Actor Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film series, has spoken about the most difficult scene in the entire series for him to film. Speaking to IGN, Monaghan said it was the Gray Havens scene at the end of The Return of the King, and what made it so difficult was the emotional weight of it and the fact that they had to film it three times.
“If you were to ask all four of us, ‘Pick a scene you can guarantee you only have to do once and not go back to,’ we probably would have said Grey Havens, just cause we were all there weeping like children,” he said. “So, doing it three times, I definitely think that the third version that I did, the one that’s in the film, is probably not quite as hysterical in terms of the state that I’m in as the first one, or possibly even the second one. So, that was tough.”
Monaghan said Jackson wanted the four main Hobbits to be “a mess” when it came to their vulnerability and sadness over saying goodbye to Frodo. “It was challenging to do. You don’t often get asked to do that as actors and all four of you are standing there very vulnerable doing it three times. It’s pretty costing,” he said.
They had to film the scene three times for various reasons. One time, Samwise actor Sean Astin was wearing the wrong costume because he changed during lunch.
“Sean Astin was wearing the wrong costume! After lunch, he took off his vest to eat lunch. When he came back he forgot to put the vest on, so for continuity, it was ruined,” Pippin actor Billy Boyd said.
On another occasion, they shot the scene only to discover that the film itself was destroyed in a processing facility, so they had to go back again.
This is not the only interesting fact about the Gray Haven scene in Return of the King. Due to the way the films were shot back-to-back, Ian McKellan’s second day on set was the Gray Haven scene. It’s a testament to his acting skills because he really had only just gotten started on the film when he shot one of the most emotional and powerful moments of the whole series.
Monaghan and Boyd host the new podcast Friendship Onion in which they share stories about The Lord of the Rings and lots more. The pair also recently spoke about how one of the producers on The Lord of the Rings wanted to kill off one of the four Hobbits.
The Fellowship of the Ring celebrates its 20th anniversary this year after its theatrical debut in December 2001. The franchise remains popular, with Amazon currently filming a big-budget Lord of the Rings TV show in New Zealand, and a new animated movie is in production.
Outside of film and TV, Daedalic is making a Lord of the Rings game focused on Gollum, while Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford recently revealed that he pitched Lord of the Rings video games before going on to make Borderlands.
In other news, a Brazilian tattoo artist cut off his nose and split his tongue to look more like an orc from The Lord of the Rings.
