What you may not know is that this native Scot is an accomplished stage actor, as well as a world-class ukulele player. Okay, I made that last part up, but he is an accomplished stage actor.
He's also currently developing a buddy movie with Rings pal Dominic Monaghan (Merry).
You can learn more about Billy at his official site, or you could just stick around and partake in the in-depth interview below...
IGN FILMFORCE: Am I correct in understanding you were born in Glasgow?
BILLY BOYD: That's right, yup.
IGNFF: This would be when, the late '60s?
BOYD: 1968.
IGNFF: How would you describe your childhood?
BOYD: I grew up in what they call a housing scheme over here... What happened in Glasgow – and in a lot of the larger cities around the 1950s – most people lived in the town center, you know, most kind of working class people. To try and get better housing for them, they built these housing schemes on the outskirts of the cities – Easterhouse being one of them, where I was born. But there was not a lot of forward thinking when they built these schemes, for things like amenities and shops and stuff like that. So a lot of them turned out to be quite sort of high crime areas, and it was a kind of scheme that didn't work, basically. When people look at housing schemes, they always think, "That must have been a difficult childhood or a hard place to grow up." But as a child, it's a fantastic place to grow up, because they're almost like a little village, and you kind of know everyone who stays there. So if you're actually living there, you feel an incredibly safe place. I think that that's for my parents as well – I don't think they had any worry about me going out and playing out in the street and stuff, which I used to do with a crowd of other people. So I had a very happy childhood growing up there. Then, when I was about six or seven, moving to another scheme, called Cranhill – another sort of working class scheme, where I spent the rest the rest of my childhood years.
IGNFF: What were your parents' careers?
BOYD: My dad worked as a laborer at a brewery, called Tennent's Brewery. My mother worked in a Car Hire firm, called Arnold Clarks. She was a clerkess there.
IGNFF: Would you say that, as a child, you had a creative bent?
BOYD: Yeah, and it was kind of natural, as well. My dad, although he worked in Tennent's, for a little while moved over to the States. Both his sisters immigrated to the States, and he moved over with them to help the move over ... That would have been kind of late '50s, probably. When he was over there he actually worked as a singer in nightclubs, spent about a year there and then decided to come home to Scotland.
IGNFF: Just homesick?
BOYD: My mum was over here, and he came back to see her, because she didn't want to move out to the States. They weren't married at that time, but they'd been going out for a number of years. So he came back to see my mother and went to work in the brewery. My mum was a bit of a singer as well. It's a sort of Scottish tradition of them, sort of at parties and stuff, people would have a turn and you either sang or some people who couldn't sing would tell a joke or a story or whatever. So I grew up in that sort of background, that whenever my parents had a party at the house, a new year or whatever, everyone would sing a song and do that. Then I would be asked to do a song or do some impersonations of people on TV at that time or whatever. So that's probably where it all stemmed from, until I went to primary school ... We did the play Oliver there, and I played the Artful Dodger in that.
IGNFF: One of the showiest roles...
BOYD: Yeah, yeah, and really enjoyed it, and the teachers were good enough to say that if it was something that I was interested in, you know, I should try and take it further. My mum and dad found an amateur group, called the Dolphin Art Centre, where I then spent some years doing plays with them before I left school
IGNFF: How would you describe school in Scotland at that time?
BOYD: I went to a comprehensive school, which is like a state school.
IGNFF: So it's like what we would consider public schools?
BOYD: Probably. What we call public schools is when you pay for it. But this is paid for by the state.
IGNFF: What you call public schools, we call private schools.
BOYD: Right, there you go. Yes, yes. So, I went to school in Cranhill once I moved on to high school, and one of the strange things was my mother's mother, my grandmother, stayed at a place called Ruchazie – which is kind of the next town to Cranhill. It was quite a gang culture at this time, and these gangs would fight each other – I suppose the same sort of ways as South Central, except maybe without the guns. More sort of kicking and punching, much more gentlemanly.
IGNFF: Much cheaper.
BOYD: Yeah, exactly. Not quite as dire consequences. But, you know, it was seedish and also it was a kind of a knife culture in Glasgow as well, so it could be very serious, you know.
IGNFF: Was it a culture that you ever skirted the edges of, or you generally always avoided that?
BOYD: Well, that's just the thing – I went to my primary school in Ruchazie because my mum and dad were out working, so at the end of school I'd go to my grandmother's house in Ruchazie. But we stayed in Cranhill. Cranhill and Ruchazie had the rivalry, and two kind of gangs, you know? So I had to spend the whole of my primary school trying to pretend I didn't live in Cranhill. Which was difficult, you know, because things would always happen... you'd be doing some sort of class project, and you had to map out where everyone stayed, and I'd have sleepless nights thinking how I was going to get around that.
IGNFF: And at that age, strategizing isn't one of childhood's strong suits...
BOYD: No, exactly. You can get sleepless nights over the smallest of things, just pretty much the same way as I can these days. So that was a kind of weird part of growing up. Then, when I went to secondary school, I was down in Cranhill, and it all got a bit more simple after that.
IGNFF: See, even at primary school you were acting.
BOYD: Yeah, I suppose... yeah. I was acting that I was from somewhere I wasn't, and trying to think on my feet. I always did like to do characters for people, and do that kind of thing.
IGNFF: Was it something that was encouraged within the school system?
BOYD: No, not really. As I said, we did a play in primary school, which was great. Then I went to the secondary school, your high school, and there was drama when I first arrived, for the first year, but it was out in a sort of hut, not part of the actual school building. We'd go there and do some improvisations or whatever, read a play. Then, during one of the holidays, it was set fire to and burnt to the ground. Rather than move it anywhere, they just got rid of the drama teacher, and then there was no acting, there was no drama in school... which was a real shame. I remember in about third year – I don't know what high school year that would be for you, probably around 14 ...
IGNFF: So that would be around Freshman year, I think.
BOYD: Yeah. They do a thing where you start talking about what job you want to do, and they have someone called a guidance teacher who kind of was supposed to give you guidance to what subjects you should take or what you should do to try and get that career. I said, "I want to be an actor," in my meeting with the guidance teacher. He said, "I wouldn't tell that to anyone else if I was you." Which, you know, is not the kind of support you're wanting at that age.
IGNFF: That was wonderful guidance.
BOYD: Yeah, lovely guidance... "Just don't tell anyone." Thanks very much.
IGNFF: Did you find that there's a certain pragmatism within Scottish culture, as far as acting?
BOYD: Oh yeah, and certainly within working class society. I was talking to a teacher at the academy there, at drama school that I studied at, the other day, and he was saying it was amazing how many actors come from families of actors. It's true, you know, it's a much simpler way in if your father's an actor. I don't mean that it's easier to get jobs or anything, but just growing up in that kind of society, I think, makes it simpler. Whereas not knowing any actors or living in a place where there wasn't any actors, it seems like a huge jump to do that as an actual career. People would always say, "Get a trade first," you know, "Become an accountant or something, get a trade, and then if you want to, go and act after that. It's not a way to make a living. You might have fun at it, but you know, you wouldn't ever make any money at it or anything." That's the kind of way people think, and I suppose in most cases that is true. But yeah, if you really want to do something, you have to do it.
IGNFF: Was it demoralizing hearing that from the guidance counselor, or did it just galvanize you?
BOYD: It really didn't affect me that much, because I knew that in the housing that I stayed in – Cranhill, where I went to school, and Ruchazie – you always kind of hid the fact that you did drama, because it was a sort of effeminate thing to do, or not quite a macho thing. It's not like playing football or anything.
