So what’s it like to be the dependable hobbit? In this Q&A session, Sean Astin talks about his character’s journey and his own physical transformations.
How would you describe Sam’s role throughout the trilogy?
I think he’s kind of an audience surrogate. I think Tolkien saw a lot of himself in Sam, I think Peter [Jackson] saw a lot of himself in Sam. He’s the one who is sort of present through the whole thing, without being corrupted by it. Hopefully that’s the audience or the reader’s experience of the story, that they are moved by it. Hopefully the audience comes away from the story like Sam, alive and in a place that’s worth living in but with the knowledge of what’s been sacrificed. I think Sam is a good prism through which the audience can experience this tale.
Do you think Sam undergoes the biggest transformation?
No, but I think Aragorn has to assume the mantle of leadership. The most transformed? I don’t know. Any epic journey is defined by the transformation of the protagonists. Sam goes from being totally innocent and sweet and naïve to sort of a shuffling kind of horrible on this epic journey. At the end of it, he’s different than he was at the beginning. He’s smarter, he’s more aware of the rest of the world. He’s had to suffer heartbreaking loss so he does transform.
We’ve seen you transform a lot physically. How tough is that physical transformation for you to control?
With greater or lesser control depending on a combination of factors. The mind is such a powerful tool and when I set my mind to doing something, I do it, unless my body refuses to let me. There have been a couple of times when I’ve set about the business to get in peak physical condition and my body refused. Literally it just revolted against me. Once I had some horrible sinus infection and another time I literally just kept giving up. Just giving up on the treadmill. That was sort of a new experience. It took into my ‘30s to have that experience.
The most extreme transformations have happened by choice. The only time that my body has transformed when it wasn’t my choice was in college. It would have been so much smarter if I would have been disciplined about exercising when I was in college, but somehow with the intellectual work that I was doing and my particular idiosyncrasies as a person, I couldn’t figure out how to be balanced. The Greeks have this word for it which means the perfection of the body and mind. The physical perfection of the body like the Spartans, and the mental, intellectual, and cultural perfection that the Athenians had. I couldn’t do that. I sort of toggled between the extremes. I got really heavy when I was in school because the way I would stay up late reading everything that was assigned was by eating. I’m sure getting heavy kind of scrubs off your mental acuity. I didn’t do myself any favors there.
As soon as I was finished with college, I started getting back in shape again and realizing that the kind of parts I wanted to play, and that I felt like I was capable of playing and that I thought I was right to play, were not the kinds of parts that people saw me playing. My physical body didn’t look like how I see myself in my mind. Once I started getting in good physical shape and my body was getting brought into line into my own kind of vision of myself, then the business started responding to it. Directors started to, casting directors, agents or whoever would acknowledge that. So yeah, it’s pretty interesting. You can’t overstate the value of setting a goal for yourself and achieving it. Probably the best thing would be if I could just find a nice comfortable way of living, and hopefully I’ll be able to do that soon.
PAGE 2: Hobbit Feet, "Lord of the Rings" Fans, and Surviving as a Child Actor
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“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” Premiere Coverage:
Orlando Bloom/Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood/Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, David Wenham/John Noble, John Rhys Davies/Bernard Hill, and Peter Jackson/Richard Taylor
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