Another Comic Con great, while attending this year, we set up interviews with the Lord of the Rings cast members, here is our "round-table interview with Dominic Monaghan and Sean Astin, Sean came in late, so we decided to start with Dominic since we were just sitting here staring at each other.

Q: So, what's it feel like to put this project behind you?

Dom: There's a certain amount of closure. There will be at the end of the year, I think. 'cause we still have to do the premiere tour, which is gonna be crazy. Good fun.

Q: To ask candidly before Sean gets here, what did you think of Sean and Elijah's affected English accents?

Dom: [over enthusiastically] I thought they were great. [laughs] We had a lot of dialogue about where the hobbits' voices should come from. Pete and Fran thought Elijah was more of a well-spoken, educated and well-read hobbit. Then Sean was supposed to be more of the rough speaking, farmer, gardener kind of person. Some of those Cornish and Devonshire accents are difficult, so it was an uphill struggle.

Q: I've heard that you have quite a knack for doing other accents...

Dom: Yeah... man, I've been doing that since I was, since I can remember. I'd always impersonate my teachers, I'd always impersonate my relatives, at school and stuff. When I was working on LORD OF THE RINGS, I'd do Viggo and Ian and John, Pete Jackson, Andy Serkis, Billy. I'd basically do everyone. I called the producers twice as other people, and I demanded things in my trailer. And they got them, so I must have been pretty good.

Q: With the bar set so high from the first two, how good is the third one going to have to be to surpass them?

Dom: It's gonna be a pretty easy job. The first one was a set-up of all these characters; the second was the journey beginning, whereas the third one is bringing back together all these characters and story arcs. The destiny of the Ring takes place, and if you've invested in any tiny little amount in the first two, then you have to go see the third one. It's the best film, it's the one we were most excited about filming, it has the best script, it had the most interesting story set for my character, and I know Elijah, Billy and Orlando all felt the same way. So, I don't see any problems. It's the one we're all the most excited about seeing. It's just so sad and epic.

Q: How tough is it to leave all your friends behind after the third one?

Dom: Well, we'll see each other. Sean sold me his car sometime last year. We all hang out together; Billy and I have worked together. We collaborate, we write scripts together. We hang out together around the holidays for several months. We're all friends, and we all enjoy spending time with each other. I don't think it'll be that hard or that sad for us to finish our job, because we'll still see each other socially.

Q: What direction would you like your career to go in now?

Dom: South by southwest. [laughs]

Q: You've done these three huge movies. Is there any particular genre that you'd like to do, that you haven't?

Dom: Not any particular genre. I'd like to try my hand at every single genre, so when people look at your backlist, they can say "Oh, he can do this and this and this, so what we're writing, he can probably do." Just keep doing good work, working with good directors and good scripts, that's all you can really hope for.

[By this point, Sean Astin has joined the table] Q: Sean, what about your role in MARK TWAIN’S GREATEST ADVENTURE? Can you give us any insight on that?

Sean: I dunno where they're at, but Ron Masak is how the project came to me. He's a fellow traveller along a common road, as far as being a thespian goes. He got together a one-man show about Mark Twain, and he... I'm not sure what the genesis of the project was, but he wanted me to be involved with it, at first as Jules Verne. Then I lost a lot of weight and LOTR came out and was a hit, and then they wanted me to play H.G. Wells. I'm not sure what that means, really. [laughs] So, I read the script, and it's a really fun, kind of cross between camp adventure and cool literary intrigue. It's a fun movie. I dunno if I can say what the audience is for it, but the filmmaker has really invested so much time and energy and creativity, got the storyboards done... the whole presentation was really well thought out. So I told them if they got the money and I wasn't doing anything, I'd be happy to do it. I don't know where they're at in that process.

Q: What all did you guys get to take home from the shoot?

Dom: Stuff. [laughs] I collected a lot of greenstone. It's actually quite a sacred stone in New Zealand. We were going to keep our tattoos most of our lives, probably.

Sean: [faux sugary] And our memories, mate, hopefully.

Dom: Right. We have friends there. We'll be visiting there. Elijah and Billy and myself are going to try and get a house there, either this year or sometime in the new year. Like Sean said—

Sean: Pictures. My backpack.

Dom: —two incredible years of our lives.

Sean: My cane. Peter Jackson and the crew presented me with a cane, a walking stick, after I hurt my foot and I was back at work the next day.

Dom: Our feet.

