0:00

I

0:12

add-on. Hey, How's

0:14

things. Things are fine.

0:16

Yeah. It's hot. Isn't it? Yeah.

0:17

It's hot. All right.

0:18

I have to see, I like your pants.

0:22

I think I told you about these pants earlier on these pants, baggy red pants.

0:25

These were in tribute to a still image that I saw.

0:30

One time of Tom York, the lead singer of Radiohead was doing a photo shoot wearing very, very baggy black trousers.

0:37

And I thought, man, they look cool.

0:40

And then I was walking around and I saw a pair of trousers that were red with the same kind of fit.

0:45

And I thought I'll have them.

0:48

And you look fantastic dog that just cut off at the bottom.

0:51

Cut right off. Yeah.

0:53

Did you do that? Yeah. Cause then, well, unfortunately they have these little hooks, like kind of toggles on the bottom and if you walked around barefoot and you got your foot on them, it was like standing on a piece of Lego.

1:03

So I cut them off crater.

1:05

It allowed the trouser just to kind of float around a little bit more kind of gypsy, like How's

1:10

your week been?

1:12

It's been pretty good. I've been, you know, desperately avoiding the sun.

1:16

Cause it's so hot. Yeah.

1:17

Trying to keep my garden alive.

1:19

So the thing with me is I'm usually up around about 6 37.

1:23

So between seven and about nine 30, I can water the plants and then I have to hide inside, go to the gym and then I can't then walk the plants until probably closer to six.

1:34

Then I run outside and walk the plants again until it gets dark.

1:37

So it's just a whole practice of trying to keep my plants alive.

1:40

And you can, you could see them physically go from there.

1:44

Wilting, wilting. You give them some water back up to feeling.

1:48

Good. Good. Good for you.

1:50

What about you? Yeah. It's been a good week actually.

1:53

to the boat.

1:56

I am surfing.

1:56

It's been good to actually yeah.

1:59

Did a little bit music.

2:01

Yeah. Good week. I was on the west side and I said, I might come over and you said, all right, I've got a few things come.

2:06

I don't think he said, mate, I'm coming over.

2:09

Newstead okay. I've got a few things coming, going on, but come over.

2:13

And then I thought, wow, that sounds like it's a bit of a hassle.

2:16

So then I said, I'm not coming over.

2:18

And you said, why? I didn't answer?

2:20

Cause I was driving. And then later on you just sent me a photo of my dinner and you said, this is the dinner that I bought for you.

2:28

And I thought, oh, he's quite angry. It was quite expensive as well.

2:31

Did you have it yourself? Did you, did it get caught in your throat?

2:34

No. I'm still in the fridge. Elisa tonight.

2:36

Treat yourself. Oh, well I know, I'm

2:39

sorry. I thought I wanted to get home before the traffic.

2:42

Yeah.

2:42

And

2:42

that's

2:42

what

2:42

I

2:42

did

2:42

well,

2:42

well

2:42

done,

2:42

but

2:42

to

2:42

be

2:42

honest,

2:42

Medina

2:42

last

2:42

night

2:42

was

2:42

a

2:42

half

2:42

a

2:42

bowl

2:42

of

2:42

soup

2:42

and

2:42

a

2:42

bag

2:42

of

2:51

crisps. Well that's all right. So I'll put sip Now

2:54

as a side dish, I probably would have benefited from coming over to your house.

2:59

If it didn't enjoy that.

3:00

Now this week we have a fantastic Yes.

3:02

Oh what I mean, if you're talking Lauder rings, which we sometimes do, sometimes this would be one of your blogs.

3:11

Certainly top three.

3:12

There were, I believe.

3:16

Number one, number two, number three. Number four on the call sheet.

3:19

Yeah, I think were you three?

3:21

I was four. I think, I think I was three.

3:23

Then number one, Elijah wood had him.

3:27

Number two is our guest today.

3:30

The fantastically talented Sean Astin, who I believe played Sam wise.

3:38

Gamgee in the Lord of the rings.

3:41

Who later on became known as Sam gardener.

3:44

Did he know that Sam gardener?

3:46

Yeah, he was. They gave him the name Sam Gardner because of his ability to tell the soil about let yourself.

3:53

And he became mayor did mayor gardener, man Gardner Done

4:00

here. He is. He's

4:05

on our screen. He's on the TV screen Too.

4:09

No way I was going to do, I was going to do bad maths that I was going to say two thirds of the hobbits, but that's not right.

4:14

Is it? It's three fourths of the habits.

4:16

Is that right?

4:18

Three of Us.

4:20

Yeah. He's not very good at math.

4:22

I don't know if you know that about him, Sean.

4:24

Oh God Shannon. Well, I just Sorted.

4:25

I just figured it out just now.

4:27

Cause I'd never get a math either, but three quarters I got.

4:31

Yeah, I'm bad. I actually had to ask Billy the other day, what was the thing?

4:35

Oh, I said, I've got 15 plants.

4:37

I want to plant them in even numbers around my garden.

4:42

How do I do the maths for that?

4:44

So Billy that's helped me out with that. That's how bad I am in maths because it has to Be

4:48

out here. I think you need 30, you need 30 and then you can have 15 and 15, which would give you a total that will even round number.

4:56

Okay. Yeah. It's gotta to be a whole number.

5:00

Right? Cause you can, you can have half a plan.

5:03

So is it three? Did we hit upon the number of three?

5:05

I think You had five groups of three, which that works, but he wanted four groups and you can afford groups and if 15, No

5:15

not, no you can't. I know I show him this.

5:18

This is not going to for the audio listeners, but there are a lot of people that watch this on video.

5:23

If we could see the inside of my mind with the math wheels turning, they might be slightly more entertained because it's a kaleidoscope.

5:29

So I want to buy you a plan to make it even, but then he sorted it out where there's, it's evenly, divisible by five.

5:37

So I'll shut up of course by Me

5:40

and planning. I mean, why wouldn't you buy me a plan just because we're pals, but you Know,

5:43

you probably wouldn't need to buy one because you know, you've got plenty behind you.

5:48

Where in the Amazon jungle, do we find you?

5:50

Sure. Yes. It's just home.

5:52

You can hear the dogs now.

5:53

Christine just got home. So all the ducks in the bark from anybody in backyard.

5:57

Nice. How many dogs?

5:58

There's

6:01

five. Five, like two and then COVID hit.

6:05

And so instead of like trying to get one of those online therapists, we just kept getting a dog every six months.

6:11

Wow.

6:13

Dogs. How many adults is now? Seven and eight.

6:19

It's three daughters yet. The little one just turned 16 yesterday.

6:22

I wow.

6:24

Wow. Wow.

6:26

I still pitch it Allie as being like three and a half, four.

6:32

So Allie for anyone listening and you don't know Ali was the daughter that Sean had already when he started Lord of the rings and she was a big part of a live venture in life, donor, New Zealand.

6:46

And she was always on set and, and she had bursty parties and we were all part of that.

6:52

So, so how would she, I

6:57

shouldn't throw it away. We went down there celebrated fourth and fifth birthdays.

7:04

Wow. Down there you guys came that we had that one party where the pots in the back house?

7:10

Yeah. Probably in the bag. Yeah. Yeah. Which is awesome.

7:12

And that everybody drew, we still have.

7:13

So we cover the inside of one of those easy up tents with, with brown paper, brown paper.

7:20

And then everybody drew new Mae drawings in their names and everything else and they tore that and we have it in the garage.

7:26

So if you ever need to see that, I think we can, we can try it.

7:30

Yeah. That's, that's one of our keepsakes there, but, but yeah, so, but she was seven when the final premiere happened in New Zealand.

7:36

So it was, yeah, she was, she was a benchmark to watch as we, yeah.

7:41

And then she have memory of it.

7:44

I mean it's when it comes time for all of us to do a photo shoot or something.

7:51

Yeah. I don't, I think he might've seen this at one point, but you know, over the years they'll have a stew, you know, a reunion photo shoot for this magazine or that event or whatever.

8:01

And when she comes to it, it takes her days to recover from it.

8:07

She, she, she cries.

8:09

It's like, she, she doesn't, she like, she, you know, she's a very, until she went to Harvard, she's very brilliant girl and everything, but she regresses back to that time and she, I don't know, it is deeply emotional for much more so than me.

8:25

I'm like, yeah, hi guys. You know, she's very, she's very emotional.

8:29

I

8:31

love. Yeah.

8:34

But we were kind of surrogate babysit his and yeah.

8:40

Like our little niece, you knows.

8:42

Yeah. Uncles, every time we went for dinner, cause it was a group we all went for dinner very often, you know, the full hobbits and Orlando.

8:50

And you know, there was a core group that very often went for dinner and Allie would be running around the table, spending time with all of us and hanging out and drawing on our knee and all this kind of stuff.

9:02

So it is, I mean, I'm sure it must be bizarre for you to Sean, but it's very bizarre to think.

9:07

Oh, makes a lot of them says As

9:09

the brain drinking hours.

9:11

Right, right. Cause you know, at a certain point, you know, she's young and we'd have to go to bed and then the next morning you guys would look different and have it definitely.

9:22

So yeah, no, definitely.

9:26

Yeah. That was that to me, that was one of the greatest things about being able to do it was to give her a really incredible experience for all of us.

9:33

But for something happens that, you know, Billy would, in your mind, as a parent, you, you, something changes in your brain and you, you see everything through their perspective.

9:42

And I was having that experience down there.

9:45

And so, yeah.

9:48

So she just to see her and you were at you, you guys were the experience, like I got to give her this experience and the experience was you locked.

9:59

Yeah. So talking about that, then at the experience and seeing it through someone else's eyes and stuff, can you, what is your first memory?

10:10

Like, can you remember coming off the plane for the first time coming into New Zealand or what is the first thing that you think?

10:18

Oh yeah. I remember that like getting the script for the first time.

10:22

What was that?

10:25

Well, if we're looking at it like that, like the first memory of, of kind of landing.

10:29

Yeah. It was a little bit hazy on the airport and the transfer.

10:32

But I do remember we didn't get to go straight to the hotel.

10:35

I think we went straight to stone street.

10:39

Who were you with when you said we, well, Christina

10:46

and Allie were with me, but I mean, there were other, when you're not there, we were never together.

10:50

No, I guess maybe right.

10:54

I don't, I would split them.

10:56

Look, I'm looking at green I remember the, the Buckeye rubber suits at stone street studios because everything was, it was an abandoned paint factory and every hallway had some other thing that was, you know, the here's the miniatures and here's the desks.

11:21

And I, at a certain point, I remember thinking I'm going to die from exhaustion, but they, they, the mentality they set coming off the airplane was, you know, you know, this is a work day, you know?

11:32

So we're going to have, Pete wants you to come to stone street straightaway and he wants to visit you.

11:36

And I remember seeing the pre-visualization of, of leaves, right.

11:44

They brought us into this room and they said, okay, we really want to show you what we're working on with the software.

11:49

And we had just traveled like 15 hours, you know, and I'm at it.

11:53

And they're like, and you can see this and it just leaves.

11:56

What

11:56

are

11:56

you

11:56

guys

11:56

part

11:56

of

11:56

something

11:56

that's

12:04

spectacular. I mean, it's going to have great leaves.

12:06

I can tell you that much.

12:07

But

12:07

I

12:07

also

12:07

remember,

12:07

oh,

12:07

do

12:07

I

12:07

even

12:07

go

12:07

there

12:07

with

12:13

it? The, there was a, the earth Chi outfits, the rubber suits, the villain, you know, the, the disgusting things that those poor guys had on for months at a time.

12:25

Yeah. There was one that looked like Harvey Weinstein.

12:28

Oh, oh yeah. That's right. I mean, it was, it was a, it was a dead, It

12:32

was an absolute photo, real image of Harvey Weinstein on this villainous or a Chi rubber suit, the mask or whatever.

12:43

Yeah. And I was like, I didn't know if I was supposed to say anything I did not at that point know about more and w how they had initially developed the film and the whatever issues they had with, with, with that man.

12:56

Who's, who's not doing well now, but anyhow.

13:01

Yeah. So that's, that's it.

13:02

That was my first, you know, that was the first memory.

13:05

And then going over to that hotel, across the street from the, from the museum, the te Papa museum.

13:12

Yeah. 10 points Remembering

13:14

the hotel ducks.

13:15

Oh, well done. 10 points.

13:17

Yeah. Yeah. Your Ducts.

13:19

Sorry,

13:21

Sean. I know The podcast points are very important.

13:25

We're very competitive, very competitive.

13:28

I flew in with John Reese Davis and I had the exact same thing as you show.

13:30

And I remember thinking, okay, cool. We'll get to the hotel.

13:32

I'm probably going to have the day off now, maybe the day off tomorrow.

13:35

And then we'll start. And I got a phone call half an hour into that day.

13:39

And they said, there's a car picking you up. And I just thought there must be some mistake.

13:42

You must know that I've just done a 32 hour flight you're thinking about tomorrow.

13:47

And they were like, no, you're going to come in. See Pete.

13:49

He wants to give you a tour of the studio. And I think you're right, Sean.

13:51

I think he had made a specific statement with all the actors, as soon as you hit the ground in New Zealand, your mind, and we are at work, you know?

13:59

Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

14:01

We don't want you to, to develop that, that the relaxation mode, you know, you're not, you're coming to a spa, you know, you're not going to have a bit of a tour and walk around the city and see how it feels.

14:14

And like, Nope, you're there. I also remember very clearly walking into that room with you guys with the swords laid out on the table, right.

14:22

When we were going to do, we're going to do the Soro Trent at that, that, that barracks.

14:27

It was that I think it might've actually been, did they have a Navy?

14:31

Doesn't Think it wasn't Navy.

14:33

Cause it was like a summoning base or something.

14:37

Army, army barracks. We were in an army barracks and they, you know, from the sixties or seventies or something like that.

14:43

And we went in there and we all, we got to choose our, our swords and then Bob Anderson, the gorgeous, wonderful legendary sword master who taught Errol Flynn.

14:55

And who else did he T he did the star wars.

14:57

Darth Vader.

15:00

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

15:02

He

15:02

did

15:04

that. Yeah. And he was teaching us when we were good at it.

15:07

I thought we were very good at it. Well, You and Billy had like a routine, didn't you?

15:10

Yeah. When you say we were good at it, you mean we were good At

15:14

it? I don't know if Elijah in the dome were that God was too busy, smoking cigarettes.

15:19

I could never have a solid fight with him. He's always out smoking cigarettes.

15:24

When you pay for a job site, you should know what you're getting.

15:27

Get indeed and only pay for quality candidates that meet your must have requirements.

15:33

When hiring gets hard, you need indeed the job site that makes hiring incredibly simple, just attract interview and hire.

15:42

In fact, with indeed, you can do all your hiring in one place, even interviewing don't just hope your perfect candidate will find you Indeed's hiring tools, help you cut through the noise to hire faster and smarter.

15:59

In fact, indeed instant match pervades, a list of quality candidates whose resumes are on.

16:07

Indeed. The moment you post a sponsored job indeed knows how important that is to make the most of your recruiting hours and doors with indeed, you can save time and money by setting your must have qualifications and only paying for the quality candidates that meet them.

16:26

Get started right now with $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at indeed.com/onion.

16:35

Get

16:35

a

16:35

$75

16:35

credit

16:35

at

16:40

indeed.com/union.

16:40

indeed.com/union

16:40

offer

16:40

valid

16:40

through

16:40

September

16:40

30th

16:40

terms

16:40

and

16:40

conditions

16:48

apply.

16:50

If you're like us, you're probably sick of scrolling through maneless programs that you don't even want to watch.

16:56

Well, I tell you what me and Dom love wondering some fantastic streaming service that your brain will never get enough of.

17:06

There's just so much to explore.

17:08

We love it. One dream, them offers endless opportunities to learn something with those tens of hours of video and audio, fascinating documentaries, helpful to dues and answers to every question that you've ever asked.