IGNFF: Not a working class thing to do.
BOYD: Yeah, so I didn't publicize the fact that I did it, anyway. I'd get plenty of support from my parents and my family, anyway. It didn't really affect me, just looking back on it kind of makes me giggle.
IGNFF: Were your parents of the opinion that you should get a trade first?
BOYD: No, they were very supportive, up until they actually both passed away when I was in my early teens. So they weren't actually around when I was starting to make those sort of decisions. But, when they were here and I was pursuing acting classes and things, they supported me whole-heartedly, and would try and find clubs and stuff, as I say. They definitely were very supportive. I'd like to think that if they were alive when I was making those decisions, they would have supported me on that, as well. I think they would have.
IGNFF: It must have been a good, solid base knowing that you had their support before they passed away.
BOYD: Yeah, exactly, you know, and not only in a kind of silent support – in a very sort of active way. As I say, finding classes or, you know, my dad would say, "Have you any interest in Shakespeare?" and I said, "Yes." And they'd go out and try and find a class where I could do some Shakespeare or whatever.
IGNFF: So an active participation...
BOYD: Yeah, very much so. I think they both kind of enjoyed the idea – probably especially my dad, because of the chance he had at being a singer.
IGNFF: I'm assuming it was a horribly difficult period to lose both of your parents.
BOYD: My father passed away first from lung cancer, and my mother passed away a year after that, from a heart attack. It was... it was a very difficult time for me.
IGNFF: Did you have a close-knit family, as far as your other family members?
BOYD: Yeah... yeah, we were very close. As I say, a lot of my family stayed in the States, but my grandmother then moved into our house and brought me and my sister up after that, for the rest of our teenage years and stuff, and was a great influence on me as well. She was a very strict, old-school sort of grandmother, you know, which was probably exactly what we needed. When you lose both your parents at that age, you can very easily get off the tracks and get involved in whatever, and she was very strict. I think that really helped my teenage years.
IGNFF: Making sure that life moved forward?
BOYD: Yeah, exactly. In some ways, it then meant that when I did leave school, I did go and get a trade. Because, then... I don't know... I felt as though I should be a sort of breadwinner, I should be making money. I had to stand on my own two feet kind of thing, you know?
IGNFF: Was it a sense of needing security?
BOYD: I don't know... a sense of probably how we grew up just slightly too quick, you know? Feeling like...
IGNFF: The man of the house?
BOYD: Yeah. To think about paying bills and stuff when you're 15 is not the ideal way to spend those years.
IGNFF: You have one sibling, a younger sister?
BOYD: Yeah, I have a sister.
IGNFF: So essentially, you were, for all intents and purposes, the man of the house.
BOYD: Yeah... yeah, I suppose. My grandmother was there, and also an uncle helped a lot around that time.
IGNFF: Did that sense of responsibility affect, in any way, the idea of going to drama school?
BOYD: I can't remember the actual thought process I went through, but as the time came close to leaving school, I just felt as though I should get a job. A chance of a job came up, working at a printers as an apprentice, a print finisher, and it's a four year trade – and a good trade. A good trade is what you look for, growing up in our kind of working class background, and I just thought that that was probably what I should do. Then, if I wanted to act, I could maybe do that after.
IGNFF: Essentially make it into a hobby...
BOYD: Yeah, and I didn't even make it a hobby, because as soon as I started working I stopped all acting. I didn't do any for the six or seven years that I worked in a printers.
IGNFF: Could you visualize doing that the rest of your life?
BOYD: No. I think when I was doing it, I kind of thought that I could, you know? When I was doing my trade. But then, when I finally started working... I think when I was doing the trade, it was always, "Four years," you know, and then, "Oh, there's only two years of the trade left." Then, "I'm on my final year." Once I passed that, I think it just felt like, "This is it now. There's no kind of end that I'm looking at." I did it for another couple of years, and then I thought, "This is not what I want to do."
IGNFF: Was that a difficult decision?
BOYD: Kind of, although I was going out with a girl at the time, and I think, personally, I find the biggest decisions are normally made when I'm kind of with a partner who can see that I'm unhappy, or can see where I want to go and will suggest that, and make it easier for me. Otherwise, I think I'm quite a lazy person.
IGNFF: So you need a sounding board/instigator?
BOYD: Yeah, yeah. I feel sometimes that helps me. Whereas I'll kind of, "Yeah, maybe I'll do that next year," just kind of go with the flow, pretty much. Then she said, "You're not happy." And I wasn't. I wasn't totally even thinking about acting, I just knew that I had to quit – so I did quit.
IGNFF: Did it come as a surprise to you that you had suppressed that urge for so long?
BOYD: No, because... at that time I was playing in a band, all through the time that I worked in a printers, and I had a great time and was writing a lot of music, and playing a lot, and playing with different bands. Very involved in the sort of Glasgow music scene. I suppose it just went slightly that way for a while. When I quit my work, I applied for drama college, and then it went from there.
IGNFF: Which drama college was this?
BOYD: The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
IGNFF: How close was that to where you were living? Was it a local thing?
BOYD: Yeah, very close. It's a 20-minute drive from where I was living.
IGNFF: What was the culture shock of moving out of the trades back into what you essentially had always wanted to do?
BOYD: It was sort of weird because, when I left the trades, the idea was to go to the States for a year – just to have a look with this girlfriend at the time – then come back and apply for drama school then, and just see what happens. So we kind of booked our flights to America, and I phoned up the drama school and said, "How would I go about applying for next year?" And they said they're actually still auditioning for this year. I said, "All right." She said, "Do you want to get an appointment?" I said, "Yeah." They made that appointment for a couple of weeks, and they said you had to have two pieces – one contemporary piece and one Shakespeare. I had no idea, you know... I hadn't done any acting in six or seven years. So I went back to the teacher who taught me at the Dolphin Arts Centre, the centre that my mum and dad found that I went to all through high school. She got two pieces for me, and gave me them, and she worked on them with me.
IGNFF: Which two pieces were these?
BOYD: It was a play called The Sailmaker, by Alan Spence. I did a speech from that. The Shakespeare was Henry V, and it was Boy's speech to Pistol, his friend.
IGNFF: A rather serious choice.
BOYD: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a nice speech about a guy feeling that he's too young to go to war, but if he was old enough, he wouldn't be a coward like these guys. It's a nice speech
IGNFF: It's almost applicable to your life at that time – as far as making difficult decisions that would affect your life, and your perception of yourself...
BOYD: Yeah, I suppose. The decisions were almost made for me, you know? Because then I auditioned, I get through the day's audition, and I went to the States. It was while I was there – I was probably there for about two months – and my sister called and said that there's a letter from the academy, should she open it? I said, "Yeah." She opened it, and it said I'd been accepted for that year. So we finished the holiday short and came home, and I started drama school.
IGNFF: How was your experience in the States?
BOYD: I really, really enjoyed it. My girlfriend had a friend in Toronto, actually... that's where we started. So we went to Toronto and hung out there for a while with her, and then my relatives stay in Detroit, so I went and stayed with them and caught up with them for a while. Then we went down to Florida, and hung out at the Keys.
IGNFF: So you got to see all kinds of climates.
BOYD: Yeah, we fancied trying them all – Toronto was freezing. In fact, I'm going over there in a few weeks. Florida was just beautiful.
IGNFF: Was it what you had expected of the States?
BOYD: I'd been a few times to see my relatives, so I'd been to Detroit a few times, so I knew that. They stay in a suburb actually, called Mount Clemens, so I kind of got a look at suburban America, which I really enjoyed ... I liked the kind of openness of it. Growing up in Glasgow, it's a real squeeze – and there you have these suburbs, with big gardens and trees and these great things like huge cinemas and stuff that we didn't have then, you know, with 12 screens, and that kind of thing really appealed to me.
