(crowd cheering)
Very nice.
Yes, there is a bit of a pattern, isn't there?
There is. There's a pattern here with these three movies.
(audience members screaming)
Aah!
You know, I can push a button
and have foam dumped on that side of the audience.
It's a lot of fun. I do it sometimes.
You know, I have to say, I had not read the,
the Tolkien classics.
Neither have I.
You haven't read them?
I haven't finished them.
That's insane!
I know.
What are you talking about?
Isn't that terrible?
That's so lazy.
Well, I started reading them when I got to New Zealand.
And then once we started filming, I just,
the movie took control and I couldn't,
it seems sort of redundant after awhile.
But you know, what's interesting is
you don't need to have read the books.
And what I love about these movies are so well made that I
love them even when I don't know what the hell is going on.
Somebody told me that you still don't really get it.
That, you know...
There are times when I'm watching it
and I'm totally in the action.
And, but they're yelling about,
we must get to Gondor, to steal the bag of gribble.
Alright? Get that bag of gribble.
But the Lord King Isenearth (indistinct gibberish)
And you're just like, whatever, man.
Sure, dude. I'm in.
I'm here. I'm going with you guys.
No, they really do draw you in they're,
they're so powerful. I understand, you've also,
and this is a nice side benefit for you.
You've formed very close friendships
with your fellow hobbits.
Is that right?
Incredibly close.
You guys are, you guys are very tight.
Yes. The hobbits are close. It gets some laughs.
It's odd.
We still refer to ourselves as the hobbits as well.
Right? That's one,
tough gang when you guys go out together.
Yes, sir.
Let's go kick some ass. Come on guys.
Yeah exactly.
(silly squeaking noise)
What do you do? Like what's, cause you've,
I mean, do you guys ever go out drinking
and just let it all hang out?
Yeah, we, it's funny. Dom and I had a drinking contest.
Dominic Monaghan, who was in the film.
Had a drinking contest. Yes. You know him.
There's a lot of hobbit love tonight.
(audience cheering)
I knew something was up when I was doing the monologue.
I notice everyone in the audience is wearing
like a wizard's hat,
but then apparently they haven't seen the movie.
They don't know what's going on.
So what's...
We had a drinking contest. He's English.
So he can handle his alcohol a little bit more than I can.
And we had, I think it was like six shots of Jagermeister
or something like that.
That's a lot of booze.
It is. He won,
He won?
He won and we then went to,
sort of an equivalent of a 7-Eleven,
in New Zealand just to get provisions for the night,
like water, that kind of thing.
And I asked for porn and chocolate.
That seemed to be the best idea at the time.
Ha, ha. Wow.
And I...
I'm sure your publicists love this story by the way.
I got trashed.
Then I went out looking for porn and chocolate.
I just sort of declared, "Porn and chocolate!"
And I got home to Dom's place and
dropped the bag of porn and chocolate and went to sleep.
Right. I love how it's a somewhat less magical
and noble quest than trying to get the ring back to Mordor.
It is.
Where are you going?
I must go find the porn and chocolate.
Descend many layers into the cave of 7-Eleven and uh.
Drunk stories are never noble.
No.They're never noble. No, well, sometimes,
occasionally people do great things when they're drunk.
So listen up kids.
You know, what's fascinating
is these movies are so popular and
they're such a part of the culture that your face is,
is everywhere. I mean, it's just everywhere.
You're on you're on a coin. Is that right?
I'm on a coin now. It gets more and more surreal.
I'm on the side of a plane.
They painted your face on the side of a plane?
That's right.
Which plane is this?
It's Air New Zealand flights.
And I've actually flown on that plane,
which is even more surreal.
The gotta be really strange.
It is.
When you get on a plane and oh, there's my face on the
There I am.
Yeah.
Yeah. Very odd.
Then you say to the stewardess,
where's my porn and chocolate?
Bring it. Now. My face on the plane.
I had to mentioned that story, didn't I?
You know, I'll never, you'll never hear the end of it now.
You look, you look very, very young
and you've been on the show before
and you don't seem to get any older and that's a compliment.
