard for me was when.. you know the scene in The Fellowship where Boromir's been slain and Merry and Pippin get picked up by the Uruk-Hai and you see Merry trying to grab for Boromir. Obviously they used the scale double, who's not me, smaller hobbit sized, but then attached my face to that guy. This is true! So what I had to do was they took out his face and I had to show what I was doing but I had to follow the angle where his body was moving. I couldn't move anything underneath my neck, so I had to have my arms behind a metal bar and watch with my right eye the screen of Kiren getting pulled away by the Uruk-Hai and then here was a screen that I had to fit my face into, it sort of mapped, so I was doing this and it was technically difficult. And while you're doing that you're trying to put all the emotion, the crying and trying to get to Boromir. I did something like 29 or 28 takes. something like that and it was just exhausting. You're having to hold all this emotion but only in your face. The rest of your body wants to go but you have to keep it all straight apart from your face. That was technically the most difficult. Brent: I had to stab Elijah Wood. He's quite cute. I kept getting it wrong and, like you, I had Kiren in front of me with a mask sometimes and sometimes it was Elijah and I'm like stabbing, and they'd go 'No. Again!'. Stab. Get the glint on the blade. Stab. I felt terrible at the end of that day. Lawrence: You felt terrible?! I thought Boromir would never die! Question: Now that we're coming up to 'Return of the King', the last in the series, are you guys looking forward to the end of it all or are you kind of sad? Because you've got quite a lot of emotions hooked up in it, haven't you? Andy: It just feels like, I mean it never feels like it's ever going to be the end. At this moment in time it just doesn't feel... People obviously ask us that question quite a lot but we have got two months ahead of full-on press stuff coming up, and then there'll be promoting the DVD next year and then it'll be the extended DVD next year and it's just like .. We know that we're all going to see each other for quite a long time in the future so I don't particularly feel that sad at the moment about not seeing each other, because we know we are. There is a sense of the filming, and the actual creation of the filming, and the work involved, that is now... I did, like I said, my final day on 'Lord of the Rings' yesterday. I was like, at the end of it, 'God, that's four years work ended' but not in terms of missing out on seeing anybody because we're all going to be seeing each other.
Question: (garbled, but I think it was along the lines of 'Have you bought seats in the Embassy Theatre refurbishment scheme?') Dom: We were approached and I shamefully avoided the guy because .. We were asked to buy a couple of seats in some sort of executive area and it just didn't work out. I think we had a three or four day window, they were keeping some seats for Elijah, Billy and myself and we just couldn't get ourselves organised. I can barely get myself up out of bed in the morning. So we just... we're trying to run around and get things done and then by the time we then approached them the seats had gone. I know that Pete Jackson's bought a bunch. (turns to Andy Serkis) Did you know anything about this? Did you buy anything? Andy: I didn't know anything about it. Question: (garbled) about some forums asking who the cast go on as Brent: Penthouse forum?! Lawrence: I haven't seen that wedding thing! Who am I? You want to know who I am on the forum? That's for me to know and for you to find out. I'm not Billy Bob. I know who Billy Bob is though. Ahhhhhhh! No, I'm not telling you though. I have written a few replies though. So has Sala! Question: Firstly, Dom, I share your birthday. Dom: Sweet. December 8th. Cool. But, what year? Question: '89. Secondly, which film did you enjoy filming the most? Dom: I think we all kind of got quite a kick out of film 3. First of all, for Merry I then get to kind of have my own story line and go off and do my own thing. And also for a young guy who's watching Viggo and Orlando and Ian and Sean Bean get kind of rough and tough and dirty and ride horses and swing swords about. You know it's kind of like 'Well, I could kinda do that. I'd like a stab at that, no pun intended'. So in the third movie Merry gets to ride a horse and fight and fall off his horse and get bloody, so I kind of like that. It was a shame because I was missing Bill, but also I had probably the more dynamic work coming up in film three.
Question: Do all of you - especially you Andy - feel that you're like your character in everyday life? Andy: Yes, I do actually. It's really weird. It's really quite bizarre, having played Gollum. When I started the job, ostensibly you've got a creature that is very removed from humanity, and as an actor I relished the challenge of playing a role that is very physical and has the vocal quality etc. But what I have realised over the last four years is actually how close to him I really am. I think the whole process of playing him has been about really opening up to the audience. In a way, saying to them... it's kind of in a way goes back to what Gandalf says to Frodo about being careful how you judge people. That's the way I approached Gollum. Saying to people 'Here's this character. Don't judge him by his appearance. There are levels to him and his existence, as there are to mine'. Obviously in the four years of doing the role you can't help but put in what you are, and having children in the interim and how that affected me, and drawing from my children as the inspiration for the Smeagol side for instance of the character. And other areas of my life for the Golum side of the character. I suppose I surprise myself how much there is of me in what is ostensibly a CG character. Question: You all seemed to get on very well, but who annoyed you most? Dom: Ooo-err! Who annoyed you most? Ooo-err! No, this is where you can start little minor wars... Andy: I tell you what though... Sean and I actually came to blows now and then but I think that was because of our characters. It's funny how your characters do seep into your off-screen kind of relationship. The tension that builds up between Sam and Gollum throughout, particularly the third film actually, there were times where.. There was this kind of famous incident where .. actually it was The Two Towers... you know where Gollum kind of pulls... Frodo's about to dash for The Black Gate and Sam were just about to go and Gollum just kind of pulls them back and tells them not to, and I actually did grab Sean and pull him back and I caught his wig and I ripped it off his head. I didn't mean to. Dom: Yeah, right! Andy: And it went flying... kind of into, back to Hobbiton basicly. And he went absolutely nuts. And Peter was on the floor in hysterics, laughing, crumbled by the monitor, as were... Elijah and I were on the floor in hysterics. And Sean and I .. we nearly did have a big punch-up. It must have hurt actually. And it was just the shock. Because suddenly the complete reality of the shot was completely smashed. He was quite keyed up that day! But anyway, you can ask him for his side of the story. Dom: It was tough, man. Everyone's tired. We were all tired. We're all guys. There's a lot of testosterone kind of flying around you know. It can get kind of claustrophobic. Orlando and I nearly had a fight one night! And I love Orlando and we are so, so close. But we went to Auckland for the weekend. Me, Orlando and Billy. And myself and Orlando had been working out really hard because we were coming up to the third movie. My triceps were just absolutely killing me to the point where I was having to kind of hold my arm slightly bent because if it went like that it was murder. And I told the boys and for the whole weekend where I would do anything that would annoy Orlando he'd just pinch my tricep, which was absolute agony. We were in a bar and we'd had a few drinks and we were winding each other up and he came up behind me and he pinched my tricep and I just kind of went round and said 'Heh! Don't do that!' And he kind of went 'Oooooh!' and did it again. I just fucking booted him across the place. He came back and we squared up and we just started pushing each other and fooling around and then Billy, being the beautiful wise boy that he is, just came inbetween us and said 'Uh. Whaat?!' And then we kind of had a hug and a kiss and a drink. But you know, there was a lot of testosterone, there's a lot of guys - there was only Liv, Cate and Miranda that are the girls, the girly element, so guys together they tend to get a little bit 'Rrrrrrrr'. Lawrence: Yeah, he's really annoyed me, the assistant directors. After eleven hours of make-up, any chance of a rest you get, is bliss. And if you only have 5 minutes rest and they go 'Can we please have you back on set Mr Makaore?', I'm 'Shit!' Transcript ends here because Press were advised they had to be in Press area by 7.30pm or no admission allowed. Missing from the transcript is Dom being asked to show his tattoo, and Andy insisting on showing people 'his precious'!!!!
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