[Water Lily]

Billy Boyd at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

By the time 7:00 rolled around, the place was packed - and warm! There were a couple of fangirls behind me, who ended up sitting on the floor in front later, who had driven 23 hours from Bismarck, North Dakota (or is it South?), god bless them. They were internet knowledgable, and very nice, and soon made friends with another couple of fangirls who were local. The majority of the crowd appeared to be college students as well.

Finally, Billy showed up at a little after the start time of 7:30. He was wearing his trademark leather jacket and black shirt, and I was watching the door I knew he'd come into. I and a few others started clapping and soon all of us were.

He looked wonderful, although he's getting over a cold. You couldn't tell it from his voice, and he still was very involved in the discussion, and animated. He's a real trouper, he really is. He and the Master, Stephen Brown, went and sat at the table. There were to be 3 clips from FOTR and a clip from Sniper, with a couple of questions from the Master in-between, and Q&A at the end. I must say that Prof. Brown did a wonderful job - very relaxed but professional, good questions.

I can't write everything down now - it's late, and I have limited internet access, since Prodigy doesn't have Canadian access numbers, but he really was a joy to see - so well-spoken, relaxed, funny but thoughtful, and a natural speaker and teacher. I will say that he said he has a possible project on the stage in London this summer, so here's hoping. Other than that, he said he'd been taking a break for the last couple of months, since work wrapped up on MAC:FSOTW just before December, which was then followed by TTT activities until Christmas. Yes, he and Dom worked on the screenplay for their possible movie during weekends off in the MAC:FSOTW shoot.

The clips were: the fireworks, "second breakfast", and Moria - from the finding of the book, through Pip's disastrous tweaking of the arrow in the skeleton, all the way through to Frodo's mithril shirt. As for Sniper 470 - it was apparently a tape off of the presentation on Scottish TV, since it started with The New Found Land logo and was not film quality; I would guess that he had to use a copy for the program. It went all the way to just after the *ahem* toilet scene (kind of surprised it didn't end a bit earlier!).

Afterwards, there was a very nice long Q&A, then clapping and a swarm to the stage for autographs. I didn't try to get an autograph, since they didn't seem to need even more people up there in the throng that appeared to swallow up Billy (I hope he survived! *g*). But I'm glad I went. I'll never get an opportunity like this again, and it was worth it.

And, Billy Boyd - you are a top notch human being for coming out and doing this wonderful talk for a small audience at a small college in the middle of Canada - thank you."