Lord of the Rings stars Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd have told fans about a comical nude scene which was removed from The Two Towers.
The actors, who play bumbling hobbits Merry and Pippin in Peter Jackson’s popular fantasy film trilogy, appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this week.
Host Colbert made reference to reports that Amazon’s forthcoming Lord of the Rings series had hired an intimacy co-ordinator, and may feature nudity – which caused some amount of consternation among Tolkien fans.
“Here’s the thing. There was almost nudity in the movies — me and Dom,” Boyd said in response.
The nude scene, which featured the two of them, was apparently printed in scripts but cut before it was ever filmed.
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Lord of the Rings writer Philippa Boyens devised the scene as a “gag” after the actors had been “winding people up and having a bit of fun.”
“She wrote a scene that she said, ‘Oh, it’s a new scene, we’re filming next week with the Ents, with Treebeard,” Boyd explained. “So when Merry and Pippin are up Treebeard, he gets afraid and shakes his branches, which makes you guys fall.”
“It makes you guys fall and as you hit all the branches on the way down, by the time you hit the ground, you’re naked.”
The hobbits then remark to one another that they’re “cold”, with the character of Pippin saying: “Hold me, Merry.”
Boyd says he then called up his co-star and said: “Have you seen this new scene?”
“I was kind of into it,” joked Monaghan. “I have a really fantastic ass, and I thought that now’s the time to get it out.”
