For the past few years, actor Elijah Wood has joined critics and film fans across the country for Fantastic Fest, the annual celebration of genre filmmaking that was started seven years ago in Austin, Texas.
This year, he brought a friend with him: Dominic Monaghan, his “Lord of the Rings” co-star, who not only brought a new film of his own, the post-apocalyptic thriller “The Day,” but willingly got into a boxing ring with his buddy as they squared off in a debate over the merits of the video game “World of Warcraft.” Monaghan beat Wood tidily, and then turned his attention to “The Day,” where he introduced the film and conducted a Q&A session with attendees.
The morning after a screening of “The Day,” Speakeasy sat down with Monaghan for a conversation about his pilgrimage to the geek mecca of Fantastic Fest, and his experiences as a presenter and participant in the festival’s oddball rituals. Additionally, he talked about his work on “The Day,” and discussed the prospect of finding roles that challenge him as his profile in Hollywood continues to rise.
How much of your appearance at Fantastic Fest was predicated on supporting “The Day,” and how much did Elijah [Wood] recruit you for the debates?
It was a combo of everything, but the thing that kicked it off was Elijah calling me. We’re always doing something, socially hanging out; we’re big movie geeks and film geeks and video game geeks and stuff like that. So he had called me up and said, “I was supposed to go this year. I was supposed to do a debate with Daniel Radcliffe, which never really worked out because it was just an idea and I don’t know him and the organizers don’t know him. Would you be willing to kind of do a debate, and then we have kind of a boxing fight?” And I was like, well that sounds interesting – sure. And he said, it’s a week down in Austin – great food, great people, you just watch movies every day, and the Alamo Drafthouse is really a movie theater which you should come check out. And I was sold.
Elijah is obviously a genre fan and a geek. How much of one are you?
I think everyone’s a geek in some way. The term “geek” for me is like you having a passion, interest in something that is unabashed and you don’t care if people think it’s not cool. You think it’s cool and that’s your thing. Elijah and I geek out on some similar things, and then we’re different in other ways. I’m a little bit more of the sci-fi geek; I love sci-fi, I love fantasy, that’s sort of what I grew up on — “Star Wars,” “Dark Crystal,” “Empire Strikes Back,” “Labyrinth” and things like that. So, those are my kind of geek stuff. So Elijah and I go backwards and forwards, he swaps things with me and I swap things with him, and then we differ in the sense that I’m a big football fan, and that’s a big point of interest for me. And I’m an animal geek, you know. I’m making a show about insects, and I keep reptiles and insects in my house – which most people think is a little bit peculiar and weird. But you know, if you embrace that thing and you show your enthusiasm, I think most people think it’s cool.
On the other hand, how did “The Day” initially come together?
Well, I think I’m in an extremely fortuitous and blessed position, which I consistently keep myself aware of, which is that I am capable of work. Obviously, this industry takes a hit like any other industry in the current economic climate, and to have opportunities to work, it’s just something that I don’t think about lightly. But “The Day” happened because I read scripts, and I read a script which I thought was really interesting, and then I went to Santa Monica and I met Guy Danella, who produced the film, and Doug Aarniokoski who directed it, and Luke Passmore who wrote it. They pitched me this idea which was we have this character, Rick, who we want to set up as the leader of a group – very much in that kind of archetypal lead role. And I knew Shannyn [Sossamon], I knew Ashley [Bell], and I just thought it was a fun opportunity for me to do.
What responsibility and what freedom do you have when you are playing a character that is obviously important to the film, and yet has a limited amount of screen time?
Well I mean, I wanted to play him very kind of emotionless, and…my character’s going to make sure that everyone gets fed and stays warm and stays alive and not dwell too much on fixing something that you can’t fix. And my nature as a person outside of the job is to be upbeat and have fun and keep things light and jokey, and Rick was very different from that. So, they were happy with me making those choices.
How much as an actor do you have to think about what the themes of a film are? Do you have to do any of that work yourself, or is that done via the storytelling?
I mean, obviously that’s more the director’s responsibility, but I think I had about 12, 14 days to prepare for the movie, and doing that homework outside of reading the script and thinking about my choices in costume and makeup and stuff like that, you do start to kind of explore, well, what would you do if you had two anonymous cans of food in front of you? Or how would you make that choice from one or the other, if you had the choice between lighting the fire and drawing attention to yourself out in the wild? What choice would you make if you were freezing cold? So you do explore some of those themes because it just helps you to get a little bit more into that head space. But like I said, with my character exiting the film so quickly, I didn’t have to explore things like what is right and wrong, and who is good and evil and who decides who lives and dies. So my whole method is, if my character has to think about it, then I’ll think about it, but even if there’s a different conversation going on behind a closed door and my character has nothing to do with it, then that’s not going to dictate how I feel about those people when they come back into the room.
How difficult or easy has it been for you to find different kinds of opportunities than the ones you’ve done in the past? Do people automatically see your versatility, or is that a constant concern professionally?
Probably a concern to either a major or minor degree with most actors if they’re really motivated to kind of make a significant difference in the business is the “pigeon-holing” thing. It’s very, very easy for an actor to fall into the idea of, this is what I can do and this is what I’m comfortable with and this is what the audience seems to like, so I’m going to continue to do it. But the actors that turn me on are the people that are always taking risks and not necessarily the major stars. I mean, my favorite actor of all time is probably De Niro and then, you know Pacino, Gary Oldman, Daniel Day Lewis, who you can’t really name a specific role for them. You can obviously name De Niro movies, but you couldn’t say, “Oh, this is what De Niro’s good at and that’s what he does.” So I am turned on by emulating those kinds of careers. And I think I am now at a point in my career where there’s possibly a little bit more of a chance that the audience gives me to change.
I think obviously, when I did “Lord of the Rings,” people were like, he’s a sweet, happy, sympathetic character, which probably got me the opportunity to certainly meet J.J. Abrams and then to do Charlie because Charlie was a complex, but very sympathetic character. And then my major challenge after “Lost” was to play a character that wasn’t sympathetic, and have the audience be okay with it, which is the reason why I played this character on “Flash Forward” who was you know, kind of dark and not nice and didn’t have a lot of kind of discerning human characteristics and the audience seemed to be okay with that. And that turns me on, not only as an actor, but just as a person; I mean, I like change. I think it’s important, and I hope that I’m changing on a daily basis – I want to continue to just grow and become something new. And if I can do that in my career, then I probably won’t get tired of it.
