Dominic Monaghan

Dominic: I've been heartbroken once, (but) I look at it as an occupational hazard. If you are in the meat market, at some point you're gonna get mad cow disease.

Dominic: (on his character, Charlie, being written out of "Lost" as a hero) I was pretty passionate about that. I was pretty gung-ho about: If I'm gonna go, If that's how it's gonna be, then I have to go out like a hero. If they kill me, and it's for a great reason and it's a great episode that is significant, then that's completely cool.

Dominic: (on his "Lost" character, Charlie) He's a beautiful guy, Charlie, but he's a victim, and I've never really seen myself as a victim. I have a lot of sentimental care over him because I think he's a guy who's trying to make things right, but I didn't really understand a lot of the decisions that he made. If it was me I think I'd probably be spending more time on my own, and I'd probably be a little bit more savvy about this group. Charlie just seems to be in need of help all the time, he's a bit of a weakling, he's a cry-baby.

Dominic: (on Charlie, the character he portrays on "Lost") Charlie is just quite different from me. He doesn't speak like I would speak, he doesn't say the things I would say, he certainly doesn't make the decisions that I would make, he hasn't lived the life that I would live.

Dominic: The make-up artist on Lost said I was easily the most abused actor on the show. I've been beaten up, blown up, I've been a drug addict and I've been in a real mess so it was good to have that prize - the most beaten up actor on the show.

Dominic: My mum and dad just loved the fact that I fooled around. They just embraced it. They'd always kind of enjoy it, and they liked it when I made them laugh.

Dominic: I'd always be the kid up singing and dancing and telling jokes and fooling around, and high energy. I must have been a nightmare for my parents.

Dominic: I was the class clown, so I was used to performing and fooling around in front of my friends.

Dominic: I think a lot of young kids at school are very conscious of trying to keep credibility in case they kind of stand out in a crowd and get bullied by trying to stay cool and stuff. And my whole thing, all the way through school, was I was just a goof... I didn't care.

Dominic: (on leaving LOST) It's time to move on. There's a whole bunch of opportunities that have been up in the air as I couldn't commit to them because of Lost.

Dominic: (on his character Charlie Pace being killed off of LOST) I think lots of people are gonna be pretty pissed off. Especially as there are others on the show they are more keen on having disappear.

Dominic: (about when he moved to LA in 2001) It was a lot of drugs and drinking and womanizing and being lonely and feeling like my life was out of control.

Dominic: My family are from Galway, I've got relatives in Sligo, and obviously somewhere along the line my family are from County Monaghan. I really like Dublin; there are a lot of places that I go in Ireland, but mainly Galway, which I think is beautiful.

Dominic: (on his character Charlie being killed off on LOST) It's something Damon and I have been chatting about since Season 1. I've said to him, "You know, it might be kind of fun to go out with a bang." I'm an actor. Jobs end, and I go do other jobs. It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of a job.

Dominic: (on filming 'Lord of the Rings') It was good fun. I think guys in general like the action part of things. We were lucky enough throughout the whole of the filming to have a personal trainer who went to the gym with us. We learnt how to kayak, learned how to sword fight and a little bit of archery, all that stuff, horse riding and things.

Dominic: I always feel the same with jobs. If you've been working on something for three years, it's probably going to be a year and a half of not working and not having a great time and having the blues until you come out the other side and that's what you have to deal with.

Dominic: I've not lived anywhere for any permanent amount of time for about 12 years. I mean, I'm from Manchester. If someone ever says, where are you from, I say Manchester. I moved out of Manchester when I was 22 and went to New Zealand for nearly two and-a-half years; LA for two years and now I've been living in Hawaii for two years.

Dominic: I was moving around so much that I had to make friends quite quickly as a kid. Every three years we would move to a new city, and I would have to be constantly impressing myself onto people immediately, because I knew I only had three years to be friends with them before I took off.

Dominic: (on LOST) I'd like them to do four or maybe five great seasons and then we'll do, like, a couple of movies, and it'll be like a big event. Stringing it out and losing the quality is not what we want.

Dominic: (On what working on 'Lost' is like) It's a very hard--working, very Hawaiian feeling. The sun is an oppressive master and forces you to slow down and take it easy and sit in the shade and we're a very chatty, talkative kind of bunch when we're all together.

Dominic: I bring sunshine into people's hearts just through my talking and my mind work.

Dominic: We work so well with Peter Jackson, because Pete understands Hobbits so well. Because he is a Hobbit. He has so many Hobbit qualities to him.

Dominic: If my house caught fire I would save myself and anyone in there and I would try and save all the diaries and letters that I have collected as everything else is replaceable. And I would sit on the lawn watching my house burn cherry red and record it in my diary.

Dominic: I like to have a tidy kitchen but I am not too bothered about my room or living room etc. My theory is that when it's untidy I feel comfortable, like it feels lived in, and its only gonna get untidy if you tidy it so wait, wait, wait.