Sean: Feet, ears, a few sets of ears. All the merchandise.

Q: What was your wrap gift?

Sean: A backpack, sword, slate, um... my dog. The dress that my daughter wore when she was three, in the last scene. They wrapped that up and gave it to her, so that was very cool.

Q: Having done this huge project, would you consider doing something of this scale again?

Dom: Yeah, you've got to be open to consider anything. Good director and good script, you can't really be swayed by a huge amount of money or a small amount of money. I just worked on a less than million dollar movie, because it was a great script and a great director. As long as you're being driven by a genuine feeling that you're doing good work, I'll go anywhere, work for whatever amount of money.

Sean: I like the epic as a genre, so I'd love to do another one.

Q: So does that mean you’d do another GOONIES?

Sean: Sure, I'd do another GOONIES in a second, in a heartbeat. And Dick Donner and Steven Spielberg know it. And somebody told me today that they're closer now than they ever have been.

Q: Would it be with your "Characters" kids becoming the new Goonies?

Sean: That was mentioned to me, but with different writers taking cracks at it, so I don't honestly know. The fan base is so huge, and I didn't realize that, really, until I went to a screening and introduced the film, at a midnight screening in Pasadena. And I got it—you couldn't help but get it, 'cause it's like Elvis when you walk up on the stage, with screaming and yelling... [hesitates, grins] and the drinking and the pot smoking, and it's just wrong! [laughs] It's wrong and I don't approve, on any level, except that it's going to help the sequel get made, and that's got to be fun. And pay for my kids to go to college, probably.

Dom: Your kids aren't going to college, dude. [laughter]

Sean: That's because I can't pay for it unless we do GOONIES!

Dom: When I flew to New Zealand, the most famous person that I considered I was going to go meet was Sean. I didn't really know Elijah's work, I didn’t know Ian McKellan had been cast at this point, I didn't know Billy Boyd's or Orlando's or, you know... I just knew Sean Astin was gonna be there, and I was like "kid from GOONIES, dude!" Sean: I try to be worthy.

Dom: Oh, you are, you are.

Q: Are you two going to work together again?

Dom: Yeah, he's going to own the McDonald’s...

Sean: I'm going to be the Assistant Manager.

Dom: We're all gonna work together again. It was like LOTR was like a university frat house, where you go off and everybody does their solo projects, but I'm gonna work with Billy again, I'm gonna work with Elijah again, maybe next year. Sean and I will work again, but I mean we'll all collaborate, 'cause we all enjoyed working with each other so much. We always touch base. I always find out what Ian's doing next, and what Andy's doing next, keeping the dream alive.

Q: Did you and Billy ever write that comedy?

Dom: Yeah. It's kinda getting shopped about.

Sean: You know what would be fun, is to do a table read of it.

Dom: Yeah, have everybody over for tea and cheese. It's a comedy about two young British guys who have the opportunity to run a SCUBA diving school in Miami, Florida. It's basically a comedy kind of caper. It's good.

Q: How'd you come up with that idea?

Dom: We were on Treebeard for, like, three months. [laughter] We were twenty-two feet in the air, and we could only come down for lunch. Everyone would go for tea breaks, and because it was like ten minutes up, ten minutes down, we'd just say, "Ah, just throw the water up here." And we wrote a script together while we were up there. Sean made a short film that's gonna be on the DVD...

Sean: Yeah, the August DVD, that's part of the reason that they wanted me to come to Comic Con, to promote the DVD thing.

Dom: I did it all. I'm the brains behind the operation.

Sean: I'd bring him the pages, and he'd—

Dom: I approve.

Q: Are you surprised by the celebrity of Orlando Bloom at this point?

Dom: No, no...

Sean: We predicted it. We predicted it on day three when he fell in the water during canoe lessons.

Dom: I mean, he's six foot, he's beautiful, he's talented...

Sean: He doesn't have any hair on his body.

Dom: He's got a great smile. He's a movie star, dude! He's Errol Flynn.

Sean: It was maybe 20%... maybe 3,000% faster than I thought it might happen.

Q: He fell out of a canoe?

Sean: He and John Rhys-Davies did. They each blame each other for it. I think it was Orlando's fault.

Q: And at that moment, you knew?

Sean: Yeah, that was the moment for me when I knew he was going to be a star. There was something about the way he was gurgling water. [laughs]

These guys were hilarious and most of all down to earth.