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Castaway
Monaghan of "Lost" is
no longer an innocent,
furry-footed hobbit
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As a tormented rock star, his drug of choice is heroin, which makes you want to suck powder up your nose.
Brutal place, the real world. Real as in the world of television drama, which has crashed-landed Monaghan onto a forgotten island to fight for survival against the elements and a mysterious jungle menace -- hopefully for several seasons.
No longer an innocent, furry-footed hobbit, Monaghan joins a large cast of castaways in the made-in-Hawaii drama "Lost," a pivot point in ABC's new fall lineup.
Monaghan plays Charlie, bass guitarist in a band of minor note. "Charlie has delusions of grandeur, that his band is better than they are," Monaghan says. Still, "I think he feels music, a lot. It's kind of a crutch for him."
His ultimate crutch, though, is the white powder. "He's on the island with a bag of heroin. He'll probably run out about Episode 5."
The show will confront Charlie's addiction to a point, Monaghan says. He'll be shown smoking and snorting but not shooting up. "This is ABC. They don't want an ex-hobbit to be mainlining."
Ex-hobbit. An inescapable identity. Of the large ensemble cast of "Lost," it is Matthew Fox of "Party of Five" who has been put forward as the major player, but Monaghan, coming off the humongous success of "The Lord of the Rings," naturally attracts attention.
Damon Lindelof, executive producer and creator of the series, notes that Monaghan's "loyal -- and rabid -- fan base" is a bonus for the show, but not so much as the 27-year-old actor's way with the part.
"When we started looking to cast the role of Charlie, our idea was that he'd be a has-been rock star in his early 40s. Dom came in and read for us, and five minutes later we were figuring out how to make the character much younger. He was just that good."
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Hair trimmed, a bit of beard on the cheeks and that button-down period costume exchanged for a slim T-shirt, Monaghan remains recognizable yet of another world. "Out of his makeup -- and at regular height, he's not hobbit-sized at all -- he actually has quite a different look," Lindelof says.
For his part, Monaghan is not on the run from Middle-earth. "I love that film and I'm totally invested in it." The conviction in his voice is clear. That he might always be thought of as a hobbit -- well, there are worse things.
"You're always going to be associated with the biggest thing you've done. Harrison Ford has done so many things, but he'll always be Han Solo."
He recalls auditioning for the film in London, where casting directors were scouring the land for actors of a certain age and body type. Monaghan was appearing in a play that required a shaved head, which had drawn the unwanted attention of modern-day orcs on the subway. ("They didn't understand why I had no hair.")
So he auditioned at a visual disadvantage: "I was a skinhead, I had a cold and I had been beaten up in the tube." Still, Monaghan's delivery of "a hobbity kind of speech" won him several call-backs and eventually the part of Merry, devoted friend of the principal hobbit, Frodo.
"I had a week to go back and sell my house, say goodbye to my friends," he says. Cast and crew moved to director Peter Jackson's New Zealand base for 18 months of filming three movies.
"It's easily the most amazing choice I've ever made, in acting, in my life. Saying yes to Peter Jackson brought me here."
Monaghan's world now is Mokuleia Beach, the principal set of "Lost," and his adopted Kailua neighborhood, an hour's drive away. He left behind a home in Los Angeles and an exotic collection of companions.
"I left my spider with a friend of mine; my snake is with another friend," he ticks off the list. "I got rid of my scorpions and cockroaches."
Got rid of? "I just freed my cockroaches. I took my scorpions to a canyon." Those would be "big, black Egyptian scorpions." Two males.
He has new friends now: "Every time I see a lizard, I bring it in the house. ... One of them sits on the cushion of my sofa. He watches TV, watches me play PlayStation."
He's grown comfy in Kailua -- "I've become very domesticated ... joined the local video store" -- and is a frequent patron of Lanikai Juice. They even keep his frequent-drinker card at the cash register, where it fills up quickly, sometimes at several stamps per day. One particular shake, he says, "makes me feel like a superhero."
He'll occasionally be recognized, asked for an autograph or a picture. "It doesn't bother me in any way. You can't dismiss the people who made 'Lord of the Rings' the biggest movie of all time." But mostly, he says, he gets a lot of confused looks from people who think he might be famous but aren't sure.
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He was clearly picked out, though, on a recent trip to the movies in Kaneohe. "Somebody recognized me on the way in, so on the way out three or four people were waiting to get me. I heard them saying, 'Where is he?'"
In the shadow of a hat and shades, he ducked out. "I just saw 'The Bourne Supremacy.' I kind of felt like a spy."
To his role of rock star on "Lost," Monaghan brings some real-life experience, the highlight being the inexplicable "Half Fling," recorded with "Rings" stars Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood in a squeaky, chipmunk language that Monaghan claims he and Wood actually understand. "It's all in the tone."
The song and a few others -- "out of five hours of very rough material" -- made their way onto Mortensen's "pandemoniumfromamerica" CD. Fellow hobbit Billy Boyd was also in attendance.
It helped, he says, being "drunk as monkeys."
He speaks regularly with Ringsters Mortensen, Wood, Boyd and Orlando Bloom. They're planning a New Year's reunion on Kauai.
Plus, he's working on a screenplay with Boyd, which "Rings" producer Barrie Osborne is interested in filming. "It's a comedy vehicle for Billy and me," Monaghan says. "We've yet to read a comedy we really want to do. Or they give it to Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, and we have to get in line."
They're writing in cameos for all their "Rings" buddies.
A TV series was not they way Monaghan had meant to follow up his "Rings" exposure. In fact, he's made five films, mostly smaller British productions, since "The Return of the King" wrapped in 2001.
Pre-"Rings," Monaghan appeared for two years in the British TV series "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates." "I never really wanted to repeat myself," he says.
But American and British TV are different creatures. "American TV, more is invested in it. The general public seems to give it a little more caché."
The important thing, he says, is to meet the demand of new, challenging roles -- to do the unexpected.
"You have to show the audience that has invested time in you playing a cuddly good guy that you can play a guy with a little more edges."
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