I mean it as a compliment.
It's a good thing.
It's a good thing. And you've stayed very youthful.
Is this ever a problem for you? Does it ever cause trouble?
It has in the past. It's been a bit annoying at times.
It's curbed a few roles that I wanted to get because I
was too young for certain roles.
There was a funny story actually in a hotel at one point.
I was staying at the Regency hotel here in
New York for press last year on "Lord of the Rings."
And I walked into my room and there was a maid in there and
I said, "No, no, I don't,
I don't need service right now. I'm fine"
And she's like, "Is your mother around? Can I ask your mom?"
And I was like, "No, actually this is, this is my room.
I'm sorry."
And she's like, "No, no. Is your mom around?"
"No, seriously, this is my room. I'm fine."
She's like, "Oh, okay."
Right.
So she thought, it was my mom's room.
Right. Right. And that she better...
And the little kid was like,
"Excuse me, can you uh, I don't want service."
Well, that's annoying right now. I know when I was,
it took my voice a long time to change.
And when I was like, well, it's still in the process.
People were like, it's changed?
But it took my voice a long time.
And I remember when I was, I think I was 18 years old
and I was working at some job
where I had to answer the phone
and the person who the other line was always like,
"Listen, ma'am, could I speak to the person in charge?"
I'm a man!
Still happens.
Still happens to you?
Still happens on the phone.
I call people up, "Yes ma'am, what can I do for you?"
(high pitched groan)
Right. Insanity.
Yeah, but it'll be good.
That's nice. You just make that sound, which immediately,
immediately convinces them you're a man.
You're definitely a man.
(high-pitched groan) I'm a man. Why?
That's hilarious.
(audience clapping and cheering)
You ever get, you've been mistaken for other celebrities.
Is that true?
I have.
Cause you've got such a specific look.
I find that hard to believe. Who are you?
I find it kind of hard to believe as well.
I've gotten Harry Potter quite a lot.
No.
Yes.
That's ridiculous.
A lot.
People say, cause you know, who gets Harry Potter a lot,
Max Weinberg. People think...
[Elijah Wood] Of course.
[ Conan O'Brien] Max, I kind of buy it.
[Elijah Wood] Give him a wand and a scarf.
[Conan O'Brien] Right.
[Elijah Wood] And you know.
Right. A little lightning bolt on the head and he's...
There you go.
Sort of a borderline creepy Harry Potter
roaming the neighborhood.
But yeah, I get Harry Potter a lot.
That's so strange.
In fact, I was in an elevator once and you know,
that sort of awkward sort of silence in an elevator when
it's just you and somebody else.
And you're kind of looking at the buttons like, oh,
these are very interesting buttons.
I'm gonna ignore this man here. And that was happening.
And I could see that the guy was kind of working up the
courage to talk to me. Finally,
it was sort of bubbling to the surface
and he looked at me and said, "Harry Potter."
And I looked at him and I said, "No."
And the conversation was dead from there.
It's terrible when someone decides like,
I'm just going to go for it and they're completely wrong.
It's such a bummer.
They're like, oh, Richie from "Happy Days" with me.
And I'm like,
no
That's not it.
Or when they're completely wrong,
Completely wrong.
And then they try and retract it
and actually correct themselves.
Right right.
So they can't admit that they were wrong.
I had this once, I was sitting in a screening and I was
watching a movie and this guy tapped me on the shoulder
and said, "You were really great in 'Seabiscuit'.
I just wanted to say that." And I said, "I'm sorry,
I'm not in that film."
And he's like, "I know.
That's what I'm saying.
You were in 'Lord of the Rings'. And that is a great film.
And so is 'Seabiscuit', a great film as well, right.
And I heard you're friends with Tobey Maguire."
And just went on this five minute rant.
Just anything to like...
Just anything to save his ass.
It was absolutely brilliant.
I, you know, I would've just said if I had been caught,
if you had said no,
I'd have said, "No, I saw you
at the screening of 'Seabiscuit'
and you were a great audience member."
That's, and then the person would have hit me really hard.
You would have hit me.