IGNFF: The wide open spaces.
BOYD: Yeah... yeah... just having some room, you know? People had big houses. People didn't stay in tenements. I found it quite amazing. Then, I've been to Florida for a couple of holidays, and that's why we chose to go there – because we kind of knew it, but we hadn't done the Keys or anything. So we went down and did that. Yeah, I had a really great time. A real fun time, we had there.
Continue on to the second page of Ken Plume's interview with Billy Boyd – in which Boyd discusses spending time in the U.S., entering drama school, his professional acting start, and more.
[This is the second page of Ken Plume's interview with Billy Boyd. To access the first installment, use the above navigation links.]
IGNFF: So when are you moving out to the States?
BOYD: Well, you know, I spend a lot of time in the States now. In fact, I'm going to L.A. the week after next, before I go to Toronto. I spend a lot of time in L.A. now. A lot of my friends stay there – so yeah, I do find myself spending a lot of time there. I don't know if I could live full-time there, in the States – in L.A. anyway. Although I was thinking about that for a while. I do kind of miss Britain.
IGNFF: Well I know a lot of your compatriots have made the move out to L.A., haven't they?
BOYD: Yeah, Dom stays over there now, which is great for me, and for him as well. But it's great that whenever I go out, Dom's there and I can go and chill out with him and catch up and, of course, Elijah's always been there. So yeah, I've got a lot of friends – Orlando spends a lot of time there. When I go over, we all catch up. Then I've got other friends, not from the Ring. In fact, one of them just came home, a guy, Mark, who's a very good friend. For a while there, like last summer, we had a great summer ... I went on holiday with Orlando and Dom – we went to Cocoa Beach, and we surfed there.
IGNFF: Did it compare to the surfing in New Zealand?
BOYD: Yeah, that was great.
IGNFF: But you can't beat a beach house in Florida.
BOYD: Yeah, that'd be perfect. In fact, me and Dom have written a script that is based in the Keys.
IGNFF: Is this the diving script?
BOYD: Yeah, basically just so that we can go and hang out some summer and make a movie, you know?
IGNFF: That'd be a good time to buy the house in Florida.
BOYD: That'd be great, wouldn't it! Maybe we could get the company to buy one for us, whoever makes it. Rather than put us up in a hotel – get us a house!
IGNFF: It could technically be the offices...
BOYD: Exactly! We could actually save someone money here... We've finished the script, actually. I was lucky enough... I was making a film last year down in Mexico and Dom would come down quite a lot and visit me, along with Elijah and stuff. We actually managed to really finish the script on the drive up and down from L.A. We just got a little Dictaphone and we'd just talk it through and talk it through. So we finished it, and we're just going to let some people see it now, and hopefully we'll get it made.
IGNFF: So how long was the holiday originally supposed to be, that you cut short to go to school?
BOYD: Well, we were talking about a year, and I think we ended up with about probably three months.
IGNFF: Was there any disappointment that you had to cut it short, or was that outweighed by the fact that you'd gotten into school?
BOYD: It was kind of outweighed by that, and we'd also spent all our money by that time.
IGNFF: So that was one of the bigger factors, as well...
BOYD: Yeah, and my girlfriend, she was a hairdresser, so she was even cutting hair on the beach and stuff. It was time to come back.
IGNFF: How soon after you got back did school start?
BOYD: It was pretty soon, actually. I think we stayed there for as long as we could, so I think we only came back two weeks before. Just enough time to kind of buy the books that I had to buy for starting and stuff. They send you a form telling you what you need before you start, a whole bunch of books, and also, strangely enough – I'm sure they don't have it anymore – but then the things that you had to buy to wear. One of them was footless tights, for guys, for movement classes and dance classes. I don't know where to get these, and I never got them – which is great, because nobody wore them. And from speaking to ex-students, no one ever did, and they always put it on the form anyways. I don't know why. They must have had a tie-in with some shop that sells them ... Everybody just wore shorts.
IGNFF: Was there any concern within your family that you had given up a trade to pursue this?
BOYD: Not really. At that point, I was then just staying with my sister. My Gran had moved into her own house again, and my sister was just, you know, really excited for me. She was very supportive.
IGNFF: Was it a difficult financial prospect, going to school?
BOYD: Yeah, it was a bit. It was difficult, especially when you're used to working by that time, you know, and used to a wage coming in. But as I say, my sister was very supportive and she said if there was any problems, she would help me out. My Gran, as I say, who was quite old school – I don't think she could quite understand I was giving up a good job to go to college, no matter what it was for. You know, she just thought, "Well, why would you go to college if you've already got a job? What's the point in that?" But she wasn't really negative about it... she just didn't understand what I was doing.
IGNFF: Was drama school what you thought it would be?
BOYD: I don't even think I knew what it would be... I just kind of had no idea about it, really.
IGNFF: What was the biggest shock your first year?
BOYD: Let me think... I remember the first day, we all had to stand in a circle and then step into the middle of the circle and say something about who you were and where you were from, whatever. I couldn't believe how scared I was. I can actually feel it now, the fear from that, you know? That shocked me.
IGNFF: That level of fear?
BOYD: Yeah, about doing something as kind of mundane as that, but I suppose that was the idea. You know – first day, getting thrown in there. I don't know what surprises, because as I say, I wasn't – I was just absolutely loving it. I couldn't believe all the things I was learning.
IGNFF: What was the most difficult aspect?
BOYD: I suppose financially it was difficult, as I say, so I got a couple of jobs while I went to college. I worked at a Pizza Hut, and worked in a bar, and a comedy club. That was good, because I got to see all the comedians for free... That was great. So financially it was difficult, and also, you know, I think breaking through the sort of working class mentality was probably quite difficult – everyone hugging each other and being able to show emotion at the drop of a pen...
IGNFF: Breaking down walls...
BOYD: Yeah, that sort of Protestant, Scottish, stiff-upper-lip sort of idea, not showing how you feel – where acting is just about showing what you feel. So I think I probably found that most difficult when I first started.
IGNFF: Was there any one performance where you felt a breakthrough in that?
BOYD: There were a few things I felt as breakthroughs. There was a play called Spring Awakening that we did, and I found that incredibly helpful because it's a very emotional play, and it kind of looks at growing up, and teenage relationships. I found the part in that, which I can't remember his name... it's the one who doesn't die, anyway. There's two friends in it, and playing those scenes I found very helpful in kind of breaking down – I think playing a character and showing their emotions, I found quite simple. But being in drama school and to talk about your childhood and doing the very sort of Stanislavsky thing and being able to use your own emotions to inform on a characters, that's what I found difficult. To be able to sit in front of a room of people that I didn't really know in first year and talk about my childhood was something that I kind of wasn't willing to do.
IGNFF: Which is back to that sort of enclosed Glasgow atmosphere...
BOYD: Yeah, your life is not something that you share with people that you don't know, sort of idea.
IGNFF: Those high brick walls behind the tightly packed houses.
BOYD: Yeah, you know – a lot of people growing up very close to each other, and everyone doesn't have to know your business. That's the thing that I'm sure a lot of Scottish families say to each other.
IGNFF: So the closer you live, the more you desire privacy.
BOYD: Yeah, I suppose... yeah. Then being asked to break that down, I suppose I found quite difficult, at first.
IGNFF: I think it's interesting to compare even culturally that sort of thinking, compared to the American way of thinking…
BOYD: Yeah, I mean, I suppose if anyone was being negative about Americans, they would say that they're too open, they're too willing to share...
