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Quotes
 I
was told I had to gain a lot of weight because Hobbits are very portly.
Peter is forever suggesting I have more food. 'A little more food for
Mr. Astin.'
At
our school, he [Jack
Black] was the serious thespian dramatist. When I see him rocking
out now, I find it shocking.
I
don't want to play the fat guy or the friend for the rest of my life.
I
think people enjoy reading about money, but the people who are in charge
of giving me guidance tell me not to talk about it in interviews. Why
not? That's what everybody thinks about.
I
was really short. I remember going to the doctor to see if there were
injections I could take to be taller. But whenever we ran a lap, I
wanted to run the fastest. I don't know why, on the wheel of fortune of
personality traits, it stopped on ambition and hustle and drive.
I'm
like the universe; either expanding or contracting at any given moment.
The most that I had put on was about 35, 36 pounds, and I've taken all
of that off.
I'm
so over-earnest sometimes. But my parents were pop-culture icons in the
Sixties, and my mom has this Oscar, and I was trying to figure out, how
am I going to leave my mark?
The
filmmakers who I'm pining to work for aren't ringing my phone off the
hook.
There
was a combination of not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, but
also really not wanting to be stuck in Lord of the Rings for the rest of
my life, and being desperate to kind of make sure that I could do
something else with my life.
But
I'm not really Sam... Nobody could be that good, that noble. He's just
better than the rest of us. I'm a lot more Hollywood than Sam would ever
be.
I'd
never heard of the "Lord of the Rings", actually. So I went to
the bookstore and there it was, three shelves of books about Tolkien and
Middle-earth, and I was like, 'Holy cow, what else am I missing out on?'
It
was an incredible acting experience, being on the side of a volcano with
that language. That language is so beautiful. 'It'll be springtime soon,
and they'll be sowing barley on the fields.' When Peter came up to tell
me to lower my arm, something like that, tears were streaming down his
face, and to see him that emotional just forced me into it. ... It
[i.e., finally seeing the last three reels of the film] was a huge cry.
It was all of the tension and stress and pressure of having a wife and
children, having a career, the investment of these movies. I was sobbing
and heaving, I could barely breathe, and the movie facilitated that. It
was just a huge release.
I
spent the film doing lots of things, but the crying is what lived. He
[Peter Jackson] tricks you into thinking you're going to get to do all
these brave, heroic things most of the time, and you have to cry once in
a while ... and then he cuts out the heroic moments and you're left
thinking, 'I look like a big baby'.
I
don't care if I'm 5-foot-7-inches tall and pretty heavy, weight-wise, in
the film [i.e., the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy]. I still see
myself as Errol Flynn. Even when I was a little boy, playing war games
in the back yard, I pictured myself as the hero.
I
remember, before we started principal photography on The Lord of the
Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Peter Jackson screened
Braveheart (1995) and The Thin Red Line (1998) for the cast. He said,
'This is the tone I want to strike with the Ring movies. I want to see
the grime on their faces, the dirt on the ground, and I want that level
of gritty emotionalism and intensity.' I think his idea was that you can
enjoy the fantasy more if you really believe it.
I
got Sam's backpack, which began to feel like a second skin, albeit a
very uncomfortable skin. I also got to keep Sam's sword, as well as some
hobbit feet and ears. I can take them out and make the whole family
smile!
The
sidekick business has been good to me.
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