17:24

If you're familiar with the great courses, plus then you already know one room, it's the same great service only know it's bigger and better.

17:33

You're going to love it.

17:34

So I'm going to stuff I've been listening to lately and watching main blowing science.

17:40

That's what I get all my facts about black holes, another fantastic one, great revolutions of modern history.

17:48

I was looking at all the revolutions and France and Russia and United States as well.

17:53

Great stuff.

17:54

We know you love one room.

17:57

So we put together a special offer just for our listeners, a free month trial of unlimited access.

18:03

Just go to our special URL.

18:05

One room.com/onion.

18:06

That's

18:06

w

18:06

or

18:06

N

18:06

D

18:06

R

18:06

I

18:06

U

18:13

m.com/onion.

18:13

Think

18:13

of

18:13

how

18:13

much

18:13

you'll

18:13

learn

18:13

in

18:13

a

18:13

month,

18:13

go

18:13

to

18:18

wondery.com/onion.

18:22

What, what was the, what was the reason For

18:24

that party that we ended up doing?

18:26

We did a sort of famous for it.

18:29

Was it the start of the party?

18:34

So that was a party to say we're about to start filming.

18:38

And they did the Maori thing, a little Maori blessing there Right

18:41

then. And Bob Handerson specifically asked me in Don not mean Don me and Sean, whatever to do, you know, to show everyone how amazing terminated by Dom.

18:52

Yeah, that's True.

18:53

Do you guys move?

18:55

I tell you what a big one was for me.

18:57

I tell you what a big one for me was the, do you remember the pre vis that Pete showed us at his house?

19:04

So Pete has got this wonderful house on a bunch of different levels and there's a lot of nooks and crannies and corners in Pete's house.

19:13

And obviously the house itself has been built with extensions and it's to have strange shaped dams, very kind of, you know, Places

19:24

and stairways that go places.

19:26

You know, They're very, very kind of, you know, Pete Jackson centric.

19:30

There's a lot of, like Sean said doorways to places in corners of rooms.

19:35

You're like, wow, that makes no sense. But whatever he brought over the four hobbits guaranteed, I think Orlando as well at that point, the early boys that were there, Ian was with the, in was with us.

19:47

And I'd never seen Pete.

19:49

I drove him home after I'd never seen piece cinema before.

19:53

Cause it's hidden away behind a door. You don't even think he's got a small kind of screening room.

19:59

I'd never seen a personal screen routine, right?

20:02

Oh right. Is it a converted garage?

20:04

The garage.

20:04

That

20:04

makes

20:07

sense. Now, when you think about the geography of it, I can, I can get the geography really.

20:11

It's one little door you go in and you turn immediately.

20:16

Right? And there's a, there's a couple of little steps.

20:18

And then suddenly to your left, there's a big screen, maybe 10 lazy boys.

20:23

I remember the room, but I couldn't, if someone put me in the kitchen and said fame that room, right.

20:29

There's no way I would. It's Close

20:30

to the kitchen for sure. But I remember I'd never seen a personal screen room before didn't even know that Pete had one, obviously Pete's not going to say, Hey, I've got a personal screen room.

20:38

Doesn't really matter. We go in, I thought he told us we were going to watch the previous.

20:41

I wasn't really sure what previous was.

20:44

I was just nodding along going. Oh great. Yeah. Previous sat down.

20:47

He had a popcorn making machine.

20:48

Do you remember? So we all had popcorn and there was anything that you wanted to drink.

20:53

I was at that point, completely addicted to Bundaberg ginger beer.

20:57

I was drinking like four or five a day. Had no idea that there was like 80% of your daily sugar needs in one bottle.

21:02

And we sat down and we watched this room bit gassy.

21:05

Yeah, for sure. We watched this relatively clunky, although although obviously very functional which is an anime, it simplified version of what they're going to shoot with the actors.

21:20

Right. You're quite, you know, you're a Hollywood guy, you understand movies and all that Sean as prevail.

21:27

Is that, is that a name that meant something before then?

21:32

Well, Sean was going to say animatic, right? Cause I think they work on it.

21:35

The animatic, They called it an animatic because what they did was storyboards, those, those wonderful drawings that they would do for an action sequences when you usually see them, you know, where they'll, they'll draw, you know, what the over the shoulder shot looks like.

21:50

And then they draw an image. It's a still, you know, sketch of, you know, a wide shot of ministry or if there's something like that.

21:57

And then they would literally film those storyboards kind of like Ken burns, you know, the Ken burns a factor that he's got a still image and the camera's going down.

22:06

So you, so you're, you're sort of, you see a soldier in the civil war and then you kind of go close when you see that these got a letter in his hand or something like that.

22:14

So it's, it's basically a moving image of the storyboards.

22:19

And then preve is, is the, the digital sequences, little short digital sequences where they would have strange looking, you know, and a morphic looking characters in a sword fight kind of floating or something like that.

22:36

And then they, and then you'd see, you know, the NAS goal flying and then you would actually animate that, you know, thing.

22:42

So, so yeah, I, I remember watching that.

22:44

And then I remember, I mean, it was so long and they also have our, they had, they had our characters, actors had red, red, red, the voices for our characters.

22:56

And I remember thinking that the, the, the Samwise Gamgee voice was pretty good and I was nervous.

23:03

Right. Was there a point I'm sure I'm showing, we don't want to go over wrote, wrote things, but subjects and stuff, but w we, Billy and I have talked before about that moment where you realize, wow, this movie is huge.

23:17

I had a moment moment walking around back end.

23:20

Was there a specific moment for you? Show him where you thought you knew it was big, but you didn't know it was quite that big until that moment.

23:27

Well, there was a succession of them.

23:29

The first, the first one was when I was at home in Los Angeles and I got in the part and someone came over with the script with the three screenplays, right.

23:41

And when they set it on the table, it made a loud thud sound.

23:47

Most scripts make a kind of a flap, but this made a thud and, and you opened it up and it had a fake name.

23:55

It had a fake name on my, like, there's a horse being in the back.

24:00

Can you hear that? Yeah. We can't hear a horse pissing So

24:17

there's Jim burry it set on the script and I was confused.

24:20

I'm easily confused.

24:22

Billy can tell you. And, and I, and then I realized that they were doing it so that if you were at a coffee shop or something and you read it, people would not see that it was Lord of the ring.

24:33

So I was a part of something that was so important.

24:36

It had to be kept a secret.

24:37

And then I opened it up and I don't know how many movies I'd done, where there was watermarking on the screenplay where your name was there.

24:45

So, but on every page, Sean Ashton written big across the page and which was totally distracting, absolutely distracting.

24:55

I w I wish I could have gone back and, and maybe put like Sam wise or something different because every page you turn, instead of getting involved in the story and involved in the characters, I'm just reminded of how important I am.

25:07

My name is big across the page.

25:09

I still hear it. But then the minute anyone does that, why?

25:13

Because I always feel like some who I'm going to, like, that's going to get out because of me.

25:20

And then the page is going to be there with my name, watermarked all over.

25:24

I can prove it. Now people Put

25:26

it in the more stupid things. No, don't let you get any PGS for anything.

25:32

There's your name all over it. And not just get visions of, you know, some leaked screenplay.

25:36

And it's me could Be written a screenplay, Billy, you must've written A

25:41

screenplay of have written a family's house.

25:42

I've written an Part

25:44

for Sean. Of course there's hope so for God's sake, I'm

25:48

no going over it in my head to make sure there's a right one, dammit, Whatever,

25:53

whatever I'm told I will do it will.

25:56

But I mean, if you wrote it in one of those have gone, I'm

26:00

going what our market and send it to you with Sean Aston all over it.

26:04

I'll send you the, if you could do It

26:07

by hand, that would be great.

26:08

Just by hand, put my name.

26:10

And it's like, you're in trouble. You have to write my name 95 times.

26:13

But, but you could just push a button.

26:15

It's one button, you click a button and then it spits out the thing with your name or somebody else's name.

26:20

So I know with scripts that I've written, you feel all of a sudden, very important that you can make it.

26:24

You can make, you can make people obligated to you in some way by putting their name on it.

26:31

Now we cut you off there.

26:34

So Big moments for one thing.

26:36

How did he get the script? Did you get the script before you arrived?

26:40

I got the script before I got on the, yeah, I

26:44

didn't get the script till I got to Wellington.

26:45

I remember there's a moment. I really remember.

26:48

I got off the flight with a Lando.

26:51

We sat in a car and Janine, the producers assessment, turn back to us and give us a leather bone folder with the fellowship of the ring in it.

27:04

And that was the first day I've seen this.

27:06

I'm done in New Zealand and I haven't even seen it.

27:09

Well, I got that quite late. So that might be the reason why I go to them.

27:11

But I also remember emailing Pete Jackson and said, don't send the script to the Scotsman because Scottish people will leak information.

27:21

If you do send it, make sure there's a watermark all over it.

27:24

Yeah, because Sean probably Is

27:28

farther away than me. Well, maybe that maybe it's still On

27:31

its way, but it could also have been because you were a good knee and stuff.

27:35

You get special treatment probably who needs To

27:38

get absolutely special preferred treatment.

27:42

Yeah, that's true. Good reason. I was, you were the person that I was the most enamored to me because so much of my rainy day childhood moments were consumed with Raiders of the lost dark, the dark crystal and the Goonies.

27:57

It was just, it's just a magical movie.

28:01

Amazing. So I remember meeting you vividly, but we, we all spent so much time together, Sean making those films, especially the first film, but I would put a strong argument forward to say that possibly you more than anyone else, maybe because you had a young daughter at home where the most kind of whole holding so much of the weight of the movie on your shoulders, even someone like Elijah, who is significantly younger than, than you seem to be getting through his days with a lot less of the, the weight of the piece than you.

28:43

W do you think that's fair?

28:45

Yeah, I think that's very, yeah, they, the, I mean, there's so much, there's so much to unpack.

28:51

First of all, I was fat.

28:53

So I was definitely carrying the weight through the experience of working on those once you had done backpack, which is not on the back, but oh my gosh, the backpack was, yeah.

29:06

I, you know, when I met Elijah at the moment song, Sophie Tel hotel, right next to the Beverly center, you live pretty close to there.

29:13

I did Dom for awhile and we, we went there to have a wig awake, fitting with Peter Owen.

29:20

And I remember thinking how cool it was.

29:22

I get to wear a wig. And then also, why do I have to wear a wig and a Peter drawing this wonderful drawing of the silhouettes of the habits, you know, and, and why that you want their silhouettes to match with each other.

29:33

And that guy's just incredibly brilliant.

29:35

And when I met Elijah down in the lobby, we saw each other, like from across the lobby, some star-crossed lovers moment, and we raced to each other and just embraced and held each other.

29:46

And we were laughing and so excited.

29:47

And then, you know, I was 29 and he was 19.

29:50

And I pulled him away from my, my body.

29:54

I had my hands on his shoulders and I said, are you ready for this?

29:57

You know, kind of self-important, you know, are you ready?

30:00

Like, I know I'm a wise old man at 29, or are you ready for this young one?

30:05

And then we spent two years with him proving how much more ready he was for Here's

30:13

a service you should use if you use the internet express VPN.

30:17

I know most of your thinking, well, I don't need to, I'll just put it on incognito mode.

30:24

Well, let me tell you something incognito mode does not hide your activity.

30:28

Doesn't matter. What more do you use?

30:31

And any us internet service providers are legally allowed to sell your information to ad companies express VPN is an app that reroutes your internet connection through their secure servers.

30:47

That will keep all your information secure by encrypting a hundred percent of your data with the most powerful encryption available.

30:56

Most of the time, we don't even know that it's sweat Stein express VPN is available on all your devices, phones, computers, even your smart TVs.

31:09

So there's no excuse for you.

31:11

Do not use it.

31:12

Protect your online activity today with the VPN that was rated.

31:19

Number one, by CNET, an earner exclusive link express vpn.com/onion.

31:24

And

31:24

you

31:24

can

31:24

get

31:24

an

31:24

extra

31:24

three

31:24

months

31:24

free

31:24

on

31:24

a

31:24

one-year

31:30

package. That's E X, P R E S S V P n.com/onion express, vpn.com/onion to learn more, no

31:44

matter how you feel about getting back out there, there's no denying, it's an adjustment.

31:48

And when the world gets to load something that I like to do as I pop and my recon wireless earbuds, they are brilliant.

31:59

Sometimes you just need some upbeat music, you know, or to pump up your deal a little bit, or maybe even stay calm with a gay did meditation.

32:08

I was on my first flight for quite some time, the other day there.

32:13

And I just popped in my recon wireless ear buds.

32:17

And it was nice to hear some of my old playlists.

32:19

Again, of course you can always use it to listen to it.

32:23

Podcasts say, for instance, me and Dom, right in your ear, fantastic.

32:28

They

32:28

come

32:28

with

32:28

a

32:28

bunch

32:28

of

32:28

jail

32:28

tips

32:28

for

32:28

your

32:34

comfort. So the FA like no other ear buds and they don't out your ears like others recon have a 32 hour battery life.

32:45

So you can listen to whatever you want when you want for a really long time, create your own soundtrack with recon.

32:53

Right now, listeners can get 15% of the recon order at, by recon.com/onion.

33:00

That's

33:00

by

33:00

recon.com/union

33:00

to

33:00

save

33:00

15%

33:00

on

33:00

recons

33:00

by

33:10

recon.com/onion.

33:14

You know, there were financial things that were burdening my brain.

33:16

During that time, we hit bought things that you wouldn't even think about affecting people's life.

33:23

But, but if I, if I put the layers on top of it now, 20 years later, you know, and trying to think of, because I definitely did.

33:30

I definitely, my experience was a much harder, more Laden.

33:35

It was a more Laden experience. I think that it wasn't harder.

33:38

We all didn't sleep the same.

33:40

And we all had, you know, little things, little injuries here and there.

33:44

And, but for some reason I definitely carried it.

33:47

I

33:47

re

33:47

I

33:47

remember

33:47

there

33:47

were

33:47

all

33:47

these

33:47

moments

33:47

leading

33:47

in

33:47

where

33:47

I

33:47

was

33:54

hoping. Did you, have you talked about the backsheet version, the Ralph Bakshi version of a Lord of the rings from the 1970s?

34:04

Yeah. The television version. First of all, it is, it was absolutely ahead of its time with some of the, I think they call it rotoscoping some of what they did with the ring rates and, and some of the sound design was really, really for thinking, but it was mostly terrible.

34:19

It was mostly really, really, really awful.

34:22

And the habits there's like readings, if you read the Lord of the rings, right?

34:26

Like the hobbits are these bumbling bursting into tears, terrified, hiding behind things.

34:33

Like you could actually have habits that were, that are, if you depicted them in a movie, the way they're written, it wouldn't be credible.

34:41

That they're heroic later at the end, you know, it's like in literature, you can, you can enjoy that.

34:48

They're like, oh, the habits of bursting into tears.

34:50

But in the, in the backsheet version, they're really plump all of them.

34:55

And they're almost

34:56

And

34:56

you're

34:56

like,

34:56

I

34:56

remember

34:56

going

34:56

to

34:56

Pete

34:56

and

34:56

saying

34:56

like,

34:56

do

34:56

we

34:56

have

34:56

to

34:56

do

34:56

it

34:56

like

35:06

that? Like, I really don't want to do it like that.

35:08

And so I feel, I, he was like, no, no, we don't, we don't have to do it like that.

35:12

But I definitely felt like through the whole movie, I was always afraid that something was going to be, that it wasn't going to be right.

35:19

That it would, it would end up looking.

35:20

We ended up looking too silly in the wrong way.

35:23

It's like, you, you guys thank God for you guys.

35:27

Right? You found humor, you made humor in the way that the habits are intended to have humor.

35:31

If it was just up to me, I was like serious all the time, which is funny when juxtaposed something else.

35:37

But if it was just that all the time, it would be boring.