IGNFF: What are you trying to say, Billy?
BOYD: If you were being negative about Americans, I mean, and being very sort of stereotypical. If you were drawing a stereotypical American, it would be a Hawaiian shirt and a big man being loud in a restaurant, wouldn't it? If you were doing a Scotsman, it would probably be a guy standing alone in a field, with a kilt.
IGNFF: Can you actually chart, over that first year, your starting point and see that you made a leap forward? Can you see, personally, a growth and development that first year?
BOYD: I think I did a lot of fighting with myself in the first year, because I didn't have the routine that I had as an apprentice. I went in to the print house at 7:30 every morning, and I'd put in overtime and finish at 5:00 or whatever. There was a kind of routine to it. Then I went to this place where, as I say, you're being asked to talk about your childhood and people are breaking down everywhere and everyone's hugging each other, and everyone's got their pub, and having that kind of student lifestyle. I was fighting with living that life and trying to be good at what I did, and I probably didn't work as hard in the first year as I should have done – especially in the first half of it. So by the end of the second half, I think I'd got my head around it and knew what I wanted to do, and I knew I had a great chance – getting into this college that so many thousand people apply for, each year, and 20 people get in. A kind of panic dropped, that I only get three years here, and it's time to really learn as much as I can and take as much as I can from it. So by the end of the first year, I'd kind of switched onto that idea.
IGNFF: Based on your years at the print shop, do you think you brought a sort of trade mentality to drama school, as far as learning a craft in order to be able to apply it?
BOYD: I don't think so, because in the printers, it was a real laugh. It was a lot of fun, and the guys who showed me the trade of book binding were really funny, great, fun guys, and I didn't try very hard. I was actually quite a good book binder, to be honest, but it was just something that came quite natural. So I didn't bring that sort of in, you know, "I need to learn this" – just the panic sort of dropped in first year, that I actually really enjoyed learning about Shakespeare and learning about poets and history and how theater started. I thought, "It's stupid to fight this, because I'm actually really enjoying it." I don't think I had a day off of college, in certainly the second and third year.
IGNFF: When you start approaching the end of that third year, where does your mind start turning to? "How do I actually parlay this into a career?" Did the school prepare you for that, in any way?
BOYD: I think they were just getting better at it when I was there. It used to be quite an enclosed little road, and they started to open up then, and now it's opened up even more. They do a thing now where you're in your third year, they ask an ex-student to mentor someone in third year. So, like, I do this thing for them where I will be given a student, and then if I'm in Glasgow, I'll go and watch the shows. Say I'm invited to some theater opening or whatever, then I'll try and bring them along so that they get to meet the directors and producers and people who'll be employing them, you know... which I think is a great idea.
IGNFF: The networking program...
BOYD: Yeah, that sort of idea, and just to show what the world is outside the college. Otherwise it can be a bit of a shock, you know? But they just started doing that kind of thing. They brought in a director from a theater here, called Byre Theater, that's in St. Andrews – which is a beautiful little town up on the East Coast. You probably know it from golf, its got very famous golf courses up there. He came in, basically to audition us, really, so that you'd get used to auditioning for theater and real directors. So he auditioned us, and I was lucky enough that he actually picked me up to do two plays for that season. So it meant that I actually left drama school a couple of weeks early, to go and start working in theater. I didn't get to do the whole cap and gown thing, and actually get my diploma at the getting out ceremony.
IGNFF: But having a job isn't a bad consolation...
BOYD: Yeah, exactly! You know, working in a local theater and spending the summer up in St. Andrews. It was one of my favorite jobs, it was so much fun.
IGNFF: Did it enable you to get your equity card?
BOYD: Yep. So I got my equity card from that, and I just couldn't believe how much fun I was having, you know, working in theater. Theater wasn't a love that I had when I was growing up – it was movies. You know, that's why I wanted to be an actor, and it was only through drama school that I got a love of theater. I just couldn't believe I was getting paid. I was getting paid real money to go and act.
IGNFF: This would be what, in the early or mid '90s?
BOYD: Yeah, '95 I left drama school.
IGNFF: Was it what you thought it would be?
BOYD: It was probably better than I thought it would be. I just couldn't believe how good it was. I was getting paid. In theater here, in town, anywhere with a theater, they'll have a digs list – you know, somewhere where you can find somewhere to stay while you're there. Someone will rent a room in the house, for actors. And I stayed with this woman – I can't remember her name, Mrs. Mc-Something – and she was just fantastic! She had this lovely house, and she would up and make me my breakfast in the morning. Just a lovely woman. I had this great room in her house, and we just had a really good lot.
IGNFF: Not a bad way to start in the business.
BOYD: It was perfect! I was doing one play, a Scottish play called The Slab Boys, which is a fantastic play. Very, very, funny.
IGNFF: Was this the one where you played Spanky D?
BOYD: Yeah, and it's set in the '50s, in a factory. You know – where I had just spent, like, 7 years. It's about the guys who mix the ink for guys in a carpet factory, for dying the carpets. They were called the slab boys, because they mixed it on big slabs. It's just a fantastic play, incredibly funny, and just a beautiful look at life at that time.
IGNFF: It must have been a weird feeling, though, being an actor playing someone in a trade, when you had just come from being in a trade to be an actor.
BOYD: Well, it was great, because it was just like, you know – I've led this life. These guys, to get through the day, they'd have little characters that they played, or running jokes that they'd have, running with different people. I thought, "I did this. This is how I spent 7 years." So it was just perfect.
IGNFF: Did any of your old co-workers come see the play?
BOYD: No... no, they didn't. Some people I knew from that time, but no one that I actually worked with.
IGNFF: What were your family's thoughts when you started getting these plays?
BOYD: Oh, my sister loved it. She would come up with friends and stuff, and get a hotel and spend the night or whatever. And also, this woman that I was staying with, she would let her have a room for nothing and stay over whenever she wanted. My Grandmother came up, as well. It was just a great summer.
IGNFF: See, you need to find where this woman is now.
BOYD: Yeah, I bet she's still up there renting out rooms for actors, because the Byre Theater has just been renovated, actually. They got, I think, a couple of million from the lottery fund, and it's just been redone – and it's apparently absolutely beautiful.
IGNFF: It's frightening if the Lord of the Rings fans ever got a hold of it – there'd be a plaque in the room saying, "Billy Boyd slept here."
BOYD: That's be great!
IGNFF: She'd be on Channel 4 in no time, and probably get her own show.
BOYD: She was absolutely lovely, and she's well known for being the best digs person up there.
IGNFF: She'd probably love to hear from you again.
BOYD: Yeah... yeah, I will go up there, because I want to see the theater.
IGNFF: And you have a room to stay in.
BOYD: Exactly. And you can surf in St. Andrews, so it's all perfect.
Continue on to the third page of Ken Plume's interview with Billy Boyd – in which Boyd discusses getting work right out of drama school, how Lord of the Rings came about, his official site, and more.
[This is the third page of Ken Plume's interview with Billy Boyd. To access previous installments, use the above navigation links.]
IGNFF: You were able to do what a lot of acting students can't do – get a job out of acting school. You got your equity card, which is usually a fight for a lot of people, trying to get that. At what point did you actually hit a snag, where it actually started getting difficult?
