TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE An evening with Maureen Beattie and friends. Join us for an evening of poetry and prose celebrating love in all its guises. Maureen Beattie presents a special revue show for one night only to help raise funds for the Seat Restoration campaign. From the wit of Oscar Wilde to the glorious poetry of Robert Burns, from the sketches of Victoria Wood to the plays of William Shakespeare. Maureen has assembled a dream cast including Simon Russell Beale, described by The Independent as “the greatest stage actor of his generation”, Scottish stage and TV star Siobhan Redmond and Lord of the Rings favourite Billy Boyd. 14 Apr 2013 The event will include a celebrity auction hosted by Johnny Beattie and BBC TV star and auctioneer Anita Manning. CELEBRITY AUCTION Bring your wallets on the night to bid on a host of great prizes donated by celebrities in our charity auction. Prizes include: - An original painting by Scottish artist Robert Kelsey - A photo donated by Alan Cumming - A script & DVD of the film Decoy Bride signed by its stars David Tennant and Kelly MacDonald - Dinner with Tam Cowan reviewing a Glasgow restaurant - A meal for two with Johnny Beattie and Libby McArthur and a copy of the River City book signed by the whole cast - and more to be announced
All proceeds to the Citizens Theatre Seat Restoration Fund Read more at the Citizens Theatre website
Swingcats find purr-fect way to help out their canine friends
Scottish girl group enlist stars to help make video to raise money for The Dogs Trust.
A Scottish group called the Swingcats are raising cash for dogs.
All profits of the trio’s new single The One are being donated to The Dogs Trust.
And they persuaded dog-lovers John Barrowman, Lord of the Rings star
Billy Boyd and Still Game’s Paul Riley to star in the video.
The song was inspired by singer Alyson Orr’s dog Angus, who died a month ago.
Alyson said: “Angus was a second-hand dog and I wanted to give something
back. Many dogs need loving new homes – often after suffering terrible
cruelty.”
Once the Swingcats – Alyson, Laura Ellis and Nicola Auld – had finished the song they pulled in some favours to make the video.
Alyson added: “I knew John was a big supporter of the Dogs Trust so when
he was in Glasgow doing panto I asked if he’d be willing to help and he
gave up his time in between shows.
“Billy is a friend of mine and I also wanted someone to play a traffic warden and asked Paul, who said yes.”
Original source: Daily Record
Billy Boyd at Wales Comic Con and Melbourne Armageddon Expo
Billy Boyd will be attending Wales Comic Con in Wrexham (Wales) on April 28, 2013, according to Boyd-oh-Boyd.
For more information, check out the official page of the event.
Read more at Boyd-oh-Boyd
Billy will also be attending Armageddon Expo in Melbourne (Australia) on October 19/20, 2013, according to Basically Billy Boyd.
For more information, check out the official page of the event.
Source: BasicallyBillyBoyd
Dominic Monaghan & Billy Boyd *Live* On TORn (TUESDAY Webcast)!
It has been a very long while since both Merry & Pippin were back
together causing mischief!
TheOneRing.net is quite thrilled to host our
*EXCLUSIVE* live webcast
featuring our very own Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan on a special
edition of TORn TUESDAYS (at a special earlier time)! Join host Clifford
Quickbeam Broadway as we broadcast live from Meltdown Comics in the
heart of Hollywood, at 1:00pm Pacific Time on Tuesday afternoon, not the
usual 5pm! Dom will be talking about the launch of his new series on
BBC America: WILD THINGS WITH DOMINIC MONAGHAN and Billy will bring the musical goods as his band BEECAKE
have just launched a wonderful new album, Blue Sky Paradise (available
on iTunes Store)…. You will see Beecake perform *live* at our huge Oscar
Event on February 24th: The One Expected Party!
The two young hobbits have expanded their careers to great heights,
and here is your chance to catch up with them both!
Natural High: The Making of Irvine Welsh’s 'Ecstasy'
Trevor Hogg chats with filmmaker Rob Heydon about his feature length début along with actors Adam Sinclair and Billy Boyd...
