SMTV presenters: C = Cat, D = Dane, L = Louise

C: Lord Of The Rings is out on December 19th, and we have some of the cast here this morning! Dominic, Billy, Sean and Elijah!
Elijah: Hello!
C: Now everybody at home hasn't seen it, I went to see it on Thursday...
Elijah: Yesss!!
C: ...And I really enjoyed it.
Billy: Great.
C: So can you tell everybody who you are and what your characters are about? Cos obviously the guys at home don't really know.
Elijah: I'm Elijah, I play Frodo Baggins, of the Shire.
C: And you're the hero aren't you?
Elijah: I'm the ringbearer. The anti-hero.
Billy: I'm the hero!
Sean: Billy was the hero.
C: You're the hero?
Billy: Yeah, come on!
D: It's all kicking off on the show today isn't it!
[laughter]
C: And Sean...
Sean: I'm... confused. No, I'm Sam Gamgee. I'm Sean Astin...
C: And you're quite simple but cute, and a real mate...
Sean: [smiling] Thank you!
C: See I've done my homework!
Sean: [pointing to Elijah] I'm his gardener.
Elijah: He is as well!
Sean: I fix food for him...
C: Pool cleaner.
[laughter]
C: Billy.
Billy: Yep, I'm Billy Boyd, and I play Pippin.
C: Pippin... kind of a comedy Rosencrantz, Guildenstern character [I have no idea who Cat's referring to so apologies if the spelling is wrong!!]
Billy: Yeah... [looking at Dom] we normally get things wrong...
Dom: I'm Dom Monaghan, I play Billy's best mate, Merry, who's a kind of sharp hobbit...
D: Mary?
Dom: Merry, not Mary... be very careful!
[laughter]
Dom: Merry, yeah, just a kind of sharp, crazy, funny hobbit...
C: OK well lets take a little look at a clip.
Plays LOTR clip - Frodo and Gandalf finding the writing on the ring
[Applause]
C: [to Elijah] I'm loving the kind of David Hasslehof hair!
Elijah: Aww thank you.
C: It's very good, you pull it off very well.
Elijah: It's a wig!
C: Nice work... Listen, that was a very crucial moment on the film...
Elijah: It is.
C: ...Can you tell us a little bit about what's happening here, and what the general story is.
Elijah: Right, well that’s basically [when] we discover that that is the ring of power, that it's Sauron, the dark lord's ring, and that it must be destroyed or all of Middle Earth is basically gonna perish. So we, and a fellowship of nine, basically go on a journey to destroy the ring, and Frodo decides that it is his fate to take it.
D: So Sean, Middle Earth, that you mentioned, that's the world that you live in, right. Is there any reason why you went to New Zealand to create it?
Sean: Well sure, Peter Jackson, the film maker, is a New Zealander, and the countryside is pretty well suited for its green trees and tall mountains, it looks like what Tolkien was writing about.
D: And there was 350 sets, is that right?
Sean: Ah well I lost count after 349, so...
[laughter]
Sean: There were a lot of sets, and pretty cool sets too, at the top of mountains that only had access by helicopter, and they'd fly the sets in and build them up there. It was a pretty amazing experience.
C: It's very dream-like...
L: Now you were all thrown into a situation, you know, how did you all get on over the long period of time?
Dom: Terrible...
Elijah: We hate each other...
Dom: Awful...
Elijah: It's actually really painful right now.
[laughter]
Billy: We're really lucky... We arrived in New Zealand quite a while before we started filming, so we had a long time to get to know each other, we became really good friends, and we're been on holiday since then...
C: Where did you go?
Billy: We went to Thailand, Australia...
Dom: Sidney, Thailand, Lanzarotti, Florida...
C: And they say you work hard!
Elijah: We all took up surfing as well.
C: Who's the best?
Billy: Me!!
Dom: Billy.
Elijah: Yeah I'd say Billy's the best.
Dom: He's the bravest.
Billy: [pointing to Dom] I paid him to say that.
[laughter]
C: OK lets take another little look at a clip, I think we have another one...
Elijah: Oh excellent!
Plays LOTR clip - chase to Bucklebury ferry clip
[Applause]
C: I didn't like those horses! I was saying to you I don't like them... [Does Ringwraith impression]
Elijah: No now you're doing a parrot.
Dom: No you have to breathe in...[They all start doing screechy Ringwraith impressions]
C: You're all hobbits aren't you, so tell me a bit about them cos I noticed you've all got these great big hairy feet...
Billy: Thank you!
C: ...and are they your own!
Dom: They're the reason why I scored, man [on earlier football game]. They were prosthetic feet, so they're slightly bigger than you normal feet, and we had to go through the rig moral of having them put on every day, which all in all, with make up, took about 3 hours, and you had glue, and you had to stand up, and you weren't allowed to sit down, and even the people that were putting it on for us got tired of doing it. But it kinda makes you feel like a hobbit, it gives you a kind of bounce to your step...
C: Did you trip on them though?
Dom: Yeah and your toes would fly off...
Sean: [Pointing to Dom] He'd play football at lunch and mess them up.
Dom: Yeah I used to get into trouble...
C: You need to behave! Listen, can I ask you one more question? I read in the brief that you've all had tattoos done now?
All: Yeah.
D: You haven't got 'Mary' on you bum have you?
[Laughter]
Dom: Well it's a kind of secret thing, but I think maybe I'll show mine...
Billy: No!
Sean: You shouldn't...
Dom: No I'll show it!
Billy: We've all got the same tattoo...
Dom: Yeah, we've all got the same, and I'll show mine...
Dom stands up
Dom: Extreme close up, here we go...
Lifts up shirt, 'Cat' is written on his very sexy stomach.
[Laughter]
Dom: That was all of us...
C: There'll be more chat from them later, the cast of Lord Of The Ring, aren't they great!