35:40

And I Know,

35:42

I wonder if some of that is Sam though, right?

35:45

Sean. I mean, Sam is kind of laid in with the responsibility of keeping Frodo around and he has to be the serious one who says to Gandalf and the rest of the fellowship of the ring.

35:54

I will take care of him.

35:56

I am his Stuart. You have to be the responsible one.

36:00

I wonder how much of that is Sam coming into your world?

36:02

You know, I,

36:04

I, I don't know where once where I, yeah.

36:08

I don't know where I stop. And he starts in that, in that sense.

36:11

I remember like I played at that as an idea.

36:14

Right, right. Like I remember one night we were at the pub early, early, early in the shooting, like even before shooting you're in rehearsals and Elijah locked his keys in his, in his flat.

36:24

And I was like, I'll take care of it.

36:28

Right.

36:28

So

36:28

I

36:28

bet

36:28

I

36:28

sorted

36:28

out

36:28

a

36:28

locksmith

36:28

and

36:28

went

36:28

in

36:28

there

36:28

and

36:28

got

36:36

it. And I remember coming in and you guys are all sitting with a drink and he looked like he was 35 years old, the way he carried his cigarette and his drink.

36:42

And I'm like trying to get my head around that this 19 year old kid and a, and I bring him his key and he's like, oh, thank you so much.

36:49

Like exactly as photo away, like he just said, that would be, yeah.

36:56

I remember, I remember the day that That

36:59

barrier's board and Pete came well, barrier's born was there.

37:04

Sorry, Pete Jackson was there all the time at was born, came to set.

37:06

I think the first day when we did the under the wooded log moment, and they had said to the four of us, Hey guys, if you could just wait behind when we wrapped, cause we want to talk to you about something and me in my own sense of naitivity was just like, oh, whatever, they're going to say.

37:21

We're so stoked. You guys are with us day one.

37:24

We're so excited for this thing. We'll have a little, whatever, glass of champagne, a little huddle, whatever Billy didn't seem to be in any way, tweaked Elijah didn't and you immediately, Sean got the four of us in a huddle and said, what do you think that is about?

37:38

And I thought nothing.

37:39

And you said, it's, it's something, it's something.

37:41

And I thought, no, no. Shawn's way off.

37:43

And he was banging on something had happened.

37:46

But you, You

37:46

think you have the know, like we we'd All

37:50

been in and the movies and stuff, but you'd been in big movies before that, you know?

37:55

And you you've grown up in that world.

37:59

And I remember that because I just thought, I didn't even think anything.

38:02

They want to say, well, I

38:05

don't know. I'll go do another costume call tomorrow or something.

38:08

I don't know. But you grabbed this and said, they've seen the rushees.

38:11

They hate it. Someone's getting fired.

38:13

I think you might've said someone's getting fired.

38:16

They couldn't, they couldn't have, they couldn't have seen the rushes yet.

38:18

Cause it was the first thing we ever would have seen.

38:20

W w remember they did the wards, throw a test with us, took us out in the parking lot.

38:26

And they created tape on the ground and they were like, just wander around in character.

38:32

That's right. The most awkward thing ever.

38:34

Right. And we, we, we ha we thank God.

38:37

I was so happy that Sam was stoic because I didn't have to do anything.

38:40

Right. But I'm watching you guys trying to figure out what the fuck to do, and then like weather.

38:46

So, but they had said that they had seen it and they liked it and they had approved the wardrobe.

38:50

So I wasn't worried about that.

38:51

But then, but when they, do you remember where they took us to a special place?

38:55

I don't even know where the place was and they opened the door and it was a big empty room with four chairs set in it, take a seat, like a firing squad.

39:08

And

39:10

We walked in and we sat down and I just remember being like, oh man, this is not good.

39:14

And they came in, it was Tim who told it wasn't it, it was Tim that's him was the one who told us, I think.

39:21

Yeah. That, that, yeah.

39:22

And it was really horrible. Horribly sad just for anyone.

39:28

Yeah. For anyone listening or watching. What we're talking about here is, is the fact that Stewart Townsend, who was for awhile going to be playing Aragon had, at that point, left the project.

39:35

And they told the four hobbits who were on their first day and the first day at work, none of us knew what was going on.

39:41

Sean almost knew before it had happened, what was going on.

39:44

So I wonder if you were carrying that shit.

39:48

Yeah. I absolutely was 1000% carrying it with me until the last day.

39:53

You know, you can be replaced because they can just go in and just do the face shots and put the face of whoever they want of any new person over the body that you've been moving around for two years in the, in the thing, you basically, the body double that they can put the face on and your voice.

40:11

Yeah. I was absolutely aware of that the whole time.

40:13

But, but the thing was, you know, in a way they, they knew it was going to hurt us because another one of the big things that made it, that you knew it was gonna be massive was that we had six weeks of preparation.

40:28

Yeah. That's never, it never, that just doesn't happen.

40:30

And for six weeks we got to become really good friends with Stewart.

40:34

And, you know, you could see he's the only one who worked harder than me, for sure.

40:38

He's the one, he was not, he couldn't, he couldn't get his, his spirit around how hard it was gonna be to do it.

40:46

And, and, and, and that, that was another one.

40:49

There were, there were a lot of things with that movie for all of us, I think, right.

40:54

That they, they, you just had to, there was like a loss of innocence or something, or, or just the, the heaviness of big decision-making, you know, and consequential decision-making consequential for all the different people.

41:10

They were hiring to do all the different jobs consequential for, you know, everyone's the, the economics of everyone's lives a little bit, which that's the other thing I said it at the beginning, like the economics weighed on me as much as that and being fat, literally physically, I had run the LA marathon, like three months before filming.

41:29

And I was, I was 135 pounds, skinny, I mean, like real skinny.

41:35

And then I wanted to, to get that job.

41:37

So I got fat.

41:39

There's no time in the next two years.

41:41

I can't like I have to be fat.

41:44

And if you don't see yourself, I remember looking in the mirror and the makeup bus and like, who is this fat fuck looking at me?

41:52

And I can't see the real me anymore.

41:56

I can't, I can't see me.

41:58

Well, let me ask you What

42:00

was, what was that fat diet?

42:02

Because I'm sure there's a lot of actors out there that might have to put on weight quite quickly.

42:05

What was your diet? Was it ice cream and chocolate?

42:07

What did you do? What didn't you do?

42:11

Okay. Do you remember Jeremy Woodhead, a new member that Jeremy would head Was,

42:15

was the, was makeup artist.

42:18

Yeah, he was my makeup.

42:19

One of the only male make bias.

42:22

Yeah, I do.

42:24

Yeah. And then, and then, yeah, and, and, and, and, and Ian McKellen stolen from me.

42:29

That's how I experienced it as a thief.

42:32

Is that, that benighted English legend, stoma.

42:36

I, the makeup artist, I liked so much, but we went to play tennis at the there's a tennis center, like an athletic center in Wellington.

42:43

And we were, we were going on five or six different times.

42:47

It was it'd become, you know, I was getting in shape.

42:51

I was really enjoying it, they've sweating.

42:53

And, and that the, you know, and, and, but I think it's someone took a picture and put it in the, in the newspapers, on the cover of the newspaper.

43:01

It was national news and New Zealand that I would like kind of a star sighting, but with Lord of the rings, like they they'd hidden us away from cameras and stuff.

43:11

And, and it said that I was coming out of the tennis center and Pete PJ had this look when I walked in the next day.

43:19

And I was like, oh no, I'm like in trouble for working out.

43:23

And, and he said, he showed, he had the, he had it.

43:28

And he showed it to me. And I was like in a busted, I don't know what I'm supposed to say.

43:32

And he said more lollies for Mr. Aston, please.

43:34

You know, he was like, and they have those gummy horrible candies that were, were definitely called your arteries after just a small handful of them.

43:44

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the trick was in weightlifting for like a month before coming to New Zealand and then stopping weightlifting and continuing to eat.

43:57

Okay. So your body thinks It's

44:01

yeah. You wouldn't know you two don't know, you just drink all you want and you don't put on an ounce.

44:05

It's very upsetting.

44:07

We're getting that, Sean. We are getting there just to go back to what we talked about earlier on about all of us being exhausted and tired.

44:12

I have this very vivid memory. And I wonder if either one of you can geographically place this for me, we are on location.

44:19

I think that Sean and Elijah had just started to do some climbing of Mount Mordor.

44:28

Not sure what you and I were doing specifically.

44:30

We were working and we got a message probably from Elijah, who was with Sean, that they were finishing a very long day, coming back to the hotel that we were staying at at like nine ish.

44:45

And that they'd broken you guys, his turnaround, and you guys had to be back on set at something like being picked up at five in the morning.

44:52

And Elijah said to us, can you and Billy, are you and Billy around just to grab a quick dinner.

44:58

Cause Sean and I are both exhausted.

44:59

And we said, yeah, we were in the bar having a drink.

45:02

Elijah showed up before Sean, I don't know what Sean was doing.

45:07

A larger kind of came over to the table.

45:08

It's still covered in mud from the day.

45:10

Not really got all of his makeup off.

45:12

And he was like, oh, just going to order a quick dinner and we'll sit.

45:15

And we said, yeah. And then Sean came over and you kind of collapsed almost onto the table, put your arms down on the table.

45:22

And we're just like, ah, I can't believe this is, it was something like the seventh or eighth day in a row that the broken their turnaround and you ordered food.

45:31

And the two of you ate with us for probably 45 minutes.

45:34

And then you immediately crashed and we're up the next day.

45:37

Do you guys remember where that was? Or do you have that memory now?

45:41

I was like every Day.

45:42

I just Remember

45:44

Sean coming over and, and his whole, his head and shoulders and chest just collapsing on the table kind of half laughing, half crying, and then looked up at us and just said, I can't believe they're breaking.

45:54

I turned around again. You keep saying, break your turnaround.

45:56

There was no such thing. Right.

45:58

That's true. That's true.

46:00

It's not a, not a union. And yeah.

46:03

Well, we should explain that. Let's explain it to people listening.

46:06

So you guys know that my mother, Patty duke, my late mother was president of the screen actors Guild in the mid 1980s.

46:12

So the union and they're different unions in different countries, I say to you guys, cause I don't really know that much about, I worked under a SAC contract in England, but anyhow, so certain rules are established guidelines.

46:26

Like you have to have 12 hours between the time you wrap and the time you're called back for the next day, or sometimes it's 10 hours or something like that.

46:35

And it's, it's a rule.

46:37

And if they break the rule, then they have to pay 900 bucks or something like that.

46:41

So usually as an actor, you're hoping they break your turnaround because you really want that extra 900 bucks.

46:46

Right. But, but when we got to New Zealand, it was not in a union space, it was not a union project.

46:51

So th really you guys know like our quote unquote turnaround is just based on what they thought we could handle, right?

47:02

Like you had that, you get to make the ears of the Hobbit ears, wig and the Hobbit feet off.

47:07

And that all took probably an hour, a little over an hour at nighttime to get all the alcohol on, you know, cause it lets the glue loose and everything.

47:14

And most of the time, not most of them, a lot of the time, it wouldn't even get all the glue off just like, you know what, I'd rather, I'd rather have an extra half hour of sleep, then get all the glue off that you're just going to reapply in another 10 hours, nine hours.

47:27

So what a lot of times, you know, you, and then we'd have to come in early, stand on a box and have our feet done at, you know, 4 30, 5, 5 30 in the morning, something like that.

47:36

So, you know, you come in at say five and you work until it gets dark at 6, 6 30, and then you finally leave by seven, get home, get something to eat, turn around and go back right away.

47:46

Again, it was not, it was, it was hard.

47:48

It was, it was really, really, really, really hard.

47:51

Yeah. So, but I mean, it also, you realize what you're capable of, you know, you realize the value of the sacrifices that people have made to help get rules like that put in place, but you also realize like I can actually tolerate a lot more.

48:07

The one thing that really was amazing to me about our experience was the crew.

48:12

The crew is indefatigable.

48:14

I mean, they, they literally would work, you know, 15, 16, 17 hours and come right back and they were always ready to go happy, fired up.

48:23

You know, maybe in the two years where there one top, my saw them decide that they collectively weren't happy and they wanted to talk to the producers about it.

48:33

And they got a, a bump or something like that.

48:35

But, but yeah, you know, it's, it's amazing to, I mean, people think of acting, it's not that hard, right?

48:41

Like it's, it's, it's, it's not like digging ditches or something or, you know, real manual labor where people work harder than that.

48:49

But it kinda, it is, it is hard.

48:51

And it's the mental, you know, you have to be kind of ready all day long, ready to, you know, at any given moment to do, to do your thing, to have your memory tested and to be able to, you know, do what someone else is telling you to do.

49:05

One of my favorite things not acting is that I don't have to do what other people tell me to do.

49:13

Yeah. When bill tells me to do something, then I Use

49:16

the bus. When we had Elijah on we, we got into a, a big music conversation, which concluded with us talking about, was there a specific album or a specific song that kind of summed up New Zealand for you?

49:30

Was there any particular song or music or something like that that you thought well, that, that is my New Zealand experience in an album.

49:41

Well, when I was 15, I did a movie, a whitewater rafting movie.

49:48

I don't know if we ever talked to, I don't think we ever talked about this with Kevin bacon.

49:50

It's a classic.

49:52

It's not the CA it's not the whitewater rafting movie with David's drifter.

49:56

And then Meryl Streep. That was just other whitewater rafting movie.

49:59

Ours was the one you haven't heard about.

50:00

And we, we kept going around to different.

50:05

We went to Canada a couple of times, we went up to the Sierra Nevada's because they were trying to get this whitewater rafting scene canoeing sequence to look spectacular.

50:13

So they finally figured out, down on the core river in the south island in Queenstown would be where we could shoot it.

50:20

So, and I was 15. Well, we flew to Auckland and I had, cause I was under age.

50:26

I had a, a friend, a guardian Joseph Giuseppe Pepe Passerelli with this big Italian mustache, like Mario mustache.

50:33

And we, we drove the full length of the plan together and we only had one cassette tape and the cassette tape was Billy Joel's greatest hits.

50:46

So I think, I don't know, I might've come with the rental car, but I literally, I mean to me, I don't know.

50:57

Okay. So for Lord of the rings, it's probably something different.

50:59

But when I think of New Zealand and, you know, anytime throughout the, when We

51:05

were trying to remember, because we were remembering what everyone played and our makeup trailers, and I couldn't remember what music you were with and dome that think It

51:17

was Belize. Yeah. I said, Billy Joel's grades too.

51:19

I think I actually said greatest hits Of

51:24

all of the music that Elijah played for us.

51:27

The hundreds of hours of music that Elijah played for us.

51:30

There's one song that hit me the most, that I, that I, when I'm running, if I, if it's in my playlist, when I'm running, I will immediately go back to that.

51:39

It's it's, it's called driftwood.

51:42

Oh, by Travis.

51:44

Well, yeah.

51:45

So That album, that album was the thing that defined New Zealand for me, between Billy Elijah and myself, we became very territorial over the stereo.

51:55

And I think there were times where you said, well, let me have a go, let me have a go.

51:59

And I seem to remember the time where we said, okay, Sean, you can go.

52:03

It was Billy Joel's grace test.

52:05

And I love uptown girl piano, man.

52:08

And do you remember Christopher Lee putting on Some

52:11

music? Was it metal? Yeah, but with him speaking Over

52:14

the top female albums Crystally,

52:16

I was, I was shocked when he put that on.

52:19

I remember that I wrapped on the same day as Christopher Lee and I thought you meant rap like, oh no, like M and M rap.

52:28

No, I put a w in front of it.

52:30

I'd never heard that. I thought I, I saw him outside in the, in the wizard cloak, just doing, you know, just, Yeah,

52:37

he could have done it. He could have done it.

52:39

It was definitely, you could do anything that man, but do you guys would have been there because I think there's footage of you guys in the audience.