BOYD: You know what, I've been incredibly fortunate. I think the scariest thing for an actor is that moment when he finishes a job, and there's no job on the horizon. Especially when you're just out of college and you're paying debts and you don't have any money. It just seems like a huge void. And I've been so lucky that I've pretty much always known what my next job was by the time that I finished the job before, even if it's not starting for two months. At least you know that that's there and it's something you'll be able to focus on ... You can say, "Well, I know in February that I start that job, so I'm okay." There's only one time I can think, in my career, when I haven't had that – when I finished a play and had no idea what was coming next.
IGNFF: So, for the most part, you always had that dangling carrot on the horizon?
BOYD: Yeah, I always knew that there was a job coming up, and I've been very lucky as well that I've been able to do the thing I've wanted to do. I work a lot, and working on new plays, plays that have never been performed before. There's a great theater in Scotland, called The Traverse, that I've worked in a lot of plays for the first time that they've ever been done. Then, just around the corner from that, there's a theater called the Lyceum, which is a big proscenium arts theater – more kind of focuses on classical plays, and so I was lucky enough to play Shakespeare in there, and things like Therese Raquin. So I've been having a wonderful mix, having the best of both worlds.
IGNFF: What is your preference?
BOYD: I really don't have one. If someone said, "You had to do this, and not do the other one," talking about just theater of course, I'd find it very difficult to say. But, if I had to make that decision, I would probably say new writing, because there's something very exciting about playing a character that's never been played before, and to kind of get your head around a script that might just not be working, and you being there and trying to help the storytelling... you know, how to tell the story best. I really, really enjoy that.
IGNFF: I find it fascinating, when you talk about the English/Irish/Scottish culture, the cross-pollination of theater and TV. I notice you have very few TV credits – was it something that just never came up?
BOYD: I was always sort of working, so it didn't come up that much.
IGNFF: Was it something that you had wanted to pursue?
BOYD: Not wildly, in fact, because a lot of TV isn't that good, I think. So I don't know... it's a strange thing. Do you hang off to do a little part in a program, some police drama, hospital drama that's been running for 20 years? It just feels a bit stale to me. Or are you going to do a brand-new play that's going to stretch your mind?
IGNFF: Who wants to play Shakespeare when you could be Injured Man #4?
BOYD: Exactly – there's my point. You've caught on now, you got it in a nutshell. It's just, to kind of be in something that's basically the same story every week ...
IGNFF: Did you ever have an agent pushing you towards anything?
BOYD: I've been really lucky with my agent, as well. I pretty much went with my agent almost straight from drama school. I've done one TV, which was worthwhile doing, because although it was a police drama, it was playing the part of someone with Asperger's Syndrome, which is like a mild form of autism. That was just great. It was really, really interesting to find out about this little known disease.
IGNFF: So it allowed you to do research, and actually inhabit a part?
BOYD: Yeah, exactly. I went and I met someone with Asperger's and went to an autistic ward and met with their doctors and stuff, and heard from them, and spent some time with this guy. We went out for dinner and stuff. It's just much more interesting, you know?
IGNFF: Was this Taggart?
BOYD: Yeah, and it was just after that that I got this London agent who I've been with ever since, and who luckily enough understands what I want to do and is coming from the same place, you know?
IGNFF: Which is another rarity in the business.
BOYD: Yeah, I think so. I think a lot – again, kind of being stereotypical of agents – but when you're hot, then they're your best friend and want to see you, but once you start, the roles aren't coming in and you can't get through to them on the phone. I've heard a lot of actors telling me those stories.
IGNFF: "He wants to do theater again? Put him on hold."
BOYD: Exactly, exactly. My agent has been... I've got a very sort of personal as well as business relationship that, you know, I go down there at their house and we have some lunch and we talk about what's coming up and what I want to do, and what she thinks I should do, and we normally agree.
IGNFF: Which, again, is a huge shock.
BOYD: It's a shock, and it's brilliant. I've now just kind of branched out into an L.A. manager, but the reason I went with him is he struck me as just being the same sort of person. You meet a lot of people who they seem to be much more about going into parties and stuff, and I don't want that to be my agent or my manager. I want someone who I'll be able to talk to and actually plan a career.
IGNFF: The thing about agents is they seem to be name collectors. So it doesn't matter if they give you any service as a client as long as they have your name on the roster.
BOYD: Yeah, exactly ... Then the agents are hotter than them, now. It's almost like they become celebrities somehow. It's very weird. I've been very lucky with my agent here, and I'm pretty sure it's looking like it's going to be the same sort of way over in your neck of the woods.
IGNFF: Now, you also did a couple of smaller film roles early in your career, right?
BOYD: Yeah.
IGNFF: How would you compare the process, as far as likes and dislikes, since you've done all three: theater, TV and film?
BOYD: You can't really choose one, you know, because they're all different in different ways and I'd probably just be repeating what other actors say. But theater's great because you get rehearsal time and you get to explore the character before anyone sees him, so to have that time and be able to talk to other people and create this thing is fantastic and normally the most fun part of it. Then, a play's in a linear way, so you do it for two hours a night – so it's quite easy to do it in a kind of truthful and real way, because if you're building up to an emotional climax, you do actually build up to that emotional climax. Whereas in TV or film, they might ask you to do the climax before you actually do the build-up to it. So that makes it easier and kind of more satisfying in a sort of core, truthful way.
IGNFF: So TV and film are sort of like "light switch" acting?
BOYD: Yeah, which you know, is more technical. The best directors, I've found, know how acting works and will do the best to kind of make that light switch easy to switch on, so that you know what's happening. Rather than just saying, "Okay, on you go. Hit that mark and do it." I've been lucky that the directors I've worked with are not like that, and they're kind of actors' directors.
IGNFF: Have you encountered a director who's not?
BOYD: Not in movies. Peter Jackson, who's acted in his own movies and is just a genius, and Peter Weir, who just, I think, gets the performances from the actors that he works with – so they're real kind of actors' directors.
IGNFF: How did Lord of the Rings come about?
BOYD: Very simply. I was living in Scotland, with this agent as I told you – Aude Powell is her name – she said they're making the Lord of the Rings, and one of the things about staying in Scotland is everything casts in London. So if you make the choice to stay out of London, it's part of a sort of a deal is I'll travel to London to go up for things. So she said, "Do you want to come down for this?" I said, "Definitely!" She said it's a trilogy – I thought that would be amazing. But, you know, everyone was up for it. So I just went down, met with the casting director ... I went on tape, reading Merry and Pippin, reading a scene once as Pippin, once as Merry, on a tape. And that tape was sent off to New Zealand, to Pete, along with everyone else who auditioned for it. About a month later, Pete was in London after being in L.A. and New York and on his way to Sydney and a few other places, I think. And he was meeting the people that he'd like to meet for each character, and I was one of the people that he wanted to meet for Pippin. I went in, and he had a few scenes with him. Not scenes from the movie, but scenes that they had written while making the script, scenes that had never made the script.
IGNFF: But were especially good character scenes, for audition purposes...
BOYD: Yeah, I think so. There was a kind of scene where Merry and Pippin sort of sneak up to Frodo's window and see him with the ring, and that sort of idea, you know? So I did this scene, and Fran was there as well, his writing partner. He directed me in it, and asked me to do it different ways and he set up the camera different ways, and then we spoke about the books and spoke about the character of Pippin and who he thought he was.
IGNFF: What was your initial assessment of who the character was?
BOYD: I hadn't actually finished reading the book at that point, and I told Peter, "I haven't actually read it all, but from what I read..." I said that he was a kind of an almost stereotypical hobbit. Talking about stereotypes, but he could find a kind of good in everything. He's very sort of optimistic. And of course, he's the youngest and most innocent of the group as well, and his innocence and naivete, and also his way that he gets himself in trouble is a sort of inquisitive nature, you know? I think his part in the story – as well as reminding people that the hobbits are basically fun at the core and are good, good people – his story is about maturing, and a young man in war and how he deals with those horrors. In watching this kind of na¿ve, innocent little creature who then is kind of scarred by these wars that go around and how that affects him.
