"She's like Morticia, only better!" - El Vez

Jilli, is El Vez talking about you?

Didn't you think Frodo looked like a Living Dead Doll when he was wrapped in spider-webbing and Sam cleared off his face?

Who's up for a pirate voyage to NZ and looting Richard Taylor's house?

Sign me up!

Actually, I just want to raid the costume department's left-over fabrics.

Jilli, is El Vez talking about you?

Hee! Yes! He was performing at Teatro Zinzanni the night I went there for a friend's birthday in November.

t /natter

Well, as goth icons go, I certainly rank you with Morticia, Wednesday Addams, Death, Vampira, early Siouxsie and Peter Murphy.

Well, as goth icons go, I certainly rank you with Morticia, Wednesday Addams, Vampira, early Siouxsie and Peter Murphy.

swoons at Hec's feet

Cruises in to chortle over TTTEE documentaries, with eyes closed to avoid RoTK spooilage (I'm betting that Gandalf invents some kind of self propelled carriage to get the very badly wounded but NotNoNeverHow dead King Lurtz To the underworld equivalent of the houses of healing so he can make the coronation where he reveals that he's really a woman, and all would not love her, but they would despair more than enough to make up for it.

So my new favorite thing is the pure joy displayed by Viggo when recounting how he convinced a stunt guy to muss up Legolas's face a little. Headbutts are cool.

My other new favorite thing is the elves and Uruk-Hai flipping each other off at Helm's Deep. They very much should have included shots of that. And yes, I do mean in the theatrical release.

My newest favorite thing is the scene of Miranda Otto doing the sword training. She looked cuter than the cutest thing, if not particularly lethal.

If you want to see non-lethal females fighting, watch Liv Tyler do her XenArwen stuff at Helm's Deep on Disc Three--very humorous, and very non-threatening.

Heh. I more just want to see Miranda Otto, but that sounds entertaining as well.

Saw this interview with Dominic Monaghan over at oscarwatch--they didn't have a link to the original interview, unfortunately:

IGNFF: Is there anything that you haven't been asked…

MONAGHAN: There's a few things, like why has it escaped the media's attention that Viggo Mortensen is the devil. That's never really been approached…

IGNFF: Okay, so he's the sly one…

MONAGHAN: He IS a sly one! Have you interviewed him?

IGNFF: He is the "one you can't get near."

MONAGHAN: Right, well, Viggo is a true individual.

IGNFF: The devil's got a hell of a publicist…

MONAGHAN: Yeah, he sure does. For the past two years, Viggo and I have been involved in trying to sabotage each other in the media by giving each other s***. For the second DVD of The Two Towers, the extended cut, there's a documentary of the actors just giving each other hassles, and there's HUGE stuff going on with Viggo and me, where we're just making up rumors about each other, and makin' out that things happened that actually didn't happen. I'm hell-bent on this idea of trying to convince the media that Viggo is either a woman in a man's body or the devil, or that he does terrible things to baby animals, and stuff like that.

IGNFF: It was my understanding that he's entirely CG…

MONAGHAN: Well, yeah! This is also not come out that much, either, that the majority – I would say probably 95% of the work that you see as Viggo onscreen is completely computer generated, because he has a wooden leg and he can't run. So they had to do all that CG. And also he can't act. There's all this stuff going on about how good he was in that film, but they had to morph a lot of the face movements from Billy and myself, because we were able to reach those levels of acting that Viggo just couldn't reach. I mean, he can barely talk English, you know? He's pretty dumb…

IGNFF: So who dubbed his voice?

MONAGHAN: I think Andy Serkis did a bit of work, and also Elijah. It's like a combination of the two of those guys.

IGNFF: I mean, he's an amazing creation…

MONAGHAN: He is an incredible creation, and you've got to give credit to Viggo, because it is mainly his torso and his chest that you are seeing, and he does look good in leather – but every time he opens his mouth, it's Andy Serkis, and every time his mouth moves it's done by Billy and I. And also, a lot of the main fighting that went on – that was me and Billy as well, because Viggo is quite weak. He's quite feminine. He could never lift the sword over his head, because he didn't have the muscle capacity.

IGNFF: Yeah, I mean, it's so obvious that the guy who was in A Perfect Murder is not the same guy that's in Lord of the Rings…

MONAGHAN: He's lost it. I mean, I personally feel that he peaked in GI Jane. I thought he was incredible, and when I met him I was quite overwrought – but within the first 10-15 minutes, I lost all that respect, because he smells pretty weird as well. He lives in a barn, and he just smells of… Well, it's kind of like horse piss and clothes that he's not changed, basically.

IGNFF: It's unfortunate that all that work went into him, and because of his ego, WETA will never be recognized for it…

MONAGHAN: No. Never. Poor Richard Taylor, I feel for him. And the sad thing with Viggo is he has a son. He has a young child, Henry – who's 15 now – who's now having to see and be influenced by his father. And we're all trying to protect Henry from basically being brought up by Frankenstein's monster.

IGNFF: That's almost a case to make him a ward of the state…

MONAGHAN: Seriously, we've already offered to look after Henry. Elijah and I said that we'd adopt him, and I think we're in the process of trying to make that happen, because it's hell seeing this young man be around this freak of nature, pretty much, you know?

IGNFF: I think the case is open and shut…

MONAGHAN: Yeah, I mean, why not? I'm going to make up a few pins for when we do this premiere tour… It'll be stuff like "Imprison Viggo," "Keep away from Viggo – He Bites."…

IGNFF: "Free Henry"…

MONAGHAN: Things like that. Because he shouldn't be allowed out in public unless he's in some sort of straitjacket. He also has a filthy, filthy potty mouth.

IGNFF: I also heard that he hit that transvestite with his wooden leg…

MONAGHAN: I mean, I'm kind of done with it. I don't have that much time for him anymore.

IGNFF: But he's the type that would probably stalk you…

MONAGHAN: You think? I mean, he's very physically strong…

IGNFF: But you would probably hear the wooden leg…

MONAGHAN: Oh Jesus Christ… Can you imagine that? Star hit with Viggo's wooden leg – that'll be the headline in the Enquirer when this comes out.

IGNFF: Besides all these revelations about Viggo, is there anything else that hasn't been asked of you or documented in some way?

MONAGHAN: I mean, there's obviously a few stories that kind of slipped under the radar…

TBC

IGNFF: Where are the home movies? Billy talked about all these home movies you guys did that he feels should be released…

MONAGHAN: Oh yeah, there's a bunch. Orlando's probably got 4 or 5 videocassettes, Billy's probably got about the same, I've probably got about 3 or 4, and also in the reshoots that we went to I've probably got about 7 or 8. Elijah had a video camera over there, Sean Astin… All in all, there's probably about 20 or 30 private tapes from us guys. But what will probably happen with that, because we have such a good relationship with Pete, is that at some point in the future – probably 10, 15 years or whatever – we'll probably all sit down and watch some old footage and Pete will say, "Ohhh, can I have that and can I use that?" And then they'll bring out a Commemorative 25 Years Anniversary Collector's Edition of Lord of the Rings that will have those guys, those little cherubs, running around in Wellington having fun.

IGNFF: Or you could just set up a 1-900 number and do Hobbits Gone Wild…

MONAGHAN: (laughing) Yeah!