52:45

And I was just listening to him, but Christopher Lee was incredibly, incredibly moved by his experience and also moved by the fact that he had wrapped.

52:54

And he says this very earnest, very heartfelt thing of, you know, you guys have created magic and you know, you guys are all legends and this will be remembered forever.

53:02

And I remember thinking at the time, if this was anyone else, you'd kind of dismiss it.

53:06

But Christopher Lee with his voice, you're just kind of like, wow, maybe he's onto something here.

53:11

You know, extraordinary man. Well, he's in his, I mean he met talking, Right?

53:15

Yeah. Yeah. He, he, he, he made everything.

53:18

Yeah. He, And he was, I think, I think he was some sort of a spy or something in the second world.

53:24

He

53:24

had

53:24

some,

53:24

some

53:24

relationship

53:24

to

53:24

the

53:24

war

53:24

and,

53:24

and

53:24

to

53:24

that,

53:24

that

53:24

made

53:24

it

53:24

more

53:24

special

53:24

to

53:33

him. Cause I think he was writing token was writing it during the war and sending chapters to his son, Christopher in, in Europe or something like in, in the main land.

53:43

I don't know. I think I Might

53:45

be getting this wrong, but I think sh Christopher Lee was in the SAS and was working behind enemy lines in the second world war.

53:52

And one of my, certainly my favorite story about Christopher Lee's and I think Elijah's as well was Elijah and I were with him on location somewhere outside.

54:01

And he, and he said, we were just chatting about something and he, and he said, watch this.

54:06

And he took a big pen and threw it into a tree and it stuck in the tree, like a knife.

54:13

Wow. And I remember thinking if that was a knife, that's trigger would be a goner.

54:21

He turned a pen into a deadly weapon.

54:23

So he was quite an intensive, really amazing.

54:28

He took me under his wing a lot and we, we smoked cigars together.

54:32

Nice. And he, he, yeah.

54:34

And we were, we were in France at one point and he took me along the

54:39

There was some sort of a gentleman's club.

54:41

Not like that. No.

54:43

Like, no, not like that, like a place where gentlemen would go, it's like a way station in your day when you're doing Paris to, to be among, you know, like-minded fellow.

54:57

So, you know, deep mahogany paneling and smoke, you know, and he talked about, we went on the, on the balcony and overlook the shops at Elisa and he talked about soldiers, March it Ang.

55:10

And, but anyhow, yeah, he was, he was, he's a legend.

55:15

Yeah. I was in, I, whenever I got picked up in the morning very often with you, I think they would pick you up first, generally me second and on this particular pickup.

55:27

There was a little note on my call sheet that said you will be picked up second.

55:32

And I thought, I'm not sure why they've told me that.

55:34

And it was an early start for me, five, five past five, something like that.

55:39

So the person being picked up before me, it would have been picked up at 4 35 or something like that.

55:44

As I got into the backseat, Christopher Lee was in the front seat on his first day.

55:49

I'd never met him before I got in noisy little, you know, early 20 year old boy, I said, oh, good, good morning, Christopher.

55:58

How how's it going? My name's Dominick. And he turned around and said, I have never been picked up so early for work in my entire career.

56:05

And I just sat back, just sunk into the chair no more from me for the next half an hour.

56:12

Keep my mouth shut.

56:13

Yeah, he's a fantastic guy.

56:16

Obviously, Sean, we've, we've, we've gone over, you've gone over with us and also individually, so many of these rote subjects, what was it like to work with Elijah what's Pete Jackson?

56:26

Like what was your first impression of the film, all that kind of stuff.

56:29

Are there still things that you would like to be asked about with laundering, still things that need to be mined, still things that you have to say, or at this point, are you like, well, I think most of it's been said, you know, It

56:45

just depends on how people interact with you.

56:47

You know? I don't think I don't, I don't know that I've got a deep well of information that I, that I like that if, you know, after 5,000 Comic-Con appearances and whatever that I'm like, wait, there's this one thing I haven't been able to get to.

57:00

But, but, but to me it's endlessly, you know, my father, you guys never met my dad.

57:05

I don't think John Aston, who was Gomez in the original Adams family.

57:08

And he, he, he taught me as a very young person that, you know, people are not pieces on a chess board and you, you know, as much as I, I like strategy and tactics with, you know, in business kind of things or whatever, but on a human level, people are, people are human beings are human beings and every human interaction is sacred.

57:31

That's what he always said to me.

57:32

And so when I'm, when I meet people, depending on who they are, what's interesting to them.

57:37

You know, I try, I usually will begin an answer if something that we've talked about so much and then try and make it about them a little bit, you know, and then, and you'll, it is amazing though, when certain little I heard you say Easter eggs, sometimes darling talking about Easter eggs, a little, a little deep in the recess of mine, something will pop up that were remind you of all right.

57:59

That's right. The smell of those sulfur are things that we, you know, those, those software beds, I hadn't, I hadn't, and you can smell them as soon as you think about it.

58:07

You know, you know, I always think about our helicopter rides.

58:10

I should give you permission to mock me.

58:12

You know, it's, it's only fair Because

58:17

of my guest.

58:19

Well, I wonder if, if over time now that we're all in our, are you 50 at Dom?

58:24

No, I'm 44, but we're getting there.

58:27

Come on.

58:29

I

58:32

know Billy's like 56 at this point, but anyhow, at this point now that you've known people like the older you get, like my father is 91 and we talk a lot about how everyone he knew his whole life.

58:43

If it was gone, all of his friends, all the, most of the people he worked with, you know, like there's, when you, you just it's like that.

58:49

So now we know people who've who've died in accidents and, you know, whatever is, are you any more, even a little bit sympathetic to my paranoia.

58:59

I existed in a state of extreme paranoia for most of the most of the shoes.

59:06

No, of course, of course. I'm sure.

59:07

Well, I think Billy was much more empathetic at the time.

59:10

I am much more now.

59:12

I think, you know, you obviously mature and grow up.

59:16

I think a lot of that with you came from the fact that you were a young and none of us had children at that point.

59:23

So you're probably much more aware of the mortality of people with you being a father.

59:28

And what's at stake for you. There was nothing at stake for me, you know, I was 23, the naivety of me coming into those films in a lot of ways saved me because I had to adopt this very carefree, silly fly by the seat of your pants, ready to improvise, ready to joke and laugh with Billy attitude.

59:48

And I think in a lot of ways you had to adopt the right.

59:52

Right, right. Everyone stop messing around. I'm Sam. I'm trying to get this person safe.

59:55

You're just being loud and noise over there. That's kind of what you represented as a hobby.

59:59

But do you remember? You remember?

1:00:01

Okay, so you did last I'm you must have gone up in helicopters when you were doing that often.

1:00:08

Yeah.

1:00:08

And,

1:00:08

and,

1:00:08

and,

1:00:08

and

1:00:08

did

1:00:08

you

1:00:08

study

1:00:08

how

1:00:08

they

1:00:08

communicate

1:00:08

the

1:00:14

pilots? Sure.

1:00:15

I

1:00:15

don't

1:00:15

think

1:00:15

Billy,

1:00:15

have

1:00:15

you

1:00:15

done

1:00:15

a

1:00:15

lot

1:00:15

of

1:00:15

helicopter

1:00:20

flying? No.

1:00:22

I like to get Up in the helicopter once a week, at least as well, son said to me, when he was very young, he says, I can, I can fly a helicopter.

1:00:33

I don't know if I could land it.

1:00:35

Wow. I can fly it. Love to see that.

1:00:37

I don't know why He

1:00:39

said that he was about six years.

1:00:44

Well, he's been honest. Right.

1:00:46

But as a father, you have to teach him.

1:00:48

Yeah. You have to teach them how to laugh when you teach them how to ride a bicycle, you have to show them how to stop first.

1:00:52

Right. Right. When we were shooting, when we were filming, I probably not going to be able to adjudicate this moment in this setting, but because it's you guys, so they tell us at any moment, the weather can change.

1:01:07

We filmed at the tops of all these great.

1:01:10

Yeah. For the listener, right. At the tops of these great mountain peaks that were, that was the most extraordinary thing.

1:01:14

There should be places where, you know, no other human being has ever been and then history of the, you know, so, but it could change.

1:01:21

So they had, they had sat a, you know, one of those big things that they have, like in construction sites, like, We'll

1:01:33

say again, a whale, not a whale, again, It's

1:01:39

a good guess, like an office, like one of those portable offices, one of those portal portal I'm talking about.

1:01:44

Yeah. So, and they, and they'd thrown in there a bunch of meal, ready to eat type of things that the military has and the Bunsen burner and some, you know, sleeping bags and you know, and there's probably 30 of us up there.

1:01:58

And they're like, you know, if we have to evacuate and we can't evacuate quickly enough, you're gonna have to stay huddled together until the weather passes, which can be days, right.

1:02:14

This is what they told us.

1:02:16

They, they had to stuff at the top of the mountain and assume they didn't do this for their health.

1:02:25

Right. They were doing it as an emergency scenario.

1:02:27

So

1:02:27

then

1:02:27

at

1:02:27

a

1:02:27

certain

1:02:27

point,

1:02:27

the,

1:02:27

the

1:02:27

people

1:02:27

with

1:02:27

the

1:02:27

walkie

1:02:27

talkie

1:02:27

started

1:02:27

looking

1:02:27

very

1:02:27

concerned

1:02:27

and

1:02:27

saying,

1:02:27

the

1:02:27

helicopters

1:02:27

are

1:02:27

coming

1:02:38

in. We're going to, we're going to stop for the day.

1:02:39

And we just started.

1:02:40

So we were evacuating the mountain and you lot, you and Elijah U2 and Elijah thought it was hilarious.

1:02:54

So they were, they were putting the helicopter skid on the edge of a rock, the other skid floating, right.

1:03:06

Floating. Like if they would have turned, the power would have dropped.

1:03:09

So it's floating there so that we can get in and we climb in and you guys are laughing and laughing.

1:03:16

Now they had at least two, I think, three helicopters, Billy, this is great.

1:03:27

So

1:03:27

they're

1:03:31

there. They're there. There's no, we're in the middle of nowhere.

1:03:33

We're in the middle of nowhere.

1:03:36

It took an hour and a half to drive there in a vehicle.

1:03:39

And these helicopters come in.

1:03:41

So now they're not taking us back to the place where the helicopters like were, would take off from the airport, the hella port or whatever.

1:03:49

Instead, they took us right to the bottom of the mountain, the bottom of the mountain and drop us off and go right back up to the top of the mountain because I had to get people off before the thing would come in.

1:03:58

And the look on the pilot's face was very concerned.

1:04:08

This is lifting you for a long

1:04:09

So

1:04:09

yes,

1:04:17

The answer's yes. It's. I had to get this out.

1:04:19

Yes. There was one thing I had to get up.

1:04:20

So we're getting the three of you guys are chattering away on the thing.

1:04:26

Now there's no like air traffic control tower.

1:04:31

Okay. There's no, there's just what they call VRF visual flight.

1:04:36

What are the VFR visual flight rules.

1:04:39

Okay. And the clots are coming in and you guys are Sean jacking.

1:04:44

And now, now, if you have been in a helicopter since then, you know that the pilot can push his button and the sound of you guys talking gets a little bit lower so that he can talk to the other pilot, right?

1:05:03

Yeah. Okay.

1:05:11

I don't know. It was all about that button.

1:05:14

That the pipe, Well,

1:05:17

what the, what the button does, is it mutes the passengers, but it doesn't mute you.

1:05:22

It just lowers your volume a little bit, but you compensated the three of you.

1:05:33

Sean

1:05:33

does

1:05:33

a

1:05:33

lot

1:05:33

to

1:05:33

get

1:05:33

into

1:05:33

the

1:05:37

sun. There's a lot less, let's go back to the start where They

1:05:40

built a thing for us to like, be put in with Bunsen burners, With

1:05:45

the I'll, just go with the Bunsen burner that I had sleeping bags and a bunch and good news, man.

1:05:54

Cause you have to cook the stuff in the package, maybe a gap, a little minute, check gas stove, as opposed to a school and your class, that little Bunsen bundle.

1:06:10

You mean a little mini guests? The stove may or may not have been.

1:06:14

Yeah, no, that's the thing.

1:06:17

So hopefully In

1:06:19

this, in this, in this conversation, hopefully we've each learned something, but definitely thank you, Sean.

1:06:26

Go on bills.

1:06:31

That's been like a little black butterfly flying around here, but You

1:06:35

have to remember Sean, that, that, that need for safety.

1:06:40

Wasn't just at the top of mountains.

1:06:41

I remember we were in a, I think it was a rugby game.

1:06:46

Me and you had gone to see a rugby game.

1:06:48

It

1:06:48

was,

1:06:48

the

1:06:48

blood

1:06:48

is

1:06:48

low

1:06:51

cup. Wasn't it? Do you remember that?

1:06:54

It was very well. Me and you were sitting in the stadium watching A

1:06:58

rugby game and all of a sudden he went quiet.

1:07:01

It's not Shawn.

1:07:03

And I said, Sean, I usually, and you work know emergency exits for us, if something happens.

1:07:09

And he was like, yeah.

1:07:12

And he was setting, working out.

1:07:14

If there was a bomb over there, I can go this way.

1:07:18

If there was, if a monsoon came in, it was working.

1:07:23

Although his head that was brutal snap, All

1:07:26

of us grew up with hoop hooliganism and the instinct on how to Train

1:07:32

for it. My, my vague recollection of that day and you're right, Sean, to be careful and try and keep us safe and all that kind of stuff.

1:07:39

But my vague recollection of that day was, yeah, we were brought down to a kind of halfway house and myself and Billy and Alijah were throwing stones.

1:07:49

And then trying to have the second stone hit the stone that we threw.

1:07:53

Do you remember that? We were just killing time.

1:07:55

So you'd throw a big stone. And then we're trying to throw the next stone.

1:07:58

And we were goofing around waiting and it was cold.

1:08:01

And we went for a helicopter come in. And then we all became, the three of us became distracted by Sean.

1:08:08

Who'd stepped away from the group, not throwing stones, doing this to helicopters, bring in people.

1:08:18

No,

1:08:20

That's my memory as well.

1:08:21

And then one hand and a sleeping bag.

1:08:26

You and waving around with it. The other one had been the ping pong table, tennis paddle.

1:08:32

You weren't Directing

1:08:34

the helicopter.

1:08:36

There's your most? You're largely correct, but there's a substantial difference.

1:08:42

Right? All I was doing was pointing to the pilot.

1:08:57

Good. I can see that. I could see the pilot behind him.

1:09:01

And you know what? The pilot In

1:09:08

the first play wouldn't know that you could see the second pilot So

1:09:15

that he didn't back up into him.

1:09:17

He didn't back up into him.

1:09:20

Can a helicopter Gordon reverse.

1:09:24

They can pick up very quickly.

1:09:25

You haven't played a video game, but Sean, Do

1:09:29

you not think that both of those helicopter pilots might have been in cahoots with each other on a radio that you might not have needed to tell that helicopter pilot number one, that his mate is behind in that chat in there.

1:09:43

That's why we were laughing at you.

1:09:48

Then he sees him.

1:09:49

And

1:09:49

then

1:09:49

I

1:09:49

do

1:09:49

remember

1:09:49

as

1:09:49

go

1:09:49

on

1:09:56

shop. I remember the, the pilots.

1:09:57

I got some feedback from my act, my activity, my action there.

1:10:01

I got a thumbs up from the pilot.

1:10:03

Oh, lovely stuff. Lovely stuff.

1:10:06

I got a thumbs up 10, four, good buddy.

1:10:08

Thumbs up. Didn't Know

1:10:12

here's he didn't help him find anything.

1:10:14

Hold

1:10:16

on. Moving on.

1:10:18

I remember Being

1:10:20

the four of us being in the helicopter and I was chatting.