Dominic: My initial reaction to being cast as Merry was one of silent wide smiling reflection for a couple of minutes, and then of a huge rush of adrenaline, and I have to confess a small amount of alcohol intake!

Dominic: Merry is the sharpest and wittiest of the hobbits, he's very intelligent, quick thinking and very observant. At the start of the movie he is in the prime of his life, very happy, very content. He has a big fat tummy and has led a good life. We find Merry not wanting to leave his home at all.

Dominic: I've always had itching feet. I like being on the move every couple of years.

Dominic: I'm in this position where I can afford to wait, I'm lucky enough to be financially secure to not have to do anything that's thrown at me. You know the next couple of jobs are going to be pretty crucial in terms of how you're perceived by people. So I'm just waiting.

Dominic: Life has a way of kicking you in the ass... or smearing chocolate on your bum.

Dominic: I hold Treebeard [in the Lord of the Rings] quite close to my heart. He takes things very slowly - he knows that he'll live forever, so he can spend as much time as he wants mulling things over. I'm turned on by that because I don't think that way.

Dominic: Growing up, I liked Jerry of Tom and Jerry. He was the little guy who was more clever than the big guy even though he wasn't as strong. I identified with that going through school. I also like Mighty Mouse. I like the little guys who come through in the end.

Dominic: I mean, theater acting for me is the true form. It's the real place where you learn, the place where you practice, the place where you can take risks and try things out, and I think what film acting is when you've perfected what you're doing and it's a polished piece of work, then you do it on film.

Dominic: Being an actor's about imagination and you have to keep extending your imagination.

Dominic: I've always traveled, as a kid my parents moved me around, a different place in Germany every four years. But I got the travel bug when I was a kid, living in different countries.

Dominic: When I was a kid, we would travel to England in our car, from Germany, and listen to storybook tapes and one of them was The Hobbit. So we were aware of Bilbo and Gandalf and all that kind of stuff.

Dominic: If I could uninvent anything, I would uninvent Hitler's mum, guns, and broccoli.

Dominic: Just cos I'm an actor, there's a lot of other stuff that I really like to do. Definitely writing and things like that.

Dominic: I used to get quite upset that I'd make friends with a guy or a girl and then within the space of three years we'd move and go and live somewhere else, and you'd have to say goodbye to that person.

Dominic: I was never a big guy in pubs. I was never the main kind of aggressor or anything like that, but I found myself in trouble because I always had a mouth that would come back with something, and there was just never anyone who could make me be quiet.

Dominic: I won't miss having to stand for two hours at 4:30 a.m. and having freezing cold glue applied to my feet. I won't miss two-hour drives to work or long, long, long, days sitting in my trailer waiting... waiting... waiting. I won't miss glue in my ears. But I would do it all again tomorrow.

Dominic: Elijah's a cool guy. I think the thing that linked Elijah and I together was that we have an intense geek-like love for music. We can both sit around and talk for hours and hours about Coldplay, Eminem and Radiohead.

Dominic: I do quite like all the screaming crowds. I'm a big fan of the ladies, so to have them come to me without any real effort is amazing.

Dominic: I would like to be remembered as someone who could make people laugh. I would just like to be remembered really.

Dominic: I'd love to play a gangster but I think people might say I looked a bit too young and cheeky to play a character who'd just blown someones head off!

Dominic: (On using brown sugar to simulate heroin while filming Lost) You have to be careful not to snort too much of it, but it's happened a few times. You just find dessert up your nose a couple of hours later.

Dominic: College was a huge time for me to grow and try out new things. I mean, I guess I really started to embrace--by that point--being an individual.

Dominic: I could always flip between emotions and be available to suddenly do something new. I think it's a part of playing, and you hang onto it when you're a kid.

Dominic: I have a huge issue with people pushing religious beliefs on to me as well. I guess, to a certain extent, I pretty much know who I am.

Dominic: I have been heart-broken once, and it has affected all my relationships from there on. But now I look at it as a occupational hazard.

Dominic: I think deep down I've always wanted to be an actor. It was the one thing in school that I was undoubtedly enthusiastic about and good at. I coasted along being good at German, Geography, English and football but there wasn't anything that I could really call my thing, my niche.

Dominic: I was kind of like the cheeky kid in school. Nothing too malicious... Nothing too nasty... I never really got into too many fights, but I was the practical joker.

Dominic: The great thing about Lost is that it's being led by the characters.

Dominic (On the first time he met Evangeline Lilly) I was really charmed.

Dominic: Every experience I've had with fans has been positive. They politely ask questions and I try to answer as best I can.

Dominic: The [Lost] producers have been trying to get Billy Boyd to play my brother. They were pretty keen on that idea from the start. Elijah [Wood] has the kind of face that would work on the show--he's always looking shocked. And he's always calling. It's possible.