The Lord of the Rings actor Billy Boyd jokes that his character, Pippin, is the real hero of the series. Boyd co-starred in the Lord of the Rings franchise, which originally premiered back in 2001, and quickly became a global phenomenon. The series (originally based on the novels by J.R.R. Tolkien) has gone on to spawn a second trilogy of films based on The Hobbit, several video games, and most recently, a television series produced by Amazon Prime.
While the final film in the Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings trilogy was released eighteen years ago, many of the actors from the series still reunite often to discuss the films and give fans behind the scenes sneak peaks. Last year, many of the cast reunited on Josh Gad's YouTube series, Together Apart, to reminisce about the filming experience. More recently, Boyd and co-star Dominic Monaghan (who play the Hobbits Pippin and Merry) began a podcast together titled The Friendship Onion. While the podcast doesn't specifically focus on The Lord of the Rings, the actors' conversations often turn to that subject as it was during the filming of the series that their friendship began.
It was on the set of the duo's podcast that the actors recently completed WIRED's Auto-complete Interview. During the interview, the pair both gave answers to the questions that were most asked about them on the internet. The questions ranged from how tall each of the actors were to copious amounts of Lord of the Rings questions. One such entry posed the question, "Is Pippin the real hero?" While Pippin takes on more of a secondary role throughout most of the series, Boyd decided to take a more humorous route with his answer by simply looking into the camera and whispering the word, "yes."
Indeed, it did seem that Boyd would be unable to answer the question any differently, having already committed to a humorous answer to the question, "Why is Gandalf so mean to Pippin?" Any fan of the series will know that the true answer to this question is that Gandalf becomes frequently irritated with Pippin, as he often makes foolish decisions which put the rest of the characters in great danger. However, Boyd alternatively suggested that Gandalf was in fact jealous of Pippin for all the magic he uses throughout the series (another joke) which leads to Pippin becoming the true hero of the story. It does seem that once Boyd had committed to this joke answer, he had no choice but to answer in the affirmative to the following question about Pippin.
There is more truth to Boyd's answer than one may think. While many people point to either Frodo or Sam as the true heroes of the series, the lead characters would most likely not have emerged victorious without the actions of the two secondary Hobbits, Merry and Pippin. Indeed, it is Pippin who convinces the Ents to do battle with Isengard in the climax of The Two Towers, which of course leads to the downfall of the white wizard, Saruman. Additionally, in a sequence from the novel The Return of the King which is omitted from the film, both Merry and Pippin lead a battle against Saruman and his men which lead to the freeing of every Hobbit in the Shire. Boyd may have been giving a somewhat cheeky response to the question he was asked, but there is no denying there is some truth behind is answer. There is indeed more to this Hobbit than meets the eye.
Source: Wired (via YouTube)