Four hilarious Hobbits tease, charm and talk farts at Edmonton Expo

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What makes a memorable Edmonton Expo panel was fully visible Sunday night as the cinematic Hobbits celebrated the run-up to 25 years of Peter Jackson’s first The Lord of the Rings film, Fellowship of the Ring.

Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd — Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin to the 3000 in attendance and millions more around the planet — came out with big smiles, wearing signed Oilers, Darnell Nurse-riffing No. 25 jerseys with their Hobbit names on the back to be later auctioned for charity.

The highest-profile group panel Expo has pulled out of its pocket since its inception in 2012, the actors revisited ups and downs of the continuous trilogy shoot, mused about their lives since and made relentless fun of each other — especially recently-appointed SAG-AFTRA union head Astin, who Boyd and Monaghan kept calling “the president.”

Prodded by panel host Victor Dandridge, the seated, well-preserved four talked about the quarter century since their life-changing roles hit the silver screen.

“It just makes you feel old,” 57-year-old Boyd moaned, noting Wood at 19 had less life before the films than since, joking at the 50^th anniversary, “you guys will all be gone, I’ll be 107.”

Monaghan, 48, who was easily the sassiest panel Hobbit and literally dropped the mic, said seriously, “Sooner or later one of us is gonna go.”

Dandridge shifted the super interesting Q&A into the first of a series of group games, Astin — still feeling the strain of Mt. Doom — joking of Wood, “Do I have to carry him up anything?”

When it was revealed to be charades, Astin said, “They made us take the Oilers jerseys off, nothing else is coming off!” which had Wood, 44, laughing, “No one said anything about stripping!”

“Ever since he’s been the president, he’s been trying to take our clothes off,” Monaghan piped in, soon making fun of Wood for wanting a handheld mic instead of a clip-on: “It’s charades, you don’t need a microphone!”

The first game went well, the other three guessing Spider-Man as Astin wiggled his fingers and pretended to climb the back wall until they realized the pretty obvious theme and guessed the ancient spider Shelob.

Wood instantly nailed the eye of Sauron, Monaghan, “You shall not pass!” and Boyd Gollum, Astin complaining he’d be calling his wife saying, “Honey, my Shelob sucked.”

The next game, with an overhead camera, was a twist on Pictionary where Astin drew a complicated Helm’s Deep surfing scene to signal Legolas, Wood struggling hard to depict an orc — admittedly a tough one if you’re not a cartoonist.

Back to the way more interesting Q&A, the four talked about what props they wish they’d gotten.

“I got the ring,” Wood noted, but wished he had the portraits of Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson as Biblo’s parents — which the filmmaker couple have on their wall. As for Astin, joking it would only fit in a Hollywood mansion, wanted the canoe Sam and Frodo shared.

Boyd then got into a hilarious tangent. “Did you know Bill the pony wasn’t a real horse? It was two people dressed up.”

“Bill the pony was a real horse!” Astin insisted, Boyd laughing, “Even when it was a real horse, there were those two women inside it,” the crowd howling.

“Sometimes I would see you trying to feed it sugar lumps!”

Monaghan ended this confessional round with, “I’d go for Peter Jackson’s car.”

When asked about scenes being filmed by the other Hobbit actors that really moved him, the British-Irish actor shrugged, “I honestly can’t remember anything you guys did.”

Wood tackled this one straight, talking about the final Hobbit reunion in the bedroom, which was actually filmed fairly early on. “I remember that being emotional for all of us,” Astin adding it was a cascade of them all building on each other’s work as performers. He’s going to be a great president!

Noting a LotR-themed wedding’s bride and groom sitting in the front row, the lads gave advice to the new couple, including Monaghan suggesting the husband take the blame for the wife’s farts in group situations.

This had Wood cutely giggling about the online phenomenon Guess My Fart!, which then became a running joke between the four whenever they could, uh, slip it out.

Next up were shoot horror stories, Boyd starting it off. “I don’t know if you guys know this, but we had fake feet!” he explained, talking about filming in a parking garage in Wellington full of freezing water.

“It’s the nearest I came to saying, ‘I can’t do this,’” finally ripping off the prosthetics that took an hour to get on after they got the shot, then having a hot bath.

Monaghan earned a huge metal splinter at once point, while Wood’s was more existential at times through 16 months of continuous filming.

“Days would bleed into the next,” he said, noting the general endurance required was more than he imagined.

This has Astin talking about waiting around for hours and hours to be summoned to the council of Elrond with all the other great actors, feeling forgotten. “I got the book out like a Talmudic scholar,” he explained finding, there it was!, his proof: “Samwise Gamgee is eavesdropping!”

“It was exhausting,’ Astin laughed, “to put up with your ego as an actor.”

Finally, they talked about weird fan encounters, Monaghan noting one girl peed herself with excitement in Spain after asking for a selfie, running off without a goodbye.

“Fan conventions are tattoo culture, more than a biker convention,” said Astin, noting he spotted one fan “with a billboard-sized, photo-real tattoo of me.

“Oh my god, I have a responsibility to this person,” he said, going up to her.

“But she didn’t want to talk to me at all,” musing that perhaps the undistilled fantasy of the films, “maybe it was interrupting that.”

It was here Boyd revealed, “People get me and Dom mixed up so much. ‘You were great in Lost!’ How does that happen?”

Without missing a beat, Astin responded, “You know how much I have to pay these people to do that to you?”

The panel ended on a flat note with an overlong, impersonal guessing game involving gross AI-generated dogs on the big screens, where most of us couldn’t really see who the actors were writing down — though Astin wrote “Elijah” as his guess for a twitchy and ugly obviously-Gollum dog to big laughs.

Overall, though, the conversation and Q&A were pure gold, Monaghan letting out one last “Guess my fart!” near the end with his legs spread up in the air.

All 3000 of us witnessed something truly memorable, which comes down to two swirling ideas going back before even Middle Earth or the First Age: fellowship, and love.

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto.bsky.social

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