1:10:22

And I remember one moment of Sean kind of given us a bit of a, a stern interval, you know, something like guys be quiet and Elijah kind of went, Ooh, we're in trouble.

1:10:34

I do remember that. Yeah. Yeah.

1:10:36

But You know what you said very, very clearly.

1:10:39

And you know what you said? Well, don't you think that the pilot and his mate are in communication?

1:10:44

And

1:10:44

I

1:10:44

said,

1:10:44

they're

1:10:44

trying,

1:10:44

Hey

1:10:44

Tom,

1:10:44

that

1:10:44

was

1:10:55

good. Oh, It was great. Wasn't that lovely. Took it to show.

1:10:57

And I was in hysterics when he was talking about the helicopter thing.

1:11:00

Yeah. He's funny. He's he's a very funny man.

1:11:03

Actually. Yeah. Yes. He's goofy.

1:11:06

Yeah. I really like him. He's one of the good ones.

1:11:08

He's a good human being.

1:11:10

His heart has always been in the right place. And in that situation with the helicopter, all he's trying to do is earnestly.

1:11:17

Keep us safe.

1:11:19

Yeah. And the three of us, I think, are in a Headspace of cardamom.

1:11:24

We're having fun. And he's like, no, this is a serious situation.

1:11:27

Could go wrong.

1:11:29

It's important at times to look at people's point of view, but it's great.

1:11:33

It's great. He and his stories are real like, yeah, that was really great.

1:11:36

The lovely shot For one chore.

1:11:38

So we'll cut it there.

1:11:40

We'll see him again next week.

1:11:43

Yeah. Along with everybody else who's listening or watching.

1:11:47

That's true. We talked about so much and it went on for so long and we had so much fun that there's just a little bit too much for one episode.

1:11:52

So part one this week part two next week, let us know if you're enjoying it.

1:11:59

Rate, review and subscribe to the friendship, onion, where you get your podcasts and on our YouTube channel and on our Spotify playlist, there has been a few comments about problems finding our Spotify playlist that's because lots of people have created their own, the friendship on your playlist.

1:12:16

But if you keep digging and digging and digging, you'll find the official one.

1:12:21

So there, yeah. Also you can send us emails at the friendship, onion@castemedia.com.

1:12:27

Yeah. And please enjoy yourself and the rest of your week, the rest of your week.

1:12:34

And we'll see you a non doodles.

1:12:37

Bye-bye Hey

1:12:44

everybody. I'm Jason Ellis and I'm Tony Hawk.

1:12:46

And we've got a podcast together called halt versus Wolf.

1:12:49

The humble beginnings of that was us having a satellite radio show.

1:12:54

It's true. We were on satellite radio 15 years ago.

1:12:58

Wow. Did you have to do that?

1:12:59

Cause we've gotten much better at it since yes.

1:13:03

We've evolved. You can listen to us on iTunes, Spotify.

1:13:06

See us on YouTube.

