- Hi, I'm Dominic Monaghan. - And I'm Billy Boyd.
- And today, we're doing the Wired Autocomplete Interview.
[upbeat music]
[Billy cackling] [board thudding]
- What Dominic Monaghan.
What is Dominic Monaghan doing right now?
- I am sat with my good friend, Billy Boyd
in the podcast studio where we make a podcast
called The Friendship Onion.
In which we talk about kinda nonsense really.
- Ready for the next one Dom? - Go on then.
- [laughs] What happened to Dominic Monaghan?
- Oh, it could be anything.
- What happened to Dominic Monaghan's voice?
[both laughing]
- This is probably in regards to the fact that my voice
has gotten significantly deeper over the years.
- Right, unbelievably. - [laughs] Yeah.
I mean like Lord of The Rings,
my voice wasn't necessarily deep,
but you wouldn't say, "Oh, he has quite a deep voice."
Whereas nowadays people mention when they're talking to me,
"Oh, your voice is quite deep."
- You always had a deep voice,
but you didn't for the character of Merry.
You've always had a lovely, resonant, theater voice.
- It's lovely. - Thank you, thank you.
- You ready for the next one? - Please.
- What movies has Dominic Monaghan watched, made,
been in? - I was in X-Men.
- You've been in more franchise movies
than anyone else I know.
I think Star Wars. - Yeah.
I think myself and Christopher Lee.
'Cause Christopher Lee, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars.
There was something else that he was in that was...
- Dracula. - Oh, Dracula.
Andy Serkis, Marvel, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings.
Same as me, so we're kinda similar.
- I didn't think about it too deeply.
I just thought you've been in a lot.
- But then also I've been in small ones
that people don't know about.
- Pet was really good. - Pet was good.
- What does Dominic Monaghan look like now?
You get 3% better every year of your life to this point.
- Thanks Bills. - It's no worries.
- Thanks, I appreciate that.
[board thudding] - Done.
[Dominic grunts] Oh, do we do more?
- Yeah, there's all these cards, we've gotta keep going.
- Oh, we're doing all those cards?
- How to pronounce Billy Boyd.
- It's not really that difficult is it, I don't think.
Billy Boyd, how would you get it wrong?
- How... - How tall is Billy Boyd?
- Oh, this is controversial.
- This is very controversial,
'cause I will tell you right now that I am 5'7" tall.
- No. - Dom says
he's five foot seven, but he's taller than me.
So I reckon he's five foot eight.
- I think I'm five seven and you're five six.
- I'm never five six.
- How old is Billy Boyd?
- Now you'll never believe this
because of my elvish young looks, I'm 52 years old.
- What? - Mhm.
- Really? - Mhm.
- What's your secret? - I shave my chest.
- How old was Billy Boyd?
- When he was born. - In Lord of the Rings?
- I turned 31 on the flight going over in New Zealand.
I was flying with Orlando Bloom.
It was my birthday,
and we drank a bottle of champagne in London.
And then when we got to LA, because of the time difference,
it was my birthday again.
And we drank another bottle of champagne.
- Alcoholics. - [laughs] Hey.
How Dominic Monaghan. How to pronounce Dominic Monaghan.
- The secret here is that the G...
Thank you, William, is silent.
So if you don't pronounce the G, it's Monahan.
- G, the most difficult of all the letters, except for Q.
- Good point.
- How tall is Dominic Monaghan?
- Without shoes on, I'm five foot seven.
And I was the tallest Hobbit out of the three of us.
Elijah Wood, Sean Astin,
and Billy Boyd being just slightly smaller than me.
- It's true, you are very tall.
How old is Dominic Monaghan?
- I am 44 years old. I know, can you imagine it?
- You look amazing.
How old was Dominic Monaghan in Lord of the Rings?
- I was 23 when I did Lord of the Rings.
- You were not. - I was.
I was very naive, and I looked to you for guidance.
And unfortunately, you were drinking
a lot of champagne at the time.
You got off the plane drunk from your birthday,
and you just carried on throughout the entire trilogy,
didn't you? - 'Til today.
- Pippin Took. Why is Peregrin Took called Pippin?
- It's just a nickname.
It's just Peregrin, Pippin, that's it.
- Something, something, something, something Pippin.
Why is Ganda...
- Why is Gandalf mean to Pippin?
Probably down to jealousy,
because of all the magical things that Pippin does
during the adventure and he is the real hero, probably that.
He gets quite annoyed at Pippin,
but he does end up liking Pippin by the end.
- Is Pippin... - [Billy] What?
- The real hero? Now they've got to it.
- Yes. [Dominic laughing]
- Does Pippin Took really sing?
- All the Hobbits sing in the books.
And Pippin as a character also sings quite famously,
"The Bath Song", which I've just put two and two together.
I love being in the bath more than probably anywhere else
in the world, and Pippin sings "The Bath Song".
- Pippin Took, Pippin Took personality.
- Pippin took personality and made it his own.
[board thudding] Give us a board, come on.
What Pippin and Merry.
What happens to Pippin and Merry after Lord of the Rings?