Irvine Welsh and Rob Heydon
“After seeing the film Trainspotting [1996] and The Acid House [1998] in cinemas in Canada with a Scottish writer friend, Paul McCafferty who eventually co-wrote the screenplay for Ecstasy[2011],”
recalls filmmaker Rob Heydon as to the when he was introduced to the
works of author Irvine Welsh. “I first became aware of Irvine Welsh
when I was at Drama School and the novel Trainspotting had just been released,” states Scottish actor Adam Sinclair (To End All Wars).
“Everyone in the school was doing the famous speech, ‘Choose a job.
Choose a big fucking television. Choose life.’ All these kids over
Scotland were reading books from an author who wrote the same way they
spoke. He was very much part of a generation writing about stuff that
most of the youth could relate to. It made them feel like they had a
voice. Then the film happened and Scotland was put on the map in an
international arena.” The story about heroin addicts resonated with
Billy Boyd who is best know for playing one of hobbits in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001 to 2003). “Everybody was reading Trainspotting.
It was quite a big book at the time the world over not only in
Britain. I read it and then there was a play made while I was at drama
school at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh which I missed. Kelly
Macdonald [No Country for Old Men] was working in a bar called
the Brunswick Cellars and I remember meeting her there. I had just left
college and was about to do the play of Trainspotting as the film was about to come out. We were talking about Trainspotting
and Irvine Welsh, and how great it was to work on his stuff and what
was the difference between the play and the film? I didn’t audition for
the film because I was still at drama school when it was being made but
I was in the play and we toured Britain which was amazing. It was a
cross of being an actor and a rock star because the theatres would
usually sellout in minutes. Before the play would go on we would play a
lot of Leftfield, a lot of great club music and people were so up for
the play. That was cool. Irvine Welsh is well known. It probably is
thought about as a cult [following] as he writes about the underbelly of
society or the stuff people don’t want to talk or write about. I love
the way he writes. Like with Lloyd in Ecstasy; it might be people involved in the darker side of society but doesn’t mean that they’re not intelligent or poetic.”
Being a fan and filmmaker, Rob Hayden acquired the movie rights to the short story The Undefeated which was included in the best-selling book Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance
by Irvine Welsh. Lloyd Buist (Adam Sinclair) attempts to start his own
enterprise selling ecstasy pills with his buddies Ally (Keram
Malicki-Sánchez) and Woodsy (Billy Boyd) which puts him in conflict with
volatile drug dealer Solo (Carlo Rota) who feels betrayed. “It helped
and hindered,” admits Rob Hayden when discussing the popularity of the
cinematic predecessor helmed by Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), and starring Ewan McGregor (The Impossible) and Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty). “People will always compare any Irvine Welsh film to Trainspotting, butEcstasy is not Trainspotting nor Wizard of Oz [1939] or Lawrence of Arabia
[1962]. It is a Cinéma vérité [ala French New Wave]; a style film
meaning on location sound, and shot on location with a mostly hand held
camera. Ecstasy is a small slice of a life story about a clubber in
Scotland.” Adam Sinclair observes, “The success of Trainspotting was always going to be big boots to fill. A lot of people wanted it to be Trainspotting 2; however, this was never the intention of the filmmakers or even by Irvine himself who said he wrote Ecstasy
as his attempt at a twisted love story. We had to acknowledge in the
film that this was a brainchild of the same man but then it stands as a
film in its own right. But the comparisons will always be made and that
is due to the huge success of Trainspotting.” Co-star Billy Boyd adds, “It did a bit because Trainspotting
was the movie of it’s time. It’s an incredible film. Beautifully shot
and acted, a great story. Coming from the same writer it has to be
there. But we forgot about and because Rob Hayden has his own style and
philosophy on life; a lot of that is in Ecstasy as well as
Irvine’s incredible writing. There is a lot of Rob Hayden in there so
it’s obviously a different thing. I don’t think we got to caught up
with it other than the people are from the same place.”