1:13:08

Armour, nice with me to hold the night, and also the night. You're shining right time. You're waking up, baby. You're my brother. Are done? Are you? How's things? Things are fine? Yeah? It's hot, isn't it Yeah. It's hot. Alright. I have to see. I like your pants. I think I told you about these pants. So they're on. These pants baggy red pants. These were attribute to AAA still image that I saw 1 time of Tom York, the lead singer of radiohead. Doing a photo shoot wearing very very baggy black trousers. And I thought, then they look cool. And then I was walking around and I saw a pair of trousers that were red with the same kind of fit and a thought. I'll have them. And you look fantastic, though. That just cut off at the bottom, cut rate off -- Yeah. -- did you do that? Yeah. Because that well, unfortunately, if you had these little hooks, like, kind of toggles on the bottom, and if you walked around barefoot, and you got your foot on them. It was like standing on a piece of LEGO, so I cut them off. Quite right. It allowed it allowed the trouser just to kinda flow around a little bit more kinda gypsy like. That's your week been. It's been pretty good. I've been, you know, desperately avoiding the sun. Yeah. Because it so hot. Yeah. And trying to keep my garden alive. Yeah. So the thing with me is I'm usually up around about six thirty seven. So between seven and about nine thirty, I can water the plants and then have to hide inside. Right. Go at the gym and then I can't then water the plants until probably closer to six. So then I run outside and walk the plants again until it gets dark. So it's Astin whole practice of trying to keep my plants alive. You can you see them busily go from They're welting. Welting. You give them some water. Back up to feeling good. Good. Good for you. What about you? Yeah. It's been a good week actually. To bat cooking, to bat I am surfing. Been good, actually. Yeah. Did a little bit of music. Yeah. Good week. was on the west side and I said, I might come over and you said, alright. I've got few things come going on. I think you said, mate. I'm coming over. Mhmm. And you said, okay. I've got a few things coming going on, but come over. And then I thought, sounds like it's a bit of a hassle. So then I said, I'm not commentreview, and you said, why? I didn't answer because I was driving. And then later on, you just sent me a photo of my dinner, and you said, this is the dinner that I bought for you. And I thought, oh, it's angry. It was quite expensive as quite expensive as well. Yeah. But you 2 you did you get caught in your throat with your choke on it? Not still in the fridge. I'll leave it tonight. Treat yourself a well or no? I'm Sorry. I'm I thought I wanted to get home before the traffic. Yeah. That's what I did. Well, well done. But 2 be honest, my dinner last night was half a bowl of soup and a bag of crisps. Well that's all alright. So the problem is soup. Now as a side dish. So probably would have benefited from coming over to your house. You would have enjoyed it. Now this week, we have a fantastic guest. Oh, what I mean, if you're talking Lord the Rings, which we sometimes do. Sometimes. This would be one of your well, certainly top three. There were, I believe, number one, number two, number three, number four on the call sheet. Yeah. I think were you three? I was four, I think. I think I was three then. Number one, Elijah Wood, had him. Number two. Yep. Is our guest today, the fantastically talented Sean Astin. Who I believe played Sam, Wise Gamji in the Lord of the Rings who later on became known as Sam Gardiner. Did you know that? Sam Gardiner. Yeah. He was they gave him the name Sam Gardiner because of his ability to tell this oil. About like yourself? Mhmm. And he became mayor of the Shire. Did mayor Gardner? Mayor Gardner. Done. Here he is. Sean is here. Ezidom. Look at me. He's on our screen. He's on the TV screen. 2 no. Wait. I was gonna do I was gonna do bad math there. I was gonna say two thirds of the Hobbits, but that's not right. Is it is three fourths of the Hobbits. Is that right? The three fourths of the Hobbits. Yeah. Right. He's not very good at Math and I don't know if you know that about on Sean. Oh, god, Shannon. Well, I just I just sorted it. I just figured it out just now because I'd never get a marathon either but three quarters I got. Yeah. Yeah. I'm bad. I actually had to ask Billy the other day. What was the thing? Oh, I said, I've got fifteen plants. I want to plant them in even numbers around my god and how do I do the maths for that? So, Billy, I'll tell me that. That's how bad I am in maths. Because I have to Be out be here. I think you need 30, you need 30 and then you can have 15 and 15, which would give you a total that will even round think you need thirty. You need thirty. And then you can have fifteen and fifteen, which would give you a total. That one even round number. Yeah. It's gotta be a whole number. Yeah. Right? Because you can -- Yeah. -- can have half a plan. So was it three? Did we hit up on the number of three? I think you had five groups of three, which that works. But he wanted four groups and you can have four groups and a fifteen. Mm-mm. No. Not of no. You can't. Anyway, Sean, this This is not going to for the audio listeners, but there are a lot of people that watch this on not gonna this is not gonna work for the audio listeners, but there are a lot of people that watch this on video. Tell us if they could see the inside of my mind with the math wheels turning, they might be slightly more entertained because it's a kaleidoscope. Coped I wanna buy you a plant to make it even, but there's only sorted it out where there's it's evenly divisible by five. So -- Oh, sure. -- everybody Yeah. -- of course buy me a plant. Mean, why wouldn't you buy me a plan just because with pals, but, you know You probably wouldn't need to buy one because, you know, you've got plenty behind you. Yeah. We're in the Amazon jungle. Do we find you? You? Yes. It's just home. You can hear the dogs now. Christine just got home, saw the ducks in the bark from anybody. We're in the backyard. Nice. How many dogs? There's five. Five. We have, like, two and then COVID hit. And so instead of, like, trying to get one of those online therapists. We just kept getting a dog every six months. Wow. She's looking so funny. Dogs, how many dogs is now? Seven, eight, It's three daughters yet. The little one just turned sixteen yesterday. I Wow. Wow. Sixteen. Sixteen. I still pitch it Allie as being like three and a half, still picture Ali as being like three and a half full. So Ali, for anyone listening and you don't know, Ali was the daughter that Sean had already when he started mother rings. And she was a big part of her adventure and life down in New Zealand, and she was also on set and and she had busty parties, and we were all part of Yeah. So so how old would she also and she I shouldn't throw it shoot through when we went down there. I celebrated fourth and fifth birthdays. Wow. Down there. You guys came that we have that one party. We had the party in the back. I was never with me. Yeah. Probably in the Yeah. Put it in bag. the back. Yeah. Yeah. Which is awesome. And then everybody Drew, we still have So we we cover the inside of one of those easy up tents with with brown paper brown paper, and then everybody drew who made drawings in their names and everything else. And we and we tore that and we have it in the brush. So if you ever need to see that, I think we can we can yeah. That's that's one of our keep safe there. But but yeah. So but she was seven when the final premier happened in New Zealand. So it was a yeah. She was a she was a benchmark to watch as we -- Yeah. -- as we watch. And does she have memory of it? Oh, mate. It's when it comes time for all of us to do a photoshoot something -- Yeah. -- I know. I think you might have seen this at one point, but know, over the years, they'll have us do, you know, a union photoshoot for this magazine or that event or whatever. And when she comes to it, it takes her days to recover from it. Mhmm. She she she cries. It's like, she she doesn't she it like, she you know, she's a very intelligent shot to Harvard. She's very brilliant girl and everything, but she regresses back to that time and she I don't know. It's it's deeply emotional for much more so of me. I'm Yeah. Hi, guys. You know? Yeah. She's very she's very emotional. I love you now. mean, she's disabled. Everything. Like, we we would kind of sorta get babysitters and -- Yeah. Yeah. -- like our little niece, you know, calls -- Yeah. -- on calls every time we went for dinner because as a group, we all went for dinner very often. A lot you know, the four harvets in Orlando and, you know, there was a call group that very often went for dinner. And Ali would consistently be running around the table, spending time with all of us, and hanging out, and drawing on a knee and all this kind of stuff. So it is I mean, I'm sure it must be be bizarre for you too, Sean, but it's very bizarre to think Well, as the drinking hours. Right. Right. Because, you know, once at a certain point, you know, she's young and we'd have to go to bed and then the next morning, guys would look different. Anyhow, that I can flow. Definitely. So yeah. No. Definitely. Yeah. That was that to me, that was one of the greatest things about what to do, it was to give her it was incredible experience for all of us. But for something happens, you know, pilot in your mind as a parent, you you something changes in your brain and you you you see everything through their perspective. Mhmm. And was having that experience down there. And so, And so yeah. So she just to see her and you were it. You you guys were the experience. Like, I got to give her this experience and the experience was you a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So talking about that then, the experience and and seeing it through someone else's eyes and stuff. Can you what is your first memory? Like, can you remember coming off the plane for the first time coming into New Zealand or what is the first thing that you think? Oh, yeah. I remember that like getting the script for the first I remember that. Like, getting the script for the first thing. What what was it? Well, if we're looking at like that, like, the first one way of of kind of landing -- Yeah. -- it was a little bit hazy on the airport and the transfer, but I do remember didn't get to go straight to the hotel. I think we went straight to Stone Street. Who who were you with? When you said we had to Of course, it well, a promo Christine and Ali were with me. But, I mean, there were other when you're not there, we're not there together. I guess recommend with Orlando. Right. I don't I was looking I'm looking at his brain. We're gonna we're gonna walk this way, John. We're gonna get this. I remember the the Erichai rubber suits at Stone Street 2. Right. Everything was you know, it's an abandoned paint factory, and every hallway had some other thing that was, you know, the here's the managers and here's the this. And I at a certain point, I remember thinking I'm gonna die from exhaustion but they they the mentality they sat coming off the airplane was, you know, you know, no, this is a work day. Mhmm. You know? So we're gonna and Pete wants you to come to Stone Street straightaway and he wants to visit you. I remember seeing the pre visualization -- Yeah. -- of of leaves. Right? They should they brought us into this room, and they said, okay. We really wanna show you what we're working on with the software. And we had just traveled like fifteen hours, you know. And -- Yeah. -- and I'm looking at it and they're like, and you can see this and it's just leaves. It's just leaves. And it's just leaves. Like, what do you mean? God, I'm part of something spectacular. I mean, it's gonna have great leaves so I can pay that much. But but I also remember, oh, do I even go there with it? They there was a the a kai outfits. Yeah. The the rubber suits the villain, you know, the the the disgusting things that those poor guys had on for months at a time Yeah. There was one that looked like Harvey Weinstein. oh, yeah. That's right. I mean, it was it was a It was a dead it was an absolute photo real image of Harvey Weinstein on this villainous uricai rubber suit. The mask or whatever. Yeah. And was like, I didn't know if I was supposed to say anything. I did not, at that point, know about MearMax and how they had initially developed the film and whatever issues they had with with with that man who's Not doing well now. But anyhow yeah. So that's that's it. That was my first, you know, that was the first member then going over that hotel across the street from the from the museum, the 2 papa museum. Yeah. 10 points Ten points for anyone who remembers the hotel. Duckston. Oh, well done. Ten points. Yeah. Yeah. So you are Ten for Duckston. Ten point. Yeah. I'm sorry, Sean. And I was listening to the podcast, so I know how important points are. Oh, very important. We're very competitive. Very competitive. I flew in with Johneries Davis and I had the exact same thing as you, Sean. I remember thinking, okay. Cool. We'll get to the hotel. I'm probably gonna have the day off now, maybe the day off tomorrow, and then we'll start. And I got a phone call half an hour in to that day and they said there's a car picking you up and I just thought there must be some mistake. You must know that I've just done a thirty two hour flight. You're thinking about tomorrow and they were like, no, you're gonna come Astin. CP. He wants to give you a tour of the studio. And I think your I think he had made a specific statement with all the actors. As soon as you hit the ground in New Zealand, your mind and we are at work, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want you to to develop that that the relaxation and mode. You know, you're not you're not coming to a spa. You're not you're not gonna have a bit of a tour and walk around the city and see how it feels and, like, You're there. I also remember very clearly walking into that room with you guys, with the swords laid out on the table. Right. Right. We're gonna do we're gonna do the sword, try at that that that Correct. So was that I think it might have actually and did they have a navy? Does it Yeah. Yeah. I think it was a navy. Back. Because it was, like, a submarine base or something. Yeah. What is my army army barracks? We're in an army barracks, and they, you know, from the sixties or seventies or something like that. And and we went in there and we all we got to choose our our swords and and then Bob Anderson, the gorgeous wonderful, brilliant, legendary sword master who taught Eero Flynn and who else did it. He did Star Wars -- It was fabulous. -- North Face. Yeah. Yeah. Obi 1- -- short time. -- this is Friday to that. Yeah. And you was teaching us and we were good at it. I thought we were very good at it. Well, you and Billy had like a routine, didn't you? Yeah. When you say we were good at it, you mean, we were good. I mean, you used your. Well, I don't know if Elijah and Dom were that good. Elijah was too busy smoking cigarettes. I could never have a solid fight with could never have a sword fight with him. He was out smoking cigarettes. When you pay for a job site, you should know what you're you pay for a job site, you should know what you're getting. Get indeed and only pay for quality candidates that meet your must have Get indeed and only pay for quality candidates that meet your must have requirements. When hiring gets hard, you need indeed. The jobs say that makes hiring incredibly simple, just attract, interview, and hire. In fact, with indeed, you can do all your hiring in one place, even interviewing don't just hope your perfect candidate will find you Indeed's hiring tools, help you cut through the noise to hire faster and In fact, with indeed, you can do all your hiring in one place even interviewing. Don't just hope your perfect candidate will find you. Indeed, hiring tools help you cut through the noise to hire faster and smarter. In fact, indeed, Astin match provides a list of quality candidates whose resumes are on Indeed. The moment you post a sponsored job indeed knows how important that is to make the most of your recruiting hours and doors with indeed, you can save time and money by setting your must have qualifications and only paying for the quality candidates that meet the moment you post a sponsored job. Indeed, knows how important that is to make the most of your recruiting hours and doors. With indeed, you can save time and money by setting your must have qualifications and only paying for the quality candidates that meet them. Get started right now with $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at Get started right now with seventy five dollar sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at indeed dot com slash onion. Get a seventy five dollar credit at dot com slash onion. Indeed dot com slash onion All for valid through September thirtieth, terms and conditions apply. If you're like us, you're probably sick of scrolling through mindless programs that you don't even want to watch. Well, I tell you what me and Dom love wondering some fantastic streaming service that your brain will never get enough Well, I tell you what me and Dom love. 1, fan Astin streaming service that your brain will never get enough of. There's just so much to There's just so much to explore. We love We love it. 1 dream offers aimless opportunities to learn something with thousands of hours of video and audio. Fascinating documentaries, helpful to dos and answers to every question that you've ever asked. If you're familiar with the great courses, plus then you already know one room, it's the same great service only know it's bigger and If you're familiar with the Great Courses Plus, then you already know 1. It's the same great service only now. It's bigger and better. You're going to love You're gonna love it. Some of the stuff I've been listening to lately, and watching. Main science. That's what I get all my facts about black holes, another fantastic one, great revolutions of modern That's where I get all my facts about black holes. Another fantastic one great revolutions of modern history. I was looking at all the revolutions in France and Russia and United States as well. Great Great stuff. We know you love 1. room. So we put together a special offer just for our listeners, a free month trial of unlimited we put together a special offer just for our listeners. A three month trial of unlimited access Astin go to our special URL, one dream dot com slash onion. That's W0NDRIUM dot com slash onion. Think of how much you learn in a month go to 1 dream dot com slash onion. What, what was the, what was the reason What what was the what was the reason for that party that we ended up doing we did the sword frames for it. Was it the start of the kick off party? That was the kick off party. So that was a party to see if we're about to start filming the whole thing. And they did the Maori thing that they got a little Maori blessing there, I think. And and Bob Anderson specifically asked me and dumb. Not me and dumb. Me and Sean. Whatever. Like to do, you know, to show everyone how amazing it is. Intimidated dumb. Yes. Patience. Sure. Do you guys move? I tell you what a big one was for me to approach you more. No. I tell you what a big one for me was the do you remember the previous? The Pete showed us at his house. So Pete has got this wonderful house on a bunch of different levels, and there's a lot of nooks and cranes and corners in Pete's house. And obviously, the house itself has been built with extensions and it's kind of strange shapes. Yeah. Very kind of you know, idiosyncrasies. There's a few messages that lead places. Right. And stairways that go places, you know, so no. Right. They're very very kind of you know, Pete Jackson centric. There's a lot of, like Sean said, doorways to places in corners of rooms. You're like, well, that makes no sense. But whatever, he brought over The four Hobbits guaranteed, I think Orlando is well at that point. We the early boys that were there. Ian was with us. Ian was with And I'd never seen Pete's because I drove him home after. Oh, right. Nice. I've never seen Pete's email before because it's hidden away behind the door. You don't even think he's got a a small kind of screener room. I'd never seen personal screener room. It's garage. Right. Alright. Is it a converting garage? The a garage. Yeah. That makes sense now when you think about the geography of it. I can't I can't get the geography. Oh, really? It's 1 little door. You go in. Yeah. And you turn immediately right and there's a there's a couple of little steps and then suddenly to your left, there's a big screen, maybe ten lazy boys. Well, I remember the room but couldn't if if someone put me in the kitchen and said find that room. Alright? There's no way I would find it. It's close to the kitchen for sure, but I remember I'd never seen a personal a green room before. Didn't even know that Pete had one. Obviously Pete's not gonna say, hey, I've got a personal screen room. Doesn't matter. We go in. I thought he told us we were gonna know what's previous. I wasn't really sure what previous was. I was just nodding along going. Oh, great. Yeah. Previous sat down. He had a popcorn making machine. Do you remember? Yeah. So we all had popcorn and there was anything that you wanted to drink. I was, at that point, completely addicted to Bundaberg Ginger Beer. I was drinking, like, four or five a day, had no idea. There was, like, eighty percent of your daily sugar needs in one bowl. And we sat down and we watched this maybe a bit gassy. Yeah. For sure. We watched this relatively clunky although although obviously very functional pre vis which is an animated simplified version of what they're going to shoot with the actors. You're you're quite you know, you're a Hollywood guy. You understand movies and all that, Sean. As preface -- Yes. -- yeah. Is that Is that a name that meant something before then? Well, Sean was gonna say animatic, right, because I think they work on it, the animatic. Right. They it in animatic because what they did was storyboards, those those wonderful drawings that they would do for an action 1 is when you usually see them, you know, where they'll draw, you know, what the over the shoulder shot looks like, and then they draw an image just to still, you know, sketch of you know, a wide shot of ministries or something like that. And then they would literally film those storyboards kind of like Ken burns, you know, the Ken burns a factor that he's got a still image and the camera's going Mhmm. And then they would literally film those storyboards, kinda like Ken Berg you know, the Kenburn's effect where the he's got a still image and the camera's going down so you so you're you're sort of you see a a soldier in the civil war, then you kinda go closer and you see that he's got a letter in his hand or something like that. Mhmm. So it's it's basically a moving image of the storyboards and then previous is the the digital sequences. The short digital sequences where they would have strange looking, you know, anamorphic looking -- Yeah. -- characters in a sword kind of -- Yeah. -- floating or something like that. And then they and then you'd see, you know, the Nasgle fly in -- Yeah. -- and they you'd actually animate that, you know. Yeah. Things. So so yeah. I I remember watching that, and then I remember I mean, was so long. So And they also had our they had they had our characters, actors had read had read the voices for our characters. That's right. Way. So and I remember thinking that the the the the same wise game g voice was pretty good and was nervous. Right. You know? Was the report I'm sure I'm sure we we we don't wanna go over wrote wrote things, the subjects and stuff. We we Billy and I have talked before about that moment where you realize, wow, this movie is huge. I had a moment moment walking around back end. Was there a specific moment for you, Sean, where you you knew it was big but you didn't know it was quite that big until that moment. Well, there was a succession of them. Mhmm. The first the first one was when I was at home in Los Angeles and I got in the part and someone came over with the script with the the three screenplays. Right? And when they set it on the table, it made a loud thud sound. Mhmm. Most scripts make it kind of a flap, but this made a thud and and you opened it up and it had a fake name. It had a fake name. Oh, my gosh. There's a horse pinging back. Can you hear that? No. We can't hear a horse pissing. Yeah. God. Most most horses make up. Yes. The last me that passed. As I back off. So there's Gymboree it said on the script. Right. That's right. And I was confused. I'm I'm easily confused, Billy can tell you. And and I and then I realized that they were doing it so that if you were at a coffee shop or something and you read it, people would not see that it was Lord of Rings. So -- Mhmm. -- was part of something that was so important it had to be kept the secret. Mhmm. And