[Note: The following excerpts are from a series of E! Online reports from the set of The Lord of the Rings. The full articles are are available in the Internet Archive.] 

The Latest Word Report, March 2000

Parting Ways....It will be stranger still when Boyd and Dominic Monaghan (Merry Brandybuck) head off shortly for separate sets. Monaghan finds the Merry-Pippin split interesting. 'At the start of the film, you see Merry and Pippin at a party, having fun, living it up in the town where they live, where everyone knows them. They're the Fonzies of the town. Everyone thinks they're cool, they're the Danny Zukos of the Shire.' For Merry, Dominic adds, losing Pippin is like "losing his strength, the other side of his personality.' But it's interesting to see his character 'grow up, split up from all the people he loves and trusts and relies on, and then to be put back together with them again.'

[On director Peter Jackson:] "We work so well with (Peter Jackson) because Pete understands Hobbits so well. Because he is a Hobbit. He has so many Hobbit qualities to him"


On Location, June 2000

"Dickson's (Costume designer) biggest logistical nightmare? That would be Hobbit shirts. Each Hobbit has shirts for each stage of their three-film journey, clean and tidy in Hobbiton, ragged and muddy on Mount Doom and plenty of variations in between. A shirt can begin fresh, then get retired to a grubbier stage later on.

Now, here's where it really gets difficult. Each character needs a set of five shirts for each scene, one each for the actor, his body double, stunt double, scale double (for the Little People) and horse double.

But, wait, there's more. Because the Hobbit actors are still growing (Elijah Wood is 19 and Dominic Monaghan is 23) and doing so much physical training and fighting, their shirts need to be remodeled periodically to keep up with their expanding muscles"


On Location, October, 2000

The crew slaps on sunblock in the beating afternoon sun, and we watch Merry (Dominic Monaghan) in close-up, bidding farewell to Pippin, who's off to Minas Tirith with Gandalf.

It's the first time the two Hobbits have been separated in the story, and in true Hobbit form, Merry is quiet, holding his fear and loneliness at bay with wry humour, as he's consoled by Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen).

"It's a huge moment for both of them," says the 23 year old Monaghan. "They start off the story as boys almost, and come back from war completely changed. It's strange working away from Billy (Boyd, who plays Pippin)."