The project had been in development since 2000. “Yes and no,” responds
Rob Hayden when asked whether the long delay resulted in his initial big
screen vision evolving into something different. “The music was better
and the only scene that had to be cut from filming was two scenes of
special effects.” A particular literary moment involving Lloyd and
Heather, the married woman he falls in love with was a top priority for
the native of Toronto, Ontario to adapt cinematically. “The scene where
the couple is opening up on bed after making love for the first time;
the delivery by Adam Sinclair and Kristin Kreuk [EuroTrip] mixed
with the music was perfect.” As for the key of retaining the spirit of
the source material, Hayden remarks, “Keeping the voice of Irvine Welsh
alive in the characters while making a story that works for the screen.”
Despite the delay in the production, certain casting decisions did not
change. “Billy Boyd I met with in Scotland in 2002 and he was always
attached to the project. Woodsy was written specifically with him in
mind.” The writer-director gave the performer from Glasgow, Scotland a
couple of books to read. There was a lot of stuff about conspiracy
theories, aliens, spirituality, and religion,” recalls Boyd. “I was
reading a lot of that stuff so I could get into the head of someone who
was trying to think outside of the box. Who was trying to get other
ideas of what is reality? What is life? Why are we here? I read a lot
of that kind of stuff and religious texts of from different things such
as the Bhagavad Gita and stuff from The Bible.” Boyd was
not alone in waiting for the movie to be made. “I lived with the
character of Lloyd for several years before we eventually got round to
filming, so over that time I gathered lots of little things that I
thought were him,” reveals Adam Sinclair. “When I arrived on set I had
his shoes [Very important. Always know what kind of shoes your character
wears. It changes so many things], and several items of clothing. I
also filled in all the blanks as to his backstory. The audience never
finds this out but it does give me more to play within each scene.”
“Obviously after the cult following that came up after Danny Boyle's
film, and everything it did for all the cast, doing an Irvine Welsh
story seemed like the perfect opportunity for a young Scottish actor,”
recalls Adam Sinclair as to what led him to screen test for Ecstasy.
“I read the script having already read the book and related to the
character of Lloyd. Many of his life experiences were similar to my own
and I was part of the dance culture that was growing in Scotland in the
1990s. Not sure what landed me the role but I do remember dropping my
trousers in one audition. Maybe that was the cruncher.” The native of
East Kilbride, Scotland did not rely solely on the screenplay. “For
research, I went back and read Irvine's entire back catalogue. I could
see that every character he writes has a little element of him in there,
so I decided to take little bits from each of them. The story we did
was only a novella so I had to get more information about who this guy
was. The book Glue was an extremely helpful read. The script
also had a lot of musical references and with my wife being a deejay I
had her make me the film's playlist; that got me back to a time and
place I remembered very well from my younger days.” Sinclair remarks,
“When I'm acting, I try not to base a performance on anything I've seen
before because then it becomes exactly that, a performance. I tried to
relate every scene to a personal experience and deliver the lines as
honestly as possible.” The actor and the protagonist of the tale have
become entwined. “I don't see Lloyd as a character so much anymore; he
feels like an old aspect of me, a phase I grew out of. He is the eternal
Peter Pan, shunning most responsibilities but with his heart in the
right place. A kind of state that most of us are in in our youth, but as
we grow older we take on more responsibilities and therefore have to
step up and be answerable for what we do in life. Lloyd was coming
round to that by the end of the film.”
Almost every shot in the movie features Adam Sinclair. “The only test
of endurance was doing all of the dancing stuff,” states Sinclair.
“When you have a location for filming you usually only have it for that
day so all the dance scenes are filming consecutively. After a 14 hour
day of that I could barely walk to the toilet back at my hotel. Being
in most scenes is a great thing for an actor as you really get to live
with and be the character, unlike most gigs where you show up for a few
days filming here and there; this means you constantly have to find him
again and again. A particular sequence focuses on the facial reaction
of the actor who is bent over while the drugs to be smuggled are shoved
into a rather painful hiding place. “To be fair, I was just going for
pure comedy in that scene. I was trying to get the timing right for the
laugh.” The central performer of the dark romantic comedy developed a
creative partnership with his director. “Rob and I talked a lot up to
and over the course of filming; he was very open to my ideas and
personal experiences that I could bring to the table. From here, we
would work out what was going to be best for the scene and the movie.