Now you, you want to, I don't know if this is true,
but I heard a rumor
that you want to build yourself a hobbit house.
Yeah.
And I said, the reason
that I actually think this is a cool idea
is that when you see these movies
and you see the hobbit house
featured, which it's,
you actually see a lot of the hobbit house
in the first movie. It looks pretty cool.
You know, it's I like the round door and I like...
The round hallways. It's very comforting, very, very cozy.
So you're going to actually think you might build one?
I've thought about doing it.
Peter Jackson has actually gone and done it.
He's taken some of the original set of Bag End from the
first movie, transported it to north of Wellington
and then extended it. So he's got this massive hobbit hole.
He's gone and done it.
So it's like a giant Habitrail kind of thing.
Yeah and I believe...
And he scurries around in it.
The phone rings,
and he's like (treadmill machine powering down),
he gets off the treadmill and goes over and...
It's absolutely brilliant. Such a cool thing.
That is so weird. I don't know.
I'd love to see that. So you might do it.
You might actually go...
I was thinking about doing it. It's still in the plan.
I say go for it no matter what the cost.
And then you see in the Enquirer, you know,
actor freaks out. Too close to character.
Builds hobbit hole.
Ha, ha. Yeah.
Leaves Hollywood. Lives in hole.
Demanding porn, chocolate.
Everything you've said in this interview
Is going to be used against me.
Is going to be used. Exactly.
Everything here.
I love coming on your show.
Yeah. That's it.
That's what we're here to do. Pretty much.
We have a clip here from the movie.
I want to make sure that the latest installment,
I want to make sure we get to this.
What do we need to know to appreciate this?
I believe that this is a scene
in which Samwise Gamgee is sort of distrusting of Gollum.
And he starts to attack Gollum
because he overhears a conversation
that he's having with himself.
And Frodo tries to...
Gollum is like every other guy in a New York subway.
Exactly.
What's that guy talking to him saying?
If Gollum lived in New York and
rode the subway, no one would say a thing.
No one would bother at all.
Gollum wishes that Gollum could get to the (gibberish).
And people would be like, "Eh whatever." Yeah.
Pop him a dollar.
Yeah, he'd have a New York post.
Photos trying to basically stop Sam from attacking Gollum
because we need Gollum on the journey.
You need Gollum yet at the same time,
it's not clear if Gollum's with you or not.
This is true.
All right. Let's take a look at this clip
from "The Return of the King".
Master!
No, Sam. Leave him alone.
I heard it from his own mouth. He means to murder us!
Never. Sméagol wouldn't hurt a fly.
Ahh! He's a horrid, fat hobbit who hates Sméagol
and who makes up nasty lies.
You miserable little maggot! I'll stove your head in!
Sam.
Call me a liar. You're a liar!
Sam! If you scare him off, we're lost.
I don't care. I can't do it, Mr. Frodo.
I won't wait around for him to kill us.
I'm not sending him away.
You don't see it, do you? He's a villain.
We can't do this by ourselves, Sam. Not without a guide.
I need you on my side.
I'm on your side, Mr. Frodo.
I know, Sam. I know.
Wow.
(audience cheering and clapping)
We do a lot of, for all my,
for all the kidding around we do on this show.
These are just incredible movies
that I think people are gonna be talking about
for a long time.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return to the King"
is in theaters now, as if I have to tell anybody, but...
I can't believe it's in theaters.
Four years down the, down the line, it's kind of amazing.
And this is, was it hard to say goodbye?
Because theoretically, this is the last one.
Unless there's some magical way to make another one.
Another, right. Resurrect Tolkien.
Yeah. Yeah.
Can you write a sequel?
Dude Where's My Ring? You guys.
Yeah, right.
Dude, let's go. All the hobbits.
Come on.
You know.
Road trip the hobbits.
Yeah. It was very difficult to say goodbye.
It's been an incredible part of our lives.
You know, we've all made the best of friends,
but I think the friendships will go on.
Sure.
And that's the most important thing.
Well, I hope we see you
many times in the future with all your other projects.
Thank you so much.
[Conan] It's always great having you on the show.
Elijah Wood, he's a great guy.