then I opened it up and I don't know how many movies I'd done where there was watermarking on the screenplay where your name was there. So but on every page, Sean -- Mhmm. -- written big across the page -- Mhmm. -- and which is totally distracting. Absolutely distracting. I I wish I could have gone back and and maybe put, like, some ways or something different because I every page you turn instead of getting involved in the story and involved in the characters, I'm just reminded of how important I am. My name is Big Grazed page. I still hear that. But then the minute anyone does that. Right. Why? Because I always feel like somehow I'm gonna like, that's gonna get out because of me. Yeah. And then the page is gonna be there with my name, watermark, dog over. I can prove it. And people put in the most stupid things. No. Don't they? Mhmm. Like, you get any peaches for anything. Mhmm. Yet, there's your name all over and I just get vision of -- Yeah. -- you know, some leaked screenplay and it's me. Have you written a screenplay, Billy? You must have written a in this history, what I've written and and So apart for Sean, of course, there's a sincerely hope so for God's sake. I'm now getting over it in my head to make sure there's a It will write one damn it back to whatever whatever I'm told. I will do it. I'll do it. But I if you wrote it in in one of those go on. I'm gonna watermark it and send it to you with Sean Astin all over it. I'll send you the this If you can go up by hand and would be great. You can bet. can just put my hand, put my name in. It's like you're in trouble. You have to write my name ninety five times. Mhmm. But but you coped just push a button. It's one button. You click button and then it spits out a thing with your name or somebody else's name. So I know with scripts that I have written, you feel all of a sudden very important that you can make it you can make you can make people obligated to you in some way by putting their name on. You love it. Now we feel sorry. Go on. No. No. No. No. No. We cut you off there. So So you gave me script. So one thing, how did he get the script? Did you get the script before you arrived? I got the script before I got on the plane. Yeah. I hadn't I didn't get the script till I got to I didn't get the script till I got to Wellington. I remember there's a moment I really remember. I got off the flight with a landlord. We sat in a car and Janine, the producer's assistant, turned back to us and gave us a a leather bone folder. With the fellowship of the ring in it. Right. And that is the first name I've seen this. I'm I'm done in New Zealand, then I haven't even seen this. Well, I got that quite I got there quite late so that might be the my argument 2 them. But I also remember emailing Pete Jackson and said, don't send the script to the Scotsman because Scottish people will leak but I also remember emailing Pete Jackson and said, Don't send the script to the Scotsman because Scottish people will leak information like that. If you do send it, make sure there's a watermark all over it. Yeah, because Sean probably Yeah. Because Sean probably because Scotland is farther away than me. Well, maybe that's maybe it's still on its way. But it could also have been because you were a gooney and and stuff. Yeah. You get special treatment probably. Goodies do get absolutely special preferred treatment for that. So it's true. For good reason, I was you were the person that I was the most enamored to me because so much of my rainy day childhood moments were consumed with raiser the lost dark, the dark crystal, and the goonies. It was just it's just a magical movie. Amazing. So remember me and you vividly, but we we all spent so much time together, Sean, making those films, especially the first film, but I would put a strong argument forward to say that possibly you more than anyone else, maybe because you had a young daughter at home, were the most kind of holding so much of the weight of the movie. On your shoulders. Even someone like Elijah who's significantly younger than than you seemed to be getting through his days with a lot less of the the weight of the piece than you. Do you do you think that's fair? Yeah. I think that's fair. Yeah. The the I mean, there's so there's so much to unpack. First of all, I was fat. So I was definitely carrying the weight with the experience of working on those -- Plus you had done back to back. -- which is not a On the back oh my gosh. The backpack was yeah. I, you know, when I met Elijah at the moment song, Sophie Tel hotel, right next to the Beverly center, you live pretty close to you know, when I met Elijah at the Mamey Zone Sofitel Hotel right next to the beverly center. Mhmm. You lived pretty close to there. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Down for a while. With your brother. And we we went there to have a week a wig fitting with Peter Owen. And I remember thinking how cool was I get to wear a wig, and then also why do I have to wear a wig? And and Peter drawing this wonderful drawing of the silhouettes of the Hobbits, you know, and and why that you want their silhouettes to match with each other. And -- Right. -- that guy's just credibly brilliant. And when I met Elijah down in the lobby, we saw each other, like, from across the lobby, some star crossed lovers moment, and we raced to each other in just a braced and held each other and we were laughing and so excited. And then, you know, I was twenty nine and he was nineteen. And I pulled him away from my my body. I had my hands on his shoulders. And I said, are you ready for this? You know, kind of self important? Mhmm. You know, are you ready? Like, I know I'm a wise old man at twenty nine. Are are you ready for this young one? And then we spent two years with him proving how much more ready he was for. Here's a service you should use if you use the internet express a service you should use if you use the Internet. Express VPN. I know most of your thinking, well, I don't need to, I'll just put it on incognito know most of you are thinking, well, I don't need to. I'll just put it on incognito mode. Well, let me tell you something incognito mode does not hide your Well, let me tell you something. Incognito mode does not hide your activity. Doesn't matter what mode you use? And any us internet service providers are legally allowed to sell your information to ad companies express VPN is an app that reroutes your internet connection through their secure in the US, Internet service providers are legally allowed to sell your information to add companies. Express VPN is an app that reroute your Internet connection through their secure servers. That will keep all your information secure by encrypting a hundred percent of your data with the most powerful encryption That will keep all your information secure by encrypting a hundred percent of your data with the most powerful encryption available. Most of the time, we don't even know that it's switched on. Express VPN is available on all your devices, phones, computers, even your smart TVs. So there's no excuse for there's no excuse for you. Do not use Do not use it. Protect your online activity today with the VPN that was Protect your online activity today with the VPN that was rated number one by cnet. There's a Erick exclusive link, expressvpn dot com slash onion, and you can get an extra three months free on a one year package. That's E X, P R E S S V P n.com/onion express, vpn.com/onion to learn more, That's EXPRESSVPN dot com slash onion. Express VPN dot com slash onion to learn more. No matter how you feel about getting back out there, There's no denying. It's an adjustment. And when the world gets to load something that I like to do as I pop and my recon wireless earbuds, they are when the world gets too low, something that I like to do as I pop in my recon wireless earbuds, they are brilliant. Sometimes you just need some upbeat music you know, or to pump up your day a little bit or maybe even stay calm with a guided meditation. I was on my first flight for quite some time, the other day I was on my first flight for quite some time the other day there, and I just popped in my recon wireless earbuds and it was nice to hear some of my old playlists. Again, of course you can always use it to listen to again. Of course, you can always use it. To listen it. Podcasts say, for instance, me and Dom, right in your ear, podcasts, say for instance, me and Dom, right in your ear. Fantastic. They come with a bunch of gel tips for your comfort. So the FA like no other ear buds and they don't out your ears like others recon have a 32 hour battery so they'll fat like no other earbuds and they don't stick out your ears like others. Recon have a thirty two hour battery life. So you can listen to whatever you want when you want for a really long time. Create your own soundtrack. With recon. Right now, listeners can get 15% of the recon order at, by Right now, listeners can get fifteen percent of the Recon order at buy recon dot com slash onion. That's by raycon dot com slash onion to save fifteen percent on raycons. By recon dot com slash onion. You know there were financial things that were burdening my brain the during that time -- Mhmm. -- we had bought that, you know, things that you wouldn't even think about affect people's life. But but if I if I put the layers on top of it now twenty years later, you know, and try and think because I definitely did. I definitely my experience was a much harder more laden. It was a more laden experience, I think, that it wasn't harder. We all it didn't sleep the same, and we all had, you know, little things little injuries here and there. And but for some reason, I definitely carried it I I remember there were all these moments leading in where I was hoping so the have you talked about the backsheet version, the roughsheet version of the Lord of Rings from the nineteen seventies. Yeah. Here and there. The the the yeah. The television version. First first of all, it is it was absolutely ahead of its time with some of the I think they call it rotoscoping. Some of what they did with the ridding rates and -- Yeah. -- and some of the sound design was really, really poor thinking. But it was mostly terrible. It was mostly really, really, really awful. And the hobbits There's, like, readings. If you read the Lord of the Rings. Right? Like, the hobbits are these bumbling, bursting into tears, terrified hiding behind things. Like, you can actually have hobbits that were that are if you depicted them in a movie, the way they're written, it wouldn't be credible that they're heroic later at the end. Right. You know, it's like in in literature, you can you can enjoy that they're like, oh, the hobbits are bursting into your Yeah. But in the in the back sheet version, they're really plump all of them. Yeah. And they're all mister Frodo. Oh, I don't know what I really do know. Mr. Raul. I don't know what I'm gonna be doing Mr. Raul. And you're like, I remember going to Peter and saying, like, do we have to do it? Like, that. Like, I really don't wanna do it like that. And so I feel and he was like, no. No. We don't have to do it like that. But I definitely felt like through the whole movie, was always afraid that something was gonna be, that it wasn't gonna be right, that it would would end up looking would end up looking too silly in the wrong ways. Like, you guys Thank God for you guys. Right? You found you made humor in the way that the hobbits are intended to have humor. If it was just up to me, I was, like, serious all the time would you funny when juxtaposed against something else. But if it was just that all the time, it would be boring and Well, I know if some of that is 1 if some of that is Sam though, right, Sean. I mean, Sam is kind of laid in with the responsibility of keeping Frodo around, and he has to be the serious one who says to Ganden the rest of the fellowship of the ring. I will take care of him. I am his steward. You have to be the response a possible one. I wonder how much of that is Sam coming into your wonder how much of that is Sam coming into your world, you know? III don't know where 1 where I I yeah. I don't know where I stop and he starts in that in that sense. Mhmm. I remember, like, I played at that as an idea. Right. Right? Like, I remember one night we were at the pub early, early, early in the shooting. Like, even before shooting here in rehearsals, and Elijah locked his keys in his and it's flat. Right. And I was like, I'll take care of it. So I guys just sorted out a locksmith and went in there and got it. And I remember coming in and you guys are all sitting with the drink and he looked like he was thirty five years old, the way he carried his cigarette and his drink. And I'm, like, trying to get my head around that. There's nineteen year old kid. And and I bring him his key and he's, like, oh, thank you so much. Like, exactly as far away. Like, you're just excited. That's how that would be. Yeah. Right. Because I remember I remember the day that that Barry Osborne and Pete came well, Barry Osborne was there sorry. Pete Jackson was there all the time that Barry Osborne came to set. I think the first day when we did the under the woodsed log moment and they had said to the fore of us. Hey, guys. If you could just wait behind when we wrap because we wanna talk to you about something. And me in my own sense of naivety was just like, oh, whatever. They're gonna say, We're so stoked. You guys are with us day one. We're so excited for this thing. We'll have a little, whatever, glass of champagne, a little huddle, whatever Billy didn't seem to be in any way, tweaked Elijah didn't and you immediately, Sean got the four of us in a huddle and said, what do you think that is have a little whatever. Glasser Champagne, a little huddle, whatever. Billie didn't seem to be in any way tweaked. Alighted in there. And you immediately Shawn got the four of us in a huddle and said, what do you think that is about? And I thought, nothing. Mhmm. And you said, it's it's something. It's something. And I thought, no. No. Sean's way up and he was bang on something had happened. But you you I think that you think you have the know like, we we'd all been in Endy movies and stuff, but you'd been in big movies before that, you know. And you've you've grown up in that world. And I remember that because I just thought I didn't even think in. Is that The one that says, well, don't you see? I I don't know. They're gonna go do another costume call tomorrow or something. I don't know. But you grabbed us and said, they've seen the rushes. They hate someone's getting fired. I think you might have said someone's getting fired. Well, They couldn't, they couldn't have, they couldn't have seen the rushes couldn't they couldn't have they couldn't have seen the Russians yet because they're first thing we ever actually, they haven't seen We we remember they did the wardrobe -- Yeah. -- tasked with us, which took us out in the parking lot and they created tape on ground, and they were like, just wander around -- Yeah. -- in character. Yeah. That's right. The most awkward thing ever. Right? And so we we we we and thank God. I was so happy that Sam was stoic because I didn't have to do anything. Right. But I but I I watch you guys trying to, you know, just to figure out what that fuck to do and then, like, whether So but they had said that if they had seen it and they liked it and they had approved the wardrobes. So I wasn't worried about the that. But then, but when they, do you remember where they took us to a special then but when they Do you remember where they took us to a special place? Yeah. That's true. I didn't even know where the place was. I mean, they they the door and it was a big empty room -- Mhmm. -- with four chairs set in it. Take a seat. Like a firing squad. And and we we We walked in and we sat down and I just remember being like, oh man, this is not walked in and we sat down and I just remember being like, oh, man, this is not good. Yeah. And they came in. It was Tim who told it wasn't it. It was Tim. That's Tim was the one who told us I think. Yeah. That that yeah. And it was really horrible horribly sad. So just for listening was Yeah. For anyone listening or watching, what we're talking about here is is fan 2 Townsend who was for while going to be playing Aragon had at that point left the project and they told the four Hobbits who were on their first day and the first day at work. None of us knew what was going on. Sean almost knew before it happened -- Yeah. -- what was going on. So I wonder if you were carrying that shirt on the wall with that, you know. Yeah. I absolutely was 1000% carrying it with me until the last I absolutely was one thousand percent carrying it with me the last day. Mhmm. You know you can be replaced because they can just go in and just do the face. Shots and put the face of whoever they want of any new person over the body that you've been moving around for two years in the in the thing. You're basically the body that they put the face on in your voice. I yeah. I was absolutely aware of that the whole time. But but the thing was you know, in a way they they knew it was gonna hurt us because another one of the big things that made it that you knew it was gonna be massive was that we had six weeks of preparation. Yeah. Yeah. That's never that never that just doesn't happen. And for six weeks, we got to become really good friends with 2. Yeah. And, you know, you could see he's the only one who wore it harder than me for sure. Yeah. He's he he was not he he couldn't he couldn't get his his spirit around how hard it was gonna be to do it. And and and that that was another one. There were, there were a lot of things with that movie for all of us, I think, one. There were there were a lot of things with that movie for all of us, I think, right, that they were they you just had to there was, like, a loss of innocence or something or or Astin the the heaviness of big decision making, you know, and and consequential decision making sequential for all the different people they were hiring to do all the different checkups -- Mhmm. -- consequential for, you know, everyone's the economics of everyone's lives a little bit, which that's the other thing. I said it at the beginning. Like, the economics weighed on me as much as that and being literally visit. I had run the LA marathon, like, three months before filming, and I was I was hundred and thirty five pounds and skinny. Mhmm. I mean, like, real skinny. Mhmm. And then I wanted to 2 get that job, so I got fat. Mhmm. There's no time in the next two years. I can't Like, I have to be fat. Mhmm. And if you don't see yourself, I remember looking in the mirror in the makeup bus and, like, who is this fat fuck looking at me? And I can't see the real me anymore. I can't, I can't see can't I can't see me. Well, let me ask you, what was what was that fat diet? Because I'm sure there's a lot of actors out there that might have to put on weight quite quickly. What was your diet? Was it ice cream and chocolate? What did you what didn't you do? Okay. Do you remember Jeremy Woodhead? I remember that Jeremy Woodhead was was the was makeup artist. Yeah. He was my artist. I was one of the only male make buys. Yeah. Yeah. I do remember. Yeah. And then and then Yeah. And and and and and Ian McAllen stole them from me. Mhmm. That's how I experienced names. As a as a thief. Is it that that benighted English legends I'm the makeup artist, I like someone. But we went to play tennis at the there's a tennis center, like an athletic center in Wellington. And we were we were going on five or six different times. It was it had become you know, I was getting in shape. Right. I was really enjoying it. They've sweating and and that they you know, and and but I think it's 1 took a picture and put it in the in the newspapers on the cover of the newspaper. Mhmm. It was national news in New Zealand that I was like kind of a star siding -- Right. -- but with Lord of the Rings, like they they had hidden us away from cameras and stuff. Mhmm. And and it said that I was coming out of the tennis center. And p PJ had this look when I walked in the next day, and I was like, oh, no. I'm, like, in trouble for working out. And and he said he showed he had he had it. And he showed it to me. And I was, like, you know, busted. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. And he said, more lollies for mister Aston, please. You know? And he was he was like and they have those gummy horrible candies that were were definitely clog your arteries after just a small handful of them. Yeah. Yeah. But the yeah. The trick was in weightlifting for, like, a month before coming to New Zealand. Mhmm. And then stopping weight lifting and continuing to eat. Lips. Okay. So your body thinks It's yeah. You wouldn't know you two don't know, you just drink all you want and you don't put on an You wouldn't know. You 2 don't know. You drink all you you don't put on an ounce. It's very upsetting. We're getting that, getting there, Sean. We are getting there. Just to go back to what we talked about earlier on about all of us exhausted and tired. I have this very vivid memory, and I wonder if either one of you can geographically place this for me. We are on location. I think that Sean and Elijah had just started to do some climbing of Mount Mordor Not sure what you and I were doing specifically, but we were working. And we got a message probably from Elijah, who was with Sean, that they were finishing a very long day coming back to the hotel that we were staying at at like nine ish and that they'd broken you guys' turn around, and you guys had to be back on set at something like being picked up at five in the morning. And Elijah said to us, Can you and Billy are you and Billy around just to grab a quick dinner because Sean and I are both exhausted? And we said, yeah, we were in the bar having 2 drink. A larger showed up before Sean. don't know what Sean was doing. A larger kind of came over to the table, still covered in mud from the day, not really got all of his makeup off. And he was like, just gonna order a quick dinner and we'll sit. And we said, yeah. And then Sean came over and you kind of collapsed almost onto the table, put your arms down on the table, and we're just like, I can't believe this is it was something like the seventh or eighth day in a row that they broken their turn around. And you ordered food and the two of you ate with us for probably forty five minutes and then you immediately crashed and were up the next day. Do you guys remember where that was or do you have that memory? No. Sounds like every day coming over the entire chest. I just remember Sean coming over and and his whole his head and shoulders and and chest Astin collapsing on the table. Kind of half laughing, half crying, and then looked up at us and just said, I I can't believe they're breaking our 2 around again. Well, you you keep saying break your turn around. There was no such thing. Right. That's true. Yeah. That's true. Because of the Not a union and yeah. Well, we should explain we should explain that. Let's explain that to people listening. So you guys know that my mother Patty Duke -- Yeah. -- my late mother was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the mid nineteen eighties. Mhmm. So the union And there are different unions in different countries. I say 2 you guys because I don't really know that much about I worked under a subcontract in England. But anyhow so certain rules or established guidelines like you have to have twelve hours between the time you wrap and the time you cut your call back to the next or sometimes it's ten hours or something like that. And it's it's a rule. And if they break the rule, then they have to pay nine hundred bucks or something like that. Yeah. So usually Astin actor, you're hoping they break your turnaround because you really want that extra nine hundred bucks. Right. But but we got to New Zealand that was not in a union space. Was not a union project. So the really, you guys know, like, our, quote unquote, turnaround is just based on what they thought we could handle. Mhmm. Right? Like, you had you get to make the ears the hobbit ears and the hobbit whig and the hobbit feed off and that all took probably an hour, a little over an hour at nighttime to get all the alcohol on, you know, because it lets the glue loose and everything. And most of the time, not most of them, but a lot of the time wouldn't he then get all the glue off. Just like, you know what? I'd rather I'd rather have an extra half hour of sleep -- Yeah. -- then get all the glue off that you're just gonna reapply in another ten hours, nine hour. So but a lot of times, you know, you and then we'd have to come in early, stand on a box and have our feet done -- Mhmm. -- at, you know, four thirty five, five thirty in the morning, something like that. So, you know, you come in at, say, five, and you work until it gets dark at six, six thirty, and you finally leave by seven. Get home, get something to eat, turn around, go back right away again. It was not it was it was hard. Mhmm. It was it was