The process felt very collaborative so I never felt he was telling me
what I had to do.” When it came to portraying the part of the Woodsy,
Billy Boyd remarks, “Before we started filming, I wasn’t sure of the
style which Rob was going to film so I was trying to get the character
real and believable and as intense as it could be. Once you get on his
set and see what the style is and how everyone else is pitching their
performance you become part of that world.”
Getting the costume right was important in helping Billy Boyd to immerse
himself in playing Woodsy. “Rob did an interesting thing that made it
difficult but also wonderful; he didn’t say, ‘Look. This is 1992.’ And
you go, ‘I know exactly what they’re wearing and the music they’re
listening to.’ As a deejay you would want to know that but you wanted
it set in a never time, not an exact moment. In a way you have to be
specific and real with your character but also slightly a stereotype of a
clubber or deejay. I went classic. I said to the costume lady, ‘It has
to be Adidas Trainers or Adidas Sambas or something like that and top
has to be a Fred Perry. You could wear that now or you could’ve worn it
in 1992.” Reflecting on his character, Boyd states, Although Woodsy is
quite intense, dramatic and takes too much drugs which puts him in a
different consciousness, he’s real and looking for the truth. Woodsy is
a searcher; if he was born into money and his parents put him on the
right path he would have taken a year out in India and found what he was
looking for. But being someone born in Leith with no money, Woodsy
found that by taking ecstasy, dancing and getting into the music.” To
research his role, Boyd sought the expertise of a professional deejay.
I did meet with Davey Forbes here in Glasgow who is a big deejay though
he is now more of a music producer. He was a deejaying in the early
1990s all of the big raves here out in fields in Perth. Davey taught me
how to deejay with vinyl. I went to his studio and we spent a couple
of nights as he would do matching all of that stuff which I loved. Some
of my favourite moments on-set were between takes when you could play
the music and try to mix it. It was good fun. Davey was a huge help in
finding Woodsy and also little things that deejays do. How do you slow
down a record or speed it up?” The Hospital Sequence where Woodsy
declares, ‘My drugs are better than yours!’ is a favourite of the actor.
“That was one of those moments where Rob let you do your thing. There
were some lines for that but it was a small scene. Rob had set-up the
supporting cast to do this band thing; I was supposed to be conducting
it and trying to past the days. I’ve spoken to drug addicts before when
doing Trainspotting and they were talking about how your day is
based around the drug. Where to get it? Where to take it? His days
would have been filled with the drugs, the music, picking up the right
records and to be in a hospital which have given him terrible drugs to
help him with what he’s dealing with. Woodsy was trying to find some
joy in there and felt he was helping people. With Rob, when I asked to
ad-lib it a bit he let that go. We did tones of takes of it and I could
see him in the corner of my eye giggling away behind the monitor. It
was good fun.”
40 trips to the United Kingdom were required to compose the screenplay
which was co-written by Rob Heydon and Ben Tucker with additional scenes
supplied by Paul McCafferty. “Locations in Canada that could play as
Scotland or Amsterdam and locations in Scotland that worked for the
story,” explains Heydon as to what he looked for during his location
scouting which resulted in the principle photography taking place in
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. “The Nightclub was a perfect night out in
Scotland. John Digweed is from Edinburgh and mentioned in the book; he
happened to be playing the weekend we were in Edinburgh.” The time
spent on previous projects had an impact on the production. “Working
on music videos helps you learn how to shoot quickly. We had 14 days of
main unit photography which is very short for any film. Then two days +
one night in Amsterdam to cover that location and shooting on planes
overnight on the flight over to Amsterdam then one another plane to
Scotland. We shot in the airport in Edinburgh, and six days of mostly
exteriors in Edinburgh; it was a VERY tight schedule for any feature
film production. It is a miracle any film ever gets made, but especially
hard for independent films.” The cast had to be prepared for their
roles once the cameras started rolling. “We didn't have a lot of time
on this shoot so most people were on their A game,” says Adam Sinclair.