IGNFF: How did your assessment differ from Peter's? Or did it?
BOYD: Obviously we must have been on the same sort of track, because he gave me it. So I must have said something right. He kind of agreed, and he liked the idea that you see Frodo and Sam on their terrible journey to destroy this ring, and how it kind of flashes back to the two friends, and how they get kind of involved, and how ultimately what they do sort of indirectly allows their friends to succeed and destroy this ring.
IGNFF: When were you actually informed that you had the part?
BOYD: I was actually working on a new play at The Traverse, and not for performance just then. I do kind of workshops with the writers, when they have a play that the Traverse likes. They'll employ actors to come in and help the writer finish it off by doing scenes and stuff. I was doing one of these plays, and I got a phone call from my agent. So I went to the phone box outside the theater on Cambridge Road in Edinburgh. I phoned up, and she says, "Guess who's playing Pippin in Lord of the Rings?"
IGNFF: I hope you got the answer right.
BOYD: Well, I got it wrong twice before that. I said, "Is it Tom Hanks?" "No."
IGNFF: Billy Connolly?
BOYD: Yeah, it must have been Billy Connolly, but no, he's too old...
IGNFF: He's versatile.
BOYD: Yeah, exactly. "We can play Pippin a bit older." But so yeah, she told me. I kind of phoned back about three or four times in the next hour. Every time I had a break, I'd phone back and say, "So how long is it?" and she'd be like, "It's a year and a half." "Great, great." Then I'd phone back and I'd say, "Can friends come out?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Then I'd phone up again and say, "Do you know anyone else who's on it?" After a while, she says, "Look, Billy, why don't you go and lie down for an hour, and we'll speak about this later."
IGNFF: When it was all able to sink in.
BOYD: Yeah, yeah.
IGNFF: What was the biggest concern when you had heard the time commitment?
BOYD: You know, I didn't really have a concern. I love to travel. As I say, my plan was to go to America for a year. I think it's the greatest education in the world to travel and see other countries and different people.
IGNFF: And to get paid while you're doing it is certainly a bonus.
BOYD: Exactly, yes. The best way to see the world, you know, is to get paid and work on a project like that. If nothing else, a year and a half in New Zealand – a country that I might not ever have gone to, because it's the farthest country from Scotland that you could get to. There's too many other places I'd want to drop off before I get there, so I might never have seen it and missed out on this amazing country.
IGNFF: And until now, it's always sort of existed in Australia's shadow.
BOYD: Exactly. I think so many people – I was just speaking to someone the other day who's going to Australia for six weeks. I said, "Do yourself a favor, get that extra flight and at least spend a weekend in New Zealand and have a look at it." It's difficult to bypass Australia to get to New Zealand. There's so much to see in Australia, I suppose.
IGNFF: Were you involved in any relationship at the time that would have made that trip difficult?
BOYD: No ... kind of luckily I wasn't involved in a relationship. Although people who were, it kind of worked for them. Sean Astin had his wife and child there the whole time, and she went to school there. So it kind of worked out for anyone who did have a relationship. Actually, looking back on it ... it would have been nice to have someone there. But no, I didn't have a relationship.
IGNFF: How long after you laid down for a few hours were you supposed to report to the set?
BOYD: I think I had quite a long time, actually. I got cast very early on, so I had a long time before I had to get there, because... let me see, I was working on that play, and then I actually worked on a full production of a play called The Speculator. So that would have been four weeks rehearsals, play for three weeks. It must have been a couple of months, at least three months maybe. Or more.
IGNFF: So this would have been during '97?
BOYD: Yeah, come to think of it, yeah it must have been around March, and I didn't go in until August. Yeah, so maybe about five months.
IGNFF: And what did your prep entail? I'm assuming you eventually finished the books.
BOYD: Yeah, as I did this play, The Speculator – which is a fantastic play written by David Greig. It was playing in Edinburgh, and I was living in Glasgow, so it's 45 minutes on the train to get there. I would read the book as I went off to rehearsals every morning, and when I was playing it. So I read it in no time, to be honest, and then read again. That's pretty much all the preparation I was doing, really, was reading the book and making notes on what people say about Pippin and about hobbits in general, and what I say about characters. You know, things like that – the normal homework that I would do when approaching a character. Also, of course, going on the Internet and finding out what New Zealand's like and looking at the hotel that I'd be staying in and stuff like that.
IGNFF: Did anything that was on the Internet prepare you for what you actually saw in person?
BOYD: No. And another thing I used Internet for, which was great, was the fans, as they found out who was being cast and stuff – and of course there was a great buzz on the Internet at that point. The knowledge that they had of these characters was great, so I could go on and in a sort of secret way, and tap their brains for what they thought about Pippin or hobbits. I got a lot of good tips from them.
IGNFF: And no sense of the calm before the storm, when it came to the Internet, huh?
BOYD: No, it's kind of weird. I find the Internet quite a weird thing. I was thinking about this yesterday. How it can somehow hook up the whole world, but yet in a very sort of impersonal way. Like there's a thing that some people will get on the Internet now, pretending to be me, or Dom, or Elijah, or whatever – and that's kind of scary, you know? That somebody – that could be a quite horrible person, a sick person – could be sitting in a room somewhere and talking to some school girl and pretending to be one of the hobbits. It's quite scary.
IGNFF: How do you actually stop them?
BOYD: I don't know ... I do have an official website that I'm always talking to the person who runs it, and he reckons it's becoming quite a problem as well, and we're just thinking, what do you do? I don't know, other than tell people that it's definitely not you. What can you do? I did an interview for the Internet yesterday, for the firm that does my official site, just saying that unless it's through that site, I wouldn't be talking to anyone one-on-one, you know? So if someone is talking to you and saying it's me, then it's not.
IGNFF: Have any stories filtered back to you about people taking advantage of your identity?
BOYD: Yeah, well, this company – Biscuit Media, who do my site – have caught a few people being me or Elijah or whatever. Which is a real shame, because a lot of the people who like the movie are quite young, and of course they want to speak to Elijah! And if someone comes on and says they're Elijah Wood, they want to believe it, you know? It's a shame they play with people's minds like that.
IGNFF: It also helps, in combating that, that you have an official site where people can go for as direct, as can possibly be, contact with you, and for things directly from you.
BOYD: Exactly, because it's something I never, ever thought about – an official site – but it was because of things like that that I thought maybe it was a good idea. It's such a new thing, isn't it, the Internet. People still kind of working out what to do with it and what it's for. So you do use it as a business tool, because people like yourself can go on the official sites and know that what they read is accurate, and can use that in compiling your article, or whatever. But also, on top of that, as you say, people know that when they go on, that's actually the person that they're meaning to talk to ... If anyone has any interest in finding out anything about me, they know that this is coming from me. It's not someone in a room somewhere making stuff up.
[This is the fifth page of Ken Plume's interview with Billy Boyd. To access previous installments, use the above navigation links.]
IGNFF: Now how many of the short films survive – I think one was on the DVD – of the little skit work?
BOYD: I think there's a lot of stuff that you haven't seen yet. There was always a behind the scenes camera there that'd just tape whatever anyone was doing, but if me and Dom'd get bored, we'd go and do our little thing. We'd say to whoever had the camera, "Come with us." There's a few that you haven't seen yet. One that jumps out at me is one when I locked Dom in a cupboard, that you should look at, because he didn't bring me the right flavor of Haagen-Dazs. So he was punished.