really, really, really hard. Yeah. Mhmm. So but, I mean, it also you realize what you're capable of. Mhmm. You know? Yeah. You realize the value of the sacrifices that people have made to help get rules like that put in place. But you also realize, like, I can actually tolerate a lot more. The the one thing that really was amazing to me about our experience was the crew. The crew was indefatiable. I mean, they they literally would work, you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen hours and come right back and they were always ready to go, happy, fired up. You know, maybe in the two years where you're there. One time, I saw them decide that they collectively weren't happy. Mhmm. And they wanted to talk to the producers about it, and they got a a bump or something like that. But but yeah, you know, it's it's amazing to I mean, people think of Astin. It's not that hard. Right? Like, it's it's it's it's not like digging ditches or something or, you know, real manual labor where people work harder than that. But it is it is hard. And it the the meant, you know, you have to be kind of ready all day long, ready to, you know, at any given moment 2 do to do your thing, to have your memory Astin. Than to be able to, you know, do what someone else is telling you to do. Yeah. One of my favorite things not acting is that I don't have to do what other people told me to do. Yeah. Yeah. Except Billy. When Billy tells me to do something, then I Use the the boss. When we had a lighter on, we we got into a A big music conversation which concluded with us talking about was there a specific album or a specific song that kind of summed up new Zealand for you? Was there any particular song or music or something like that that you thought, well, that that is my New Zealand experience in an album? Well, when I was fifteen, I did a movie, a White Water rafting movie. I don't know if we ever 2 I don't think we ever talked about this. With Kevin Bacon, it's a classic. It's not the it's not the White Water wrap rafting movie with David Strathorn in Merrill Street. That was his other White Water rafting movie. Ours was the one you haven't heard about. And we we kept going around to different. We went to Canada a couple of times, we went up to the Sierra Nevada's because they were trying to get this whitewater rafting scene canoeing sequence to look we went to Canada couple times. We went up to the Sierra Nevada's because they were trying to get this whitewater rafting sec a canoeing sequence to look spectacular. So they finally figured out down on the Kora River in the south island in Queenstown would be where we could shoot it. So and I was fifteen. Well, we flew to Auckland. And I had because was underage, I had AAAA friend, a guardian -- Mhmm. -- Joseph Giuseppeppeppe pass rally with this big Italian mustache like Mario mustache. And we we drove the full length of the island. Together, and we only had one cassette tape. And the cassette tape was Billy Joel's greatest hits. So I think I I don't know. I might have come with the rental car. But I literally I mean, to me, I don't know okay. So for Lord of the Rings, it's probably so many but when I think of New Zealand, and and, you know, anytime throughout the when we were trying to remember because we were remembering what everyone played in our makeup trailers. And we I couldn't remember what music Europe played, and Tom did think it was Belize. Yeah. I said Billy Joe's greatest too. I think I actually said greatest hits think I actually said greatest hit. Is that Maybe you were dead or poor. Yeah. That of of all of the music that Elijah played for us, the hundreds of hours of music that Elijah played for us, there's one song that hit me the most that I that I when I'm running, if I if it's in my playlist when I'm running, I will immediately go back to that. It's it's it's called Driftwood -- Oh, boy. -- every man who yeah. Yeah. So the album the album was the thing that defined New Zealand for me. The between Billy, Elijah, and myself, we became very territorial over the stereo. And I think there were times where you said, well, let me have a go. Let me have a go. And I seemed to remember the time where we said, okay, Sean, you can go. It was Billy Joel's greatest hits. And I love uptown girl, piano man. Cool. And do you remember Chris Bradley putting on some music? Was it metal? Yeah. But with him speaking all the days, he had few metal albums recently. was was shot when you put that on. Amazing. I remember that I wrapped on the same day as Christopher Lee and I thought you meant rap like, oh no, like M and M I remember that I wrapped on the same day as Christopher Lee. Oh, I thought you meant wrapped like Oh, no. Like, m and m reps. Yeah. No. I put w in front of me. Alright. I never had that. I thought I I saw him outside in the in the wizard club just doing, you know, just Yeah. He could've done it. He could've done it personally. He could do anything that man. But you're do you you guys would've been there because I went to this footage of you guys in the audience and just listened to him, but Christopher Lee was incredibly incredibly moved by his experience and also moved by the fact that he had wrapped and he says this very earnest, very heartfelt thing of, you know, you guys have created magic and, you know, you guys are all legends and this will be remembered forever and I remember thinking at the time, if this was anyone else, you'd kind of dismiss Mhmm. But Christopher Lee with his voice, so you're just kind of like, wow, maybe he's 2 something here, you know. Extraordinary man. Well, he's in his I mean, he met talking. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He he he yeah. Yeah. He, He And he was, I think, I think he was some sort of a spy or something in the second he was I think I think he was some sort of a spy or something in the second world war. Mhmm. He get some some relationship to the war and and to that that made it more special to because I think was writing Tolkien was writing it during the war and sending chapters to his son Christopher in in in Europe or something like in in the main I don't know. Yeah. I think I might be getting this wrong, but I think Christopher Lee was in the SAS and was working behind enemy lines in the second world war and one of certainly my favorite story about Christopher Lee's and I think Elijah's as well was Elijah and I were with him on location somewhere outside. And he and he said, we were just chatting about something and he and he said, watch this and he took a big pen and threw it into a tree and it's stuck in the tree like knife. Wow. And I remember thinking if that was a knife, that's trigger would be a And I remember thinking if that was a knife. That's He turned that tree would be a corner. Yeah. He turned a pen into a deadly weapon. Yeah. So he was quite an integral to deadly weapon. Seriously? Amazing. He took me under his wing a lot and we, we smoked cigars took me under his wing a lot and we we smoked cigars together. Nice. And he he yeah. And we were, we were in France at one point and he took me along the we were we were in France at one point, and he took me along the Chaamps Elysees, there was some sort of a gentleman's club. Mhmm. Not like that. 2. Like, no. Not like that. Like, a place where a gentleman would go, it's like a a way station -- Mhmm. -- in your day when you're doing Paris to to be among, you know, like minded fellows, you know, deep mahogany paneling and smoke, you know. And he talked about we went on the on the balcony and overlooked the Champs Elysees, and he talked about soldiers marching Ang. And, but anyhow, yeah, he was, he was, he's a and but anyhow, yeah, he was he was a legend. Yeah. I was in I whenever I got pigs in the morning, very often with you -- Mhmm. -- I think they would pick you up first, generally, me second. And on this particular pick up, there was a little note on my call sheet that said, you will be picked up second and I thought not sure why they've told me that and it was an early start for me five, five past five, something like that. So the person being picked up before me would have been picked up at four thirty five or something like that. As I got into the back seat, Christopher Lee, was in the front seat on his first day and never met him before. Mhmm. I got in, noisy little, you know, early twenty year old boy. I said, oh, good good morning, Christopher. How how's it How's it going? My name's Dominick. And he turned around and said, I have never been picked up so early for work in my entire he turned around and said, I have never been picked up so early for work in my entire career. And I just sat back and just sunk into the chest. No more from me for the next half an hour. Oh, keep my mouth shut. Yeah. He's a fantastic guy. Now, obviously, Sean, we've we've we've gone over or you've gone over withers and also individually. So many of these subjects, what was it like to work with Elijah? What's Pete Jackson like? What was your first impression of the film, all that kind of stuff. Are there still things that you would like to be asked about with mothering? Still things that need 2 be mine things that you have to say? Or at this point, are you like, well, I think most of it's been said. You know, it just depends on how people interact with you. You know, I I don't think I don't I don't know that I've got a deep well of information that I that, like, that if, you know, after five thousand omicon appearances and and I'm like, wait, there's this one thing haven't been able to get to, but but 2 it's endlessly, you know, my father you guys never met my dad. I don't think John Astin, who's Gomez in the original Adams family. He he he taught me as a very young person that, you know, people are not pieces on a chessboard and you, you know, as much as I I like strategy and tactics with, you know, in business kind of things or whatever. But on a human level, people are people are human beings or human beings, and and every human interaction is liquid. That's what he always said to me. And so when I'm when I meet people, depending on who they are, what's interesting to them, you know, I try usually will begin an answer of something that we've talked about so much, and then try and make it about them a little bit, you know. And and you'll you'll it is amazing, though, when certain little I hurt you you say Easter eggs sometimes. No. You say You're talking about Easter eggs. I a little a little deep in the recess of mine, something will pop up that were when my you. Yeah. You know, of all right. Am I that's right. The smell of those sulfur things. Then we, you know, those those sulfur bads. I hadn't hadn't and you can smell them as soon as you think about it. You know, you know, I always think about our helicopter you know. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I always think about our helicopter rides. You I I should give you permission to mock me. You know, it's easier setting. It's it's only fair. No. You're okay. Because of my guest. Well, I wonder if if over time, now that we're all in our Are you fifty yet, Tom? No. I'm forty four, but we're getting there. Come on. Forty four pieces. Come on. I know Billy's, like, fifty six at this point, but anyhow, at this point, now that you've known people, like, the older you get, like, my father's ninety 1, and we talk lot about how -- Yeah. -- everyone he knew his whole life. If it's gone, all of his friends, all the buster people he worked with, you know, like, there's when you you just you'd like that. So now we know people who've who've died in in accidents and 2, you know, whatever. Are you anymore even a little bit sympathetic to my paranoia because I existed in a state of extreme paranoia for most of the most of the shoot. No. Of course. Of course. I'm sure well, I think Billy was much more empathetic at the time. I I am much more now. I think, you know, you obviously mature and grow up. I think a lot of that with you came from the fact that you were a young and none of us had children at that I think a lot of that with you came from fact that you were a young father and none of us had children at that point. So you're probably much more aware of the mortality of people with you being a father and what's at stake for you. There was nothing at stake for me, you know, I was 23, the naivety of me coming into those films in a lot of ways saved me because I had to adopt this very carefree, silly fly by the seat of your pants, ready to improvise, ready to joke and laugh with Billy There was nothing at stake for me. You know, I was twenty three. The naivety of me coming into those films in a lot of ways saved me because I had to adopt this very carefree, silly, fly by the seat of your pants, ready to improvise, ready to joke and laugh with Billy 2. And I think in a lot of ways, you had to adopt the Right. Right. Right. Everyone stopped messing around. I'm Sam. I'm trying to get this person safe. You're just being loud and noise over there. That's, you know, kind of what you represented. As a hub it is. But do you remember You you remember okay. So you did lost. I'm you must have gone up in helicopters when you were doing -- Yeah. Yes. -- often. Yeah. And and and and did you study how they communicate the pilots? Sure. But I don't think Billy, have you done a lot of helicopter flying? Actually, I I like to I like to get up in the helicopter once a week at least. As my my son said to me when he was very young, he says, I reckon I could fly helicopter. don't know if I could land it. Wow. I can fly I can fly it. Love to see That would be good. I don't know why he said that. He was about six years old. Well, he's being honest. Yeah. Right? But as a father, you have to teach him yeah. You have to teach how to let when you teach him how to ride a bicycle, you have to show him how to stop first. Right. Right. But they when we were shooting when we were filming, I'm probably not gonna be able to adjudicate this moment in this setting, but because it's you guys. So they tell us at any moment, the weather can change. We filmed at the tops of all these great -- Yeah. -- for the listener. Right? At the tops of these great mountain peaks that were that was most extraordinary thing. This being places where, you know, no other human being has ever been. Mhmm. And then history of the the, you know so but it could change. So they had they had sat a, you know, one of those big things that they have, like, in commercial sites, like a A wheel. Say again. A wheel. Not a wheel. That's not a wheel. It's a good guess. There's a big an office. Like, one of those portable offices they quote a quote a quote a okay. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. So and they and they'd thrown in there a bunch of meal ready to eat type of things that the military has and the bunsen burner and some, you know, sleeping bags. And, you know, and there's probably thirty of us up there. And they're like, you know, if we have to evacuate and we can't evacuate quickly enough -- Right. -- you're gonna have to stay huddled together until the weather passes, which can be days. Right? This is what they told us. Yeah. They they had to preposition stuff at the top of the mountain. It can 1 a suit I they didn't do this for their health. Right? They were doing as an emergency scenario. So so then at a certain point, the the people with the walkie talkie started looking very concerned and saying the helicopters are coming We're gonna we're gonna stop for the day. And we had just started. Yeah. So we were evacuating the mountain. Yeah. And you lot you and Elijah. You 2 and Elijah thought it was hilarious. So they were they were putting the helicopter skid on the edge of a rock. The other skid floating. Right floating. Like, if they would have turned the power, it would have dropped. So it's floating there so that we can get in and we climb in and you guys are laughing and laughing. Now they had at least 2, I think three helicopters. Look at Billy. I don't know if he had a lot of this, Billy. A lot of this is great. No. So there there there there there there's no we're in the middle of nowhere. We're in the middle of nowhere. It took an hour and enough to drive there in vehicle, and these helicopters coped in. So now they're not taking us back to the place where the helicopters like, 2 would take off from the airport to hella port or whatever. Where did it step into the right to the bottom of the mountain? The bottom of the mountain. And drop us off 2 go right back up to the top of the mountain because I had to get people off before the the thing would come in. Look how exactly? And the rock and the pilot's face was very concerned. This is this is not even This is lifting you for a long left. Didn't you for a long time. Yeah. Get out of the show. Get out of the studio. Come on. So, yes, answer. Tell me, answers. Yes. I had to get this out. Yes. There was one thing I had to get out. Okay. So we so we're getting the three of you guys are chattering away on the thing. Now there's no, like, air traffic control tower. Okay? There's no there's just what they call VRF, visual flight What are the VFR, visual flight rules? Okay? And the clouds are going in. And you guys are jaw jacking. And now we've now you've now if you have been in helicopters since then, You know that the pilot can push his button -- Yeah. -- and the sound of you guys talking gets a little bit lower. Yeah. So that he can talk to the other pilot. Right. Yeah. Okay. Is that is that another one? He did. I don't know. So it's all it's all about that button that the pipeline addresses. Well, what the what the button does is it mutes the passengers. But it doesn't mute you. It just lowers your volume a little bit, but you compensate it. The three of you. It's got You've got to sit in for the there's a lot to get a to some parts. I've got a lot some parts. Let's go back to the start where they built a thing for us to, like, be put in with bunsen burners. With the I've got with a bunsen bundle. That was the day. So I had sleeping bags and a bunsen bundle. Goodness, man. Like, because you have to cook the stuff in the package. You're not to give me a a little miniature gas stove. As opposed to a But what I'm getting on a bunsen bag that you were getting science at school. Yeah. And you're classed that little bunsen bun tiny flame. You mean a little mini gas stove shown, ma'am. Maybe not a bunseling. Yeah. You're gonna stop the bunts and burners. Oh, that's the thing that's inside this class. So hopefully, In this, in this, in this conversation, hopefully we've each learned something, but definitely thank you, this in this in this conversation, hopefully, we've each learned something. But You would definitely learn and I should go on, Bill. I'm glad that you've got that. I'm very deep. Oh, god. That's that's that's been, like, a little black butterfly flying around you. Stop it. They you have to remember, Sean, that that that need for safety wasn't just at the top of mountains. I remember we were in a I think it was a rugby game. Me and you had gone to see a rugby game for some reason. It was an awareness look up. Was it Do you remember that? It was me -- Very well. -- me and you were sitting in Astin stadium watching a rugby game. And all of a sudden, you went quiet. It's not like Sean. And I said, Sean, are you are you working out emergency exits for us if something happens? And he was like, yeah. And he was sitting, working out if if there was a bomb over there, I can get out this way, if there if a if a monsoon came in, he was working all over his head. It was brilliant. And I could see that all of us grew up with hooliganism and the inch things. I'm not a fool. Some of us have to train for it. My my vague recollection of that day, and you're right, Sean, to be careful and try and keep us safe and all that kind of stuff. But my very recollection of that day was, yeah, we were brought down to a kind of halfway house and myself and Billy and Elijah were throwing stones and then trying to have the second stone hit the stone that we through. Do you remember that? You were just killing time. Yeah. So you'd throw a big stone and then we were trying throw the next stone. And we were goofing around waiting and it was cold and we're waiting for helicopters coming in. And then we all became, the three of us, became distracted by Sean who'd step away from the grid -- Right. -- not throwing Astin, doing this to helicopters, bringing people away. Isn't telling No. No. No. Okay. Okay. Tell us back. Yeah. That's my memory as my memory as well. And then one hand, you have to eat some bun. And a sleeping bag. You were waving around the The other one had the the paddle from ping pong. People tenders paddle. You would direct in helicopter. You might. Sure. There's you're most you're you're largely correct, but Astin substantial difference. Right. All I was doing was pointing to the pilot. The action. Good. I can see that I coped see the pilot behind him. And you know what? Yeah. So you were letting the first play it know that you could see the second pilot. For watching -- Exactly right. -- So that he didn't back up into that he didn't back up into him And Kasey didn't back up into him. That guy can a helicopter 2 reverse. They can pick up very can pick up and did this very quickly. You haven't even played a video game. But Sean, Do you not think that both of those helicopter pilots might have been in cahoots with each other on a radio that you might not have needed to tell that helicopter pilot number one, that his mate is behind in that chat in do you not think that both of those helicopter 2 might have been in Kahoots with each other on a radio that you might not have needed to tell that helicopter pilot number 1. That his mate is behind, and they're chatting. They're chatting. That's why we were laughing at you. Because we were going, why are you doing you? I've been laughing at you. Then he sees he sees him. And then I do remember it was going in touch with you. Go on. Go on. Go on. I remember the the pilots I got some feedback from my act my activity, my action there. I got a thumbs up from the pilot. Oh, lovely stuff. Lovely stuff. I got a thumbs up. Little ten four good have been to play a thumbs up, didn't No. Because he didn't help him find anything. Yeah. So hold on. Moving on from Well, then I remember be the four of us being in the helicopter and I was chatting, and I remember one moment of Sean kind of given as a bit of AAA stern air for -- Yeah. -- you know, something like, guys, be quiet. Oh. And a larger kind of 1. We're in trouble with that. I do remember that when we showed you. But you know what you said? Very, very clearly. And you know what you said, don't you think that the pilot and his mate are in communication together. And I and I said, they're trying. Hey, Tom. That was good one. That was great. Wasn't that lovely talking to show. And I was in hysterics when he was talking about the helicopter I was in hysterics when he was talking about the helicopter thing. Yeah. He's funny. He's a he's very funny man actually. Yeah. He is. Goofy. Goofy. Yeah. I really like him. He's one of the good He's one of the good news. He's a good human being. His heart is has been in the right place. And in that situation with the helicopter, all he's trying to do is earnestly keep us safe. Yeah. And the three of us I think are in a head space of cardamom. We're having having fun. And he's like, no, this is a serious situation. actually a good old girl. Yeah. So good, wrong. Sure. It's important at times to look at people's point of view. But it's great it's great. He and his stories are real like, yeah, that was really in this story. So I really like Yeah. Good. Was really great. Lovely. 2 much for one show. So we'll we'll cut it there. We'll see him again next week. Yeah. Along with everybody else who's listening or watching? That's true. We talked about so much and it went on for so long and we had so much that there's just a little bit too much for one episode. So part one this week, part two next week, let us know if you're enjoying it rate review and subscribe to the friendship on you. Where you get your podcast and on our YouTube channel and on our Spotify playlist. There has been few comments about problems finding our Spotify playlist. That's because lots of people have created their own the friendship onion playlist. But if you keep digging and digging and digging you'll find the official 1, So there, there are. Also you can send us emails at the friendship onion at cast media dot com. Yeah. And please enjoy yourself and the rest of your week, the rest of your And please enjoy yourself. And the rest of your week. The rest of your week. And we'll see you. Oh, none. Toodles. Bye bye. Hey, everybody. I'm Jason Ellis, and I'm Tony Hawk. We've got a podcast together called Hawk versus Wolf. The humble beginnings of that was us having a satellite radio show. It's true. We were on satellite radio. Fifteen years ago. Wow. Did you have to do that, though? I did because we've gotten much better at it since It's true. Yes. We've evolved. You can listen to us on iTunes, Spotify, and see us on YouTube.