“A lot of the really emotional stuff was given time together right,
which I think it needed, but time was not our greatest ally.” When
comparing what it was like acting in a Hollywood blockbuster as compared
to a $1 million production, Billy Boyd observes, “When we were doing
Ecstasy there were 50 people at lunch whereas with The Lord of the Rings
there a thousand at some points. Other than that the actual work of
standing in front of a camera with other actors trying to get a scene to
work with a director, the DOP and the lighting is exactly the same.
There is no huge difference. In something like Lord of the Rings
with Peter Jackson there was a lovely feeling where you kept on going
until it was right. If that took two days more than it was suppose to
that was okay. On independent productions you don’t have that but it
creates a different energy. The basic answer is that there is no great
difference in being in an independent or a huge production. It all
comes down to getting the characters and scenes right.”
The Canadian Film Centre was a useful training ground. “I helped
produce a couple shorts there,” remarks Rob Heydon. “It did help to
know how to keep a film on track without much of a budget – think
creatively!!!” A number of cinematic influences were called upon during
the making of Ecstasy. “Stanley Kubrick [Paths of Glory], [Jean-Luc] Godard [Breathless], [François] Truffaut [The 400 Blows], and others in the French New Wave along with some Danny Boyle and Coen Brothers [Fargo]
for good measure.” Adam Sinclair states, “It's not so much I'm proud
of any particular scenes, but there are scenes I watch and I can see I'm
telling the truth. There's not a lot of acting shall we say. All the
stuff surrounding his father was very soul bearing for me, as I was
going through the same process with my own father at the time, so
everything that Lloyd is going through emotionally was the same in my
own life. I guess I'm proud that I had the courage to go there.”
Sinclair notes, “It's unique in the fact that fundamentally it’s a love
story set against this gritty backdrop. The EDM [Electronic Dance
Music] scene is growing again in Northern America so the younger ones
will see a love story set in there world. To misquote Mr Welsh, ‘Nobody
wants to see middle age rich people looking for love, like Sex and the
City.’ Heydon agrees. “It is a transformational love story from the
love of Ecstasy to the Ecstasy of LOVE.” Boyd points to another key
element, the cinematic vision of the man behind the camera. It was the
first Rob Hayden thing that we’ve seen on the screen; he and Irvine
Welsh worked well together.” Hayden enthusiastically advises, “Watch it
with an open mind. See where the story takes you!”
Lord of the Rings star Billy Boyd tells how his career is progressing on two fronts as both actor and singer with rock band Beecake.
British Actor Billy Boyd
With the Hobbit movie now in cinemas, there has been talk of how the stars of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy have fared.
While
the other members of the Fellowship of the Ring like Orlando Bloom,
Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean and Dominic Monaghan have continued
high-profile careers, some feel Billy Boyd, who played Pippin, has
fallen behind.
But the 43-year old is proud of what he’s achieved
and is continuing to achieve in his acting, but also making increasingly
gorgeous music with his band Beecake, whose second album Blue Sky
Paradise has just been released.
Billy said: “Those things don’t bother me. I’m enjoying what I do, I’m happy with the work I do.
“At
the end of my life, I hope I can look back and say, ‘they’re some good
films and some good albums – I wasn’t a cog in a machine, I felt part of
all the things I did’.
“I’m really happy with how it’s going.”
It’s
been a decade since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was
released, and Billy has made some great films like Master and Commander:
The Far Side of the World, On a Clear Day with Peter Mullan and The
Flying Scotsman.
His role as Woodsy in Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy, in 2011, was a revelation, though not a patch on Trainspotting.
He’s
also kept working in Scotland, making films like Stone of Destiny,
while raising his son Jack with wife Alison. He formed Beecake with his
schoolfriends, a melodic acoustic rock band who have released two albums
– Soul Swimming and Blue Sky Paradise. Billy doesn’t think he’s been
pushing acting aside to concentrate on his music.
He said: “I was playing in bands before I was an actor and I like the idea of not being one thing.
“I don’t think, ‘now I’m going to be an actor and I don’t play music’ or ‘now I’m going to be a musician and leave acting’.