- Well after the films, Merry and Pippin
make their way back to the Shire.
Which has kind of been sacked by Saruman
and some bad people,
and they get the Shire back for the Hobbits.
And then they spend a little bit of time in the Shire
and become kind of important people in the Shire.
Stewards of certain lands of the Shire.
And they go and travel.
They go back to the lands of Gondor and Rohan,
and spend some time with Faramir
and then also King Aragon, at that point,
until they both die.
- What accent do Merry and Pippin have?
- Merry and Pippin have slightly different accents.
Merry has an accent from the west country of England.
Which is kind of Cornish-Devon,
like a gentle farmer type accent.
And then Pippin's character who comes from
a different area of the Shire, Tuckborough,
has a slightly more Scottish draw.
- Like sort of Northern Scottish.
Still trying to keep it in the rural short of sight.
What do Merry and Pippin drink?
- Beer more than anything else.
That's their drink of choice,
but they're also partial to Ent-draught.
Which makes them the tallest Hobbits
in the history of the Shire.
- A very, very occasional margarita.
- If they find themself by the beach.
- What is the conspiracy planned by Pippin, Merry and Sam?
- I have no idea.
- Done. [board thudding]
- Pippin and Merry. - Oh.
- Merry and Pippin, which is which?
- Ah, good question.
In the movie Pippin wears a scarf.
Merry wears a yellow waistcoat, or in America, vest.
- Did Merry and Pippin get married?
- Pippin marries somebody, called Diamond of Long Cleeve.
And they have lots of kids.
One of them called Faramir,
who marries Samwise Gamgee's daughter.
Look at my Tolkien knowledge. Does Merry ever get married?
- Bachelor. Is Frodo related to Merry and Pippin?
- He is, he is their cousin. Merry and Pippin are cousins.
And also, Frodo is their cousin.
So yes, they're all related.
- I think Frodo is Merry's cousin once removed by marriage,
not a first cousin.
- Oh, none of them are first cousins.
- So, one removed by marriage. So. just general cousins.
- General cousin. - Copy that.
What is Merry and Pippin relationship?
- They have a lovely relationship.
They like each other, and they just like to have some fun.
Steal some fruit, some vegetables from farmer markets.
Steal fireworks and set them off
and just have a nice time, really?
And then they get caught up in a big adventure.
And then they become the real heroes.
Throw away. [board thudding]
What do Hobbits eat?
- Hobbits are fans of bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes,
vegetables, salted pork, bread, ham,
chicken, cheese. - Biscuits, perfect. [laughs]
What do Hobbits smoke?
- Hobbits smoke pipe-weed.
Now it's quite vague in the Lord of the Rings book.
Professor Tolkien doesn't necessarily
talk about what pipe-weed is.
But it is also commonly known that the best pipe weed,
possibly in Middle Earth, is from the Shire.
And the Hobbits revere it.
So you've got stuff like Old Toby, Southfarthing.
- Southfarthing, I think that's the best.
- That's the good pipe-weed.
- See, one of the whole bits was say for instance,
running the sprints in the Olympics,
would they be allowed to smoke Southfarthing before that?
- No, they'd be banned. Isn't that a shame?
- What is the home of the Hobbits?
- The Hobbits come from an area of Middle Earth
called the Shire, relatively big.
There are different areas of the Shire.
My character Meriadoc Brandybuck, or Merry, not Mary.
As in, you know, Mary Steenburgen or Mary Jesus's mom.
But Merry, as in Merry Christmas.
Merry comes from Buckland, near the Brandywine Bridge
and the Brandywine River.
- Well done. - Thank you.
I just wanna try and get that albatross off my net.
Lots of people in the United States call me Mary.
No, no, it's Merry as in Merry Christmas.
- What do Hobbits look like?
- The don't wear shoes, cleanly shaven.
They don't tend to care too much about their clothes.
Although Merry, the character that I play,
is a little bit of a dandy.
So he's kind of well-dressed for a Hobbit.
- What do Hobbits do in Lord of the Rings?
- Sam and Frodo walk the ring to the very Fires of Mordor
to destroy it, whilst Merry and Pippin create
incredible distractions for the enemy.
'Cause the enemy knows that they are looking for a Halfling,
or a Hobbit.
So Gandalf makes sure that Pippin is seen by Sauron,
and then takes him to different parts of the world
so that maybe the enemies eye will get taken over there.
Then Pippin saves the life of different people
and ultimately saves most of the people in Gondor
with your actions, lighting the beacons,
and try to keep Faramir alive.
At the same time, Merry is on the fields of battle
with the Rohan Army stabbing The Witch King in the knee,
bringing him down to his knees
so that Eowyn can stab him in the face and kill him.
So the Hobbits do a lot.
And as you can see, by the end of the movie
where Aragon says, "My friends,
you bow to no one, we are the real heroes of the trilogy."
- We also smoke a lot of Southfarthing.
- Good point.
- I think we answered the questions quite well.
Don't you Dom? - Yes.
I think we were absolutely fantastic.
I very much enjoyed revealing
some of these questions about us.
With me, Dom Monaghan.
And him. - Billy Boyd.