IGNFF: Have you already put in a request for that to be featured on a future DVD?
BOYD: I think we should! In fact, there's a great tape that no one has seen, that's very hilarious, that I have here. Orlando bought a video camera while he was there, and me and Dom stole it when we were going to South Island. What happened was, they were filming Frodo and Sam's story in the South Islands somewhere, and they put everyone up in hotels while they were doing this, but they didn't have any wet weather cover for Frodo and Sam. So if it started to rain and they couldn't film Frodo and Sam, there was nothing to film, you know? And you can't have that. You can't have a day without filming, so they set an inside set, which was a Merry and Pippin set. So they said to us, "It's too far to fly you every day, so you guys will have to come down, but it means that you probably won't be working." They said, "So rather than put you up in the hotel, we'll get you a nice house down here, while you're here." It was just in a small place in the South Island. We thought, "Yeah, great! We'll just hang out and watch movies or whatever." So we stole Orlando's camera, and there is a tape of that week, of me and Dom sharing a house together, which must make it onto a DVD at sometime.
IGNFF: See, you should produce that yourself, and offer it through the website...
BOYD: I think it could be a full-length movie. There must be at least an hour and a half there. Do you think anyone would go to see it?
IGNFF: With the success you guys have, that thing would sell in a heartbeat. Just call it "Dom and Billy's Wild Ride"...
BOYD: There is some funny stuff on that – I haven't watched it for a while ... There's a lot of stuff that people haven't seen yet.
IGNFF: You should do a compilation DVD of all that stuff.
BOYD: Yeah, that'd be great, wouldn't it?
IGNFF: People would buy it. At least you should do it for your own sake – just put together one to share with the cast.
BOYD: That's kind of the way we approached the DVDs for these movies, actually. The guy who makes them, Michael Pellerin, he had a meeting with everyone on a one-to-one basis. One of the things he said was, "Think of it as a home movie, a movie that you'll want to show your grandkids." You know, "This is what I did at the turn of the century." It was true – I want to put stuff on the DVD that I want to be showing my kids and say, "Look at this."
IGNFF: Have it preserved in case you lose a tape ...
BOYD: Exactly. You know, it's always there – you'll be able to go and buy it. It's not as if you have to worry about losing it.
IGNFF: Would you say a lot of that stuff is still floating out there?
BOYD: Yeah, I think that's good. I mean, even the behind the scenes stuff. They were filming every day. So, I mean, imagine how much footage there must be – huge amounts of footage. Yeah, I think there'll be stuff to watch – if anyone's interested – for a long time.
IGNFF: Did a point ever arrive where you were just, "It was really good, a really nice ride, but I can't wait for it to end – to get home?"
BOYD: There was times when I got so tired, that I was thinking that. Not so much that I wanted it to end, but I just wanted some time off, you know? Strangely enough, I loved it so much, I loved making the movie and I loved Wellington, I loved New Zealand so much that I didn't – even at the end – really want it to end. There is a kind of head space you get into, I found, in every job I've ever done, that as it nears the very end, you know that it's time for a finish. I kind of knew that I've had the whole New Zealand experience in making the movies, but it was such a good time that I didn't want it to end, you know?
IGNFF: As an acting experience, what was it like to film three films in the space of that 14 months? As a character building that?
BOYD: At first I suppose it was kind of difficult and a bit scary, because when you did do a jump from the first movie and the set, you know that's a huge jump to make, without filling in the rest of that time. So it was just about being brave and we all knew our characters so well, and the story so well, by that time, you just had to say, "Well, this is where my character would be." So that was kind of the most difficult thing, the jumps that you have to do in movies. They were just magnified in this one, because it was over three movies, you know? It was just about being sure of what your characters arc was, and just being able to place it in the right place.
IGNFF: Can you envision what it would have been like if this would have been filmed traditionally? Where you would have filmed the first movie, then maybe it would have been a success and you would've gone back two years later to film the second one...
BOYD: The thing that's great about it was, in 20 years from now, people can watch these movies. You could probably go to a cinema, and they'll play all three in one day or whatever, or over a weekend. And you can see the through line of it. You'll be able to see that it was made at the same time. The sets are perfect, because they were all made at the same time, you know? The actors aren't commenting on their performances. I think one of the difficulties in, like, a trilogy or anything like that is then the actors see their first performance as that character, and they think, "Oh, I wish I hadn't played him quite as na¿ve," or, "I wish I'd played him a bit stronger or whatever." Then when the next one comes, they do that. Maybe the actor's career has taken off, so then you have the thing of, "I want a bigger part in the next one." So there's all sorts of things that would have made it more difficult. So even though, as I say, it was a really difficult filming process in the way of being tired, and trying to keep the energy up – and especially I think for someone like Pete Jackson, I don't know how he did it – but I think it was the best way to make these movies. I think it was done because it was the only financial way to do it, but I think artistically it's worked out well because now you have in essence a ten hour movie, basically.
IGNFF: When you talk about being reflective on a performance, how does that affect when you go back and do the reshoots?
BOYD: It's something that I acknowledge, and therefore I suppose I try and fight against, in trying to be truthful to myself and what I was playing two years ago or whenever it was that we filmed it. So yeah, I'm trying not to comment on it.
IGNFF: Do you find that it's almost, in some ways, impossible not in some fashion to comment on it?
BOYD: Yeah, yeah. And you know, I just hope – and also the pickups are normally so small, that it's not as though it's probably noticeable, and in the pickups you normally try and match something, anyway. So it's much more technical, it's much more about watching the scene before it, or the part of the scene before that your pickups coming up in, and matching what you did – so it's probably simpler, in a sense.
IGNFF: Do you have any re-shoots coming up for Return of the King, or are you essentially done?
BOYD: No, I think I am going down for some pickups sometime this year. What they actually involve, I don't know yet. But I suppose it'll be the same sort of thing as last year, you know. Kind of just little bits that they feel was missed or can tell the story better – the character's story, you know? Which is great, I can't wait to go.
IGNFF: What's it going to feel like, knowing that essentially this'll be your last working trip down to New Zealand?
BOYD: I was thinking about that. That is just going to be the weirdest. I think it's going to be, you know – once Return of the King is in the theater, I think that's going to be the funny part of it. Because it is so much still part of my life now, you know? It'll be weird. But, as we say, you get in your headspace that you know things are supposed to have an end...
IGNFF: So, essentially, everyone will start planning yearly "family reunions" to get everyone back together again?
BOYD: There's already talk about it – I think Mark Ordesky at New Line is already looking into that, that there's going to be a yearly get-together of the Fellowship and friends ... I think we'll have to, you know? No matter what we do now, and hopefully we will all have success and varied careers, but this is such a moment in your life, you know? This will be with me forever.
IGNFF: What was the feeling before the first film opened? After you had all gone back home, what were the discussions going on between all of you when you didn't know how it was going to do at the box office?
BOYD: I was back in Scotland, so I was speaking to people on the phone, and as I say, occasionally gone on holiday with some people and meeting up with guys. But we weren't seeing each other every day like we used to. I'm quite good at not letting things worry me. But I did have some sleepless nights thinking about how the movie would do, to be honest. Just thinking, "What if people don't like this? What if people don't like Pippin?" It was quite a scary time, to be honest.
IGNFF: When the film did hit, was it an overnight thing, that all of a sudden now everyone knows your name? How quickly did you feel the reaction from the public?