Another big thanks to Mim for the transcript. Visit her site!

Billy: (pointing to Dom-1252"> TRANSCRIPT (SMTV PART 2)

SMTV presenters: C = Cat, D = Dane, L = Louise

C: The cast of Lord Of The Rings are with us this morning. Now before we go on we must just say happy birthday to Dominic, it’s Dominic’s birthday today!

(cheers)

Dom: 25, 25 today…

C: Are you 25 today?

Dom: 25 today, yeah.

C: Don’t look a day over 40.

Dom: Thank you.

(laughter)

C: Now we’ve got another clip to see so lets look at that before we dive into the emails.

Plays LOTR clip – Boromir struggling with the ring on the mountain

(applause)

Dom: Oooh.

C: He (Sean Bean) kind of struggles doesn’t he.

Dom: He’s a kind of good baddie, bad goodie…

C: And he was supposed to be here today.

Dom: He was, but he’s got the kind of… ooh…

All 4 groan, look at the floor and put their little fingers to their lips, then point downwards.

Dom: Sean, if you’re out there, we’ve got a few corks we’re gonna bring back for you.

Elijah: Yeah, mate.

(laughter)

C: Listen, we’ve got a few emails for you, the first ones to Elijah.

Elijah: Uh oh…

C: It’s from Claire Stewart in Peterborough, she says what were you favourite moments making the FOTR?

Elijah: Probably spending time with these guys! Anything with the hobbits was absolutely brilliant, and we just became the best of mates, so any time that we filmed together was brilliant.

C: Aww, togetherness, that’s what we like.

Sean: It was hard going up the mountain in the helicopter.

Elijah: That’s true!

C: Did you go up mountains in helicopters?

Sean: Yeah, every morning for months, we’d hear them coming…

D: Did you get to fly one?

Billy: (pointing to Dom) He flew an aero plane!

Elijah: Oh that’s right!

C: Why?!

(laughter)

Dom: Well I was going to a separate set, and the pilot was really cool, we were in a 2-seater jet, and we got up to altitude, and he just said on you go, and I flew it for about an hour.

C: Check out James Bond over there!

D: Now I’ve got one here from Tanya James from Stoke-On-Trent, it’s to Sean, or any of the cast, not picky; is it true you borrowed soldiers from New Zealand army to film the fight scenes?

Sean: Yeah, it’s true. The New Zealand army was made available at a certain point, and they all dressed up (as) Rohan soldiers.

D: Not a lot of wars going on in New Zealand then! Lots of time off.

Billy: They take it really seriously, so at one point we were leading them into battle… and we’re not the tallest of people, and there were these huge New Zealand army behind us… wa-hay!!

C: Did it feel good though? Was it like: “now you mess with me”!

(laughter)

Elijah: Remember that location with the mines, the mines… We weren’t supposed to walk around because there were mines, and they didn’t know where they were, so we were kept to a certain area… and, yeah, they could have gone off.

L: I’ve got a quick one from Jemima Hill, it’s for Dominic. Did you need much training for your part, and did you have to learn new languages?

Dom: The whole fellowship went over about 6 weeks before the filming, just to kind of get together this fellowship thing, and also every day we would go to the gym, we would do horse riding, sword fighting, we would learn to ride canoes, dialect training…

L: Like an adventure holiday!

Dom: Yeah, so I think what they wanted to do was try and have a group thing to bring us together, so by the time we started filming we were already really good mates.

Elijah: We were hobbits by that point as well…

C: Great stuff. (to Elijah) And is it true you have the actual ring?

Elijah: I do, I have it… (does REALLY freaky Gollum impression) It’s mine!! My precious!!…

(laughter)

C: Well thank you very much for joining us this morning, it’s the cast of LOTR!

(applause)

Huge thank you to Mim for the transcript.