“You have to give time to each of them but I like doing a bit of everything.
“If they bleed into each other – great.”
Billy Boyd and his band Beecake Rick Martin (bald), John Crawford (long hair), Billy Johnston (blond hair)
Last year he added yet another string to his bow, as producer on his latest film Space Milkshake.
He
said: “As well as being one of the actors in it, I was also producing
so I had a big part in the cut of the movie and one of Beecake’s songs
is on the final credits.”
No wonder, then, that he laughs off an interview that said he was broke.
What
being in Beecake has given him is a yearning to be more in charge of
what he’s doing. On new album Blue Sky Paradise, as well as writing the
album, they also arranged strings when needed and didn’t bring in a big
producer.
He said: “I felt part of it. It’s totally us.
“Sometimes
in a film, you go to a hotel room, then do your bit and then that’s it.
You don’t have anything to do with the editing part of it. The film
comes out a year later and you can’t even remember what you were doing
at the time.
“But with the band, you are in every part of it from
the music to designing the album sleeve. I even took some of the
photography for the album.”
Hopefully, many of you reading this will check out the album, but of course, others are interested in the world of Middle-earth.
While
Sir Ian McKellen is back in The Hobbit as Gandalf, and Elijah Wood, who
played Frodo, had a cameo role, Billy has no jealousy and no wish to go
back to the world that made him a globally-known actor.
He
laughed: “It’s like going back to college. You feel it’s moved on. You
still feel part of the world and what happens, but it’s nice it’s moved
on and someone else is doing it.”
He is still recognised as Pippin, although he feels most people in his hometown leave him in peace.
Billy Boyd as Pippin in Lord of the Rings
He said: “I’ve been with some of the most famous people in
the world and if you are just walking down the street, people don’t
notice you because they are in their world.
“The people who get noticed have three bodyguards and are wearing sunglasses. You can be noticed if you want to or not noticed.
“People are cool when they do recognise me. I think many like the fact that I choose to live in Scotland.
“I think Scottish people have this thing we like the idea of Scotland and of Scottishness, but we like to bring ourselves down.
“So it’s nice when people say it’s cool what you’ve done and are still living in Scotland.”
Billy certainly seems at ease with himself.
He
has a family and a life he could never have imagined growing up in
Glasgow and suffering the death of both parents before he was a
teenager.
The Scot can juggle acting and music while keeping more
control than he would do if he was part of the big Hollywood wheel, or
trying to be a musician and using a show like The X Factor.
He recently gave a talk to Scots schoolkids about acting and was surprised at their dreams.
He said: “My worry is people are more worried about being famous than about being good at something.
“I
was talking to some schoolkids and they all said they wanted to be
famous. I asked for what and they said it didn’t really matter.
“They were happy that famous is all they wanted to be, which is definitely wrong.”
As a musician he has no problems with shows like The X Factor, although he doesn’t watch it.
He
said: “It’s great when it finds a good artist and gets their music out
there. But I don’t know if it’s the best way. You can be very famous,
very fast and that’s scary.
“If you do a few songs and disappear, that’s painful, too.”
Despite his worldwide fame as an actor, Billy knows all about being a struggling artist. Beecake is no vanity project.
He would “love to be number one” and is turning it up a notch by doing more gigs this year.
He said: “It would be great to play T in the Park or RockNess.
“It’s nice to have finished our second album.
“To have things you’re proud of creatively is hugely satisfying.
“You
want stuff you can look back at and think, ‘that’s brilliant, I had a
great time doing it and I’m proud of it and I can still listen to it or
watch it’.”
Blue Sky Paradise, like Soul Swimming, was made in Blantyre recording studio Chem 19.
Unlike Soul Swimming, the songs hadn’t been played live first.
What
shines through is the same kind of excitement of early R.E.M –
beautiful organic, rootsy music, from a band making music they love
without an ear for the charts or pleasing a record label.
As the name suggests, Beecake is nectar for your soul.
He is best recognised for travelling through Middle Earth – but Billy Boyd is relishing his musical life on this Earth.