BOYD: Yeah, it was. People started to get to know us before it actually opened. Because of the buzz on the Internet and also because of publicity and stuff, you know, it already started to get well-known before it even opened. Then I suppose it peaks when it did open. It's weird that people know who you are. I'm still getting used to that.
IGNFF: Is it disconcerting when people recognize you on the street?
BOYD: Sometimes. Sometimes it's nice to be incognito. Sometimes it's nice if nobody knows who you are. People do know, and it's sometimes weird. A lot of time, it's really nice.
IGNFF: Do you find it happens more when you're at home, or more outside the country?
BOYD: I would say more at home, I think. But it does happen outside, and it's kind of weird when you get recognized somewhere like Mexico or something. Because you forget that it's an international thing, and somehow you get used to being recognized at home, but it's kind of weird at other places for some reason.
IGNFF: Is it difficult when you're just trying to go on holiday, to have to keep in the back of your mind, "I've got to keep incognito..."?
BOYD: It's kind of. It's just not really a big deal. It's just sometimes, you know, you feel as though – maybe you're having an intimate moment and like out to dinner or something, and you forget that people have seen you in something and they'll come over and say, "Hello, could you sign something?" and that just kind of, for a second, freaks you out. Because you think, "That's weird. I was just having dinner." You forget that people have seen you do something.
IGNFF: Especially when it comes to maintaining personal space?
BOYD: Yeah, it's not a huge deal, you know. It's not a big thing, it's just kind of weird sometimes.
IGNFF: How do you parlay the exposure that Lord of the Rings has afforded you into future projects?
BOYD: I suppose it's opened up doors. It just, I think, has given me slightly more options. So it means that people on a world stage had now seen my work, or got to see something that I've done, and if they feel interested in working with me then it means that they want to meet with me. Whereas they wouldn't have seen anything before, so working with people like Peter Weir – who now when I went in to see him was able to say, "I saw you in Lord of the Rings. I enjoyed what you did, and this is what we're doing." It just gives you more options, I suppose.
IGNFF: Your first post-Lord of the Rings film was what – Sniper 470?
BOYD: Yeah, that was a kind of low-budget movie that the script came in for, and I just found it really interesting.
IGNFF: Was it nice to do a lower-budget, smaller film after coming off of Rings?
BOYD: Yeah, it was, because I met up with the director and the producer and they were talking about it ... the director had written the script and had got the money to make it, this 20-minute short, and he basically said that he didn't really know how he was going to do it. I thought that was quite honest and fun. He'd written this story about one man in space and his relationship with this gun that he looks after and how he deals with solitude and loneliness and the chance that he could be killed at any point. Even stuff like, how do you do weightlessness? How do you show that without a big budget – without going up in a plane like they did in Apollo 13 or whatever – how do you do it? So it was just a really good actors job, you know?
IGNFF: Did it remind you somewhat of workshopping a play?
BOYD: Yeah, quite a bit. We probably had off and on five or six days where I would go in and we'd have different ideas about how we would shoot something and we'd try things out. If we lie on a skateboard, you know – how can we float past this window? We tried a lot of different things. A lot of my interest in drama school was movement based theater, so I liked the idea of trying to show this through movement, rather than trying to do tricky camera work. It was a great job to do, and I think we filmed it in like six or seven days, or something. It was just really intense.
IGNFF: What's the status of the film right now?
BOYD: It was shown at the Edinburgh festival, and it was part of a short-film thing called The Newfoundlands. I think they're making like nine or ten of them and then two of them get blown up to 35 mil, which now that's been done to it. I was speaking to someone last night who works for Scottish films, who says it's doing incredible there and winning awards kind of all over, and has been picked up by a Canadian short film festival. So I'm going to go over to Canada and help promote it over there.
IGNFF: So it is filtering out?
BOYD: Yeah, so it's going to be shown in Toronto and Edmonton and a few other places and some places in North America, I think, at some festivals.
IGNFF: Has it been sold for home video yet?
BOYD: I don't think it has. I don't know. I'm sure I've signed all those rights away, anyway ... It's a nice movie, I think. I'm up for promoting that.
IGNFF: Now, I guess the latest is Master and Commander?
BOYD: Yeah, yeah. That's the one I just finished before Christmas.
IGNFF: What was it like working with Peter Weir?
BOYD: Amazing. I just couldn't believe it. He's a hero a mine, ya know?
IGNFF: You can't get away from Peters.
BOYD: I know. And also from the Southern Hemisphere – they're all Australian or New Zealand. No, it was great.
IGNFF: What was your role in that film?
BOYD: I played Barrett Bonden, who is the helmsman of the ship – a three mast frigate that the film takes place on.
IGNFF: And that was with Russell Crowe?
BOYD: Russell Crowe is the captain, Paul Bettany's the doctor.
IGNFF: How true are all the stories about Russell?
BOYD: Not at all, actually. That was another long job – it was like five or six months, I think. He never once punched me! I didn't see any recklessness at all ... I went out with Russell Crowe a lot, and hung out with him, and he's actually a really nice, genuine, lovely guy.
IGNFF: Maybe he was busy and just didn't get around to punching you.
BOYD: I think it's a real shame that he's been tarred with this brush now, because as far as I could see, he's just a genuine, lovely guy. Very, very generous guy – and I don't mean just financially or anything, I mean with his time. I just find him really a lovely person ... He's a real guy, I don't think he plays the game – maybe that's it. He is a genuine guy, and takes his work very seriously, and that's important to him, and I think that's great.
IGNFF: Was it an interesting production process on the film?
BOYD: Yeah, it was. Just learning about sailing and learning about that time. Napoleonic Britain was just really interesting.
IGNFF: How would you compare that production and working with Peter Weir to working with Peter Jackson on Lord of the Rings?
BOYD: I mean, quite similar in some ways... they're both kind of actors' directors, you know? They're all about getting the performance. I don't know. Peter Weir is all very much about details, character – a lot of character things that he really helps you build up a character from kind of tiny things. From, you know, getting people, "Do you think you smoke a pipe?" and all these kinds of things and just building up slowly. The way that Pete Jackson can work on so many things and still have time for you I think is amazing as well. So, I mean, they're very similar in a lot of ways.
IGNFF: Do you think somehow you might have been spoiled, by actors' directors?
BOYD: I think I definitely have been. I'm not looking forward to the day that I walk in and someone says, "There's your mark, and here's what you say." I'm sure it's going to happen.
IGNFF: You're not an actor, you're a pawn...
BOYD: Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that, but I'm sure it will happen.
IGNFF: So what is your next project? What's the status of the diving movie?
BOYD: As I say, we've finished that, and if Dom is telling me the truth he's typing out the final draft as we speak. Yeah, we're just going to let some people see it, and then there's a few other scripts that I'm quite interested in at the moment, some exciting stuff. So yeah, I took a couple months off there – probably not even that. But I thought, "I'm not going to do that, I'm just going to kind of catch up with my family and friends and stuff," and that's been great, but now I'm ready to do something else if that opportunity affords itself to me, you know?
IGNFF: Any theater plans in the near future?
BOYD: Well, there is actually talk of a few, but it's part of a mix of trying to get dates to work that I can do as many things as I can, that I want to do, you know? So it all really depends on how dates work. But yeah, hopefully.
IGNFF: Would you say right now you're happy with where your life and career are?
BOYD: Yeah, I'm really happy just now, because I'm lying on the sofa. It's my favorite place. I'm just going to have a nap as soon as I get off the phone.
IGNFF: Oh, I'm really sorry if I'm keeping you from that ...
BOYD: Yeah, you're keeping me from my nap! No, I think... yeah, I'm very happy at the moment. Things are good.
