[Water Lily]

Two Towers’ Cast and Crew Speak Out on War and Peace, Good and Evil

Cliff Vaughn
12-13-02

Editor’s Note: EthicsDaily.com’s Cliff Vaughn recently attended a press junket for “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” which starts Dec. 18. Vaughn and other religion writers (including those from Focus on the Family and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) screened the film and interviewed cast and crew members.

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Dominic Monaghan, 26, from Manchester, England, plays the hobbit Merry. He told the roundtable that he and other members of the cast had given the issue a lot of thought.

“The term ‘good versus evil’ is a confusing thing for me because I don’t know if the lines can be drawn that easily,” he said. “They’re kind of blurred. I’m sure there are different countries around the world that have considered both Billy and myself’s country evil.”

Monaghan was referring to Billy Boyd, his 34-year-old co-star from Glasgow, Scotland, who plays Merry’s friend and fellow hobbit, Pippin.

“It’s just an upsetting kind of world to live in,” Monaghan said. “I’ve never really experienced this kind of conflict before. I’ve always lived in a peaceful kind of time. It is confusing and it is upsetting. But I don’t really know if the term ‘good versus evil’ is appropriate. It’s just two different cultures clashing together.”

Billy Boyd was quiet and pensive as he talked about good and evil, war and peace. “I think war is always awful, and I don’t know what the other options are,” he said. “If you feel as though something awful is happening somewhere, what do you do? Because war always seems to be the wrong thing, but I don’t know what the other thing to do is.”

Monaghan, on the other hand, was much more straightforward.

“Trying to get everybody to just calm down would be a great way forward,” he said.