Q: Congratulations on getting the role of Merry. I can't even imagine when you got the first script how overwhelming this must have all been for you. Not only are you making one film but also you are committed to making three! So take me back.
A: It just all started by a call from my agent, as most jobs do. I got a call from my agent saying there is a meeting in London for The Lord of The Rings that is being made by Peter Jackson. So I just kind have said OK, cool, whatever. I went down and met them, and then I was doing a job in France. So I rang my agent and asked him how he thought my audition went and he thought it went well and I just try to forget things. I go into a meeting, try as hard as I can, and then when I leave you just have to forget things. Otherwise they torture you completely. So, I just forgot about it.

Q: You must have been a bit anxious though?
A: Well OK, I was. Then it was about three months later and my agent rang me on a Friday and said, I think that they might be interested in you for the part of Merry. Then the weekend went by and my agent called me again and said 'I need to know where you are going to be all day because they may need you to fly to Los Angeles or New Zealand to have a chat with Peter Jackson.' So I gave him a number — I was in France — and he called me about fifteen minutes later and I was in a car with a bunch of actors, and he said you don't need to fly anywhere. They have offered you a part.

Q: Wow. You must have been freaking out!
A: Ya, I just said to him, OK thanks bye. I was sitting next to my friend who asked me what the call was about. I told him that I had just been offered a part in The Lord of The Rings and all the actors just said, real sarcastically, oh congratulations. Then I went right home, rang my mum, and that's how it started really.

Q: Pretty great story.
A: You don't realize the enormity of it I didn't, anyway, until I was over in New Zealand. You get showed around the studio by Pete and you are like, just, wow.

Q: You and your co-stars had to be in excellent physical shape to take on a role like this. So how did you prepare yourself?
A: Well, I am a young lad so I have always been relatively fit. There was a slight lifestyle change when we got over to New Zealand. For the first couple of months I would go to the gym every day and then we had to learn kayaking, archery, sword fighting and horseback riding. We were also eating really well. The New Zealand lifestyle is very outdoorsy and healthy. We all learned how to surf and did a bit more every day. The producers came to us, especially the young lads, and said 'this is going to be a very long shoot and you are going to need a lot of stamina and we are going to be relying on you more than the other actors to keep the energy levels up on set.' He told us that there was a gym there for us to use whenever we wanted and we had a personal trainer. That was something that I really got into. It was a great thing. Its strange because when I was tired at the end of the day, instead of going home to bed I would go to the gym because it gave me more energy for the next day. As a young boy it's a great opportunity to be told, 'here's two years of your life where you can just be healthy, get fit and get strong.'

Q: I hope that you are keeping it up now.
A: Ya (makes a muscle), my muscles look pretty good, don't you think?

Q: Yes, they are. I'm sure that it must have been intimidating wanting to keep Merry true to Tolkien's image in the book, but how did you make him your own as well?
A: Well I think that reading the book I would write down the main characteristics that would go through Merry's character arc and the things that Merry takes with him all the time is a real level of tenacity. He is very sharp-witted and he is very funny and clever. With Pippin being his partner in crime Merry tends to be the person who suggests things and gets Pippin into trouble then has to pull him out at the last minute. These are the things that he takes with him and also as he goes through these incredible situations of war and tragedy he grows as a person and becomes more responsible and gets older. I think what I tried as hard as I could to do was give him a real sense of being a Hobbit which is different than a human. Hobbits show their emotions very easily. There is a kind of a risk in playing a Hobbit that it would seem that you are over-acting because when they are happy they are incredibly happy and when they are sad they cry their eyes out, so that was something that Pete always said to the four Hobbits. 'I want you to play it as much as a Hobbit as you can, but you have to keep a level of realism to it.' So that was my main task really.

Q: Tell me about the comradery between you and the guys. Here you are on set together for almost two years. How did you become friendly and did you ever get sick of each other?
A: Well we're just brothers you know. I have one real brother, but I have nine people who I would call my brothers. We spent about 15 hours a day seven days a week with each other. We fought and we laughed and we cried we went through every single level of emotion. You are doing things that we will never do with anyone ever again. We flew into storms in planes and having to land in airports at three in the morning and going up in helicopters, flying over whales and dolphins, and bungee jumping and surfing. It was life experiences. We all just became very close and relied on each other for support. It's strange because if you imagined that you were working with these people six days a week you would have thought that on your one day off you would say I'll see you tomorrow, go home and watch movies, but we wouldn't. We'd all go for breakfast together we would all go out. Even since finishing — it's been a year — I speak to one of the guys at least every other day. I know where they all are and where they are working so that in itself was a reason to do the movie.

Q: You were in New Zealand for a long time; you can't just fly home to London for the weekend and be with your family. You really had to live it. Was it an odd experience, especially in the beginning and getting used to all of that?
A:I think getting used to it was, but I came from the advantage of not having any real responsibilities. I don't have a wife or a kid. I have a mom and dad and a brother but he's an independent guy who lived in Austria while my mom and dad were both working. Actually all my friends were off travelling so this was really an opportunity for me to do my own thing. I think before Christmas, from September, 1999 to Christmas I did find it quite difficult but with the whole kind of e-mail things that goes on nowadays it was very easy to keep in touch with a bunch of people. I was fortunate enough to fly over my parents; my brother and a few of my friends came over. So it's like I said to everyone, it wasn't just an opportunity for me to go to New Zealand its a chance for you to come and stay with me, so it was just an incredible time.

Q: Aside from the entire young cast that you worked with you really had a chance to work with some amazing veteran actors. A lot who are British and some who you probably looked up to over the years. What was it like for you to be working with them?
A: Working with any kind of experienced actor is always kind of a trip for a young actor because they are the people that you aspire to and their behaviour is something that you watch on set and you see how it all works. Some one like Christopher Lee, now, that was a crazy thing. As a kid movies were my main inspiration, and I watched lots of Christopher Lee's work; I thought that he was incredible. Then to actually meet him was just an amazing experience and we all went on set when it was his last day of shooting and watched him to his last thing. Ian McKellan also became a great person to chat with and get advice from. It really was an incredible opportunity. You know everyone felt the same and that was the great thing about it. You didn't just have these experienced actors just kind of saying oh it's another job. Everyone felt this real special thing about this movie —that it was going to be an incredible life changing experience.