Billy Boyd, front, and his band Beecake
The Lord of the Rings star will be playing the Classic Grand on Saturday night with his band Beecake.
They're launching their second album, Blue Sky Paradise, a collection
of catchy pop-rock tunes, and the title represents Billy's own way of
looking at life.
"The idea is that looking out the window just now it's a gorgeous day
and sometimes in modern society you're so tied up with stuff like
mortgages that you actually miss what we're actually living in and how
beautiful the world is," explains Billy.
"Just look at a David Attenborough show and you realise that. If
you're worrying about getting a new car – who cares! As you get a bit
older and mature a bit, you think about these things, and how life is
much more about relationships, and enjoying this world that we all live
in."
As a musician and an actor both on screen and the stage, it seems
possible that Billy's own way of looking at the world was sometimes
distracted by cramming so much in. But he was able to put his busy
lifestyle to good use, writing several songs while on the road with the
touring Sunshine On Leith musical.
"As it was a musical I had my guitar with me and was practising songs," says Billy.
"And I wrote a lot of this album while touring this show, so what was
happening at that time, whether it was things happening personally to
me or to my friends or just watching the news in a hotel room, it was
all about that time in my life."
Billy's life has never been the same since he took the role of Pippin
in the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy. The series of smash hit
films meant he was suddenly being recognised all over the world, and
appearing at premieres before thousands of people.
Now the prequel, The Hobbit, has been released, and Billy has some advice for the likes of Martin Freeman, who stars in it.
"You can't explain what it's like touring the world with these films," he says.
"To go to Japan and have 100,000 people out in the street, it's a mad
experience. So I'm looking forward to hearing what Ken Stott – who
plays Balin the dwarf – and the others are making of it.
"I think I'll say that you need to take a step back from everything
now and again. Just look at what it is as everything is so hectic –
never let walking down the red carpet in front of all these people
become a normal thing, as it's something very special."
However it's smaller stages that Billy now has his eye on. After his
stint in Sunshine On Leith he's interested in securing more stage work,
and looking out for any parts that might tempt him.
"I thought I'd been on stage a lot more in the past few years then I
actually had, and during the tour I realised I hadn't been on stage with
a play that was running for a while for years," he explains.
"Just getting up every morning and learning the routines with a cast
that were all amazing and great singers was really exciting.
"I'd like to do more stage work in future. It's quite difficult as
you have to book so far in advance and you can be doing other things
too, so it has to be something you're really passionate about."
His music is the main aim at the end of 2012 though. This Saturday's
launch gig may also come with a special Christmas surprise, as Billy
gets into the spirit of the season.
"One of the boys said that we should bake mince pies for everyone,
but I'm not sure we'll get that far, although you never know, " he
laughs.
"I've never tried to cook them before! But I think we have to play a
Christmas song, I think the crowd will be expecting that. We better get
our heads down and learn one-"
Beecake, Classic Grand, Saturday, £10, 6:30pm. Blue Sky Paradise is available to buy through www.beecake.com.
Source (including photo): Evening Times
Billy Boyd talks hobbits ahead of the première of Jackson's latest epic Billy Boyd: The retired Hobbit is ready to watch Jackson's new film
He’s been kidnapped by orcs, charged Isengard with Treebeard and become servant to Denethor in Minas Tirith.
Now, actor Billy Boyd – who played Pippin in Peter Jackson’s Lord of
the Rings trilogy, has left the mischievous life of Peregrin Took behind
and settled back home in the west end of the city.
The RSAMD graduate is eagerly awaiting the release of the series’
prequel, The Hobbit, and will attend the London première on Wednesday
December 13. The movie, starring Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, is the
much-anticipated first chapter in Jackson’s second Tolkien trilogy and
stars another of Glasgow's actor sons - the Big Yin Billy Connolly, as a
dwarf.
Although he and fellow hobbit Merry (Dominic Monaghan), do not appear
in the film, Billy is excited to see one of his favourite childhood
books brought to life. As a youngster, Billy and his childhood friends
spent hours pouring over The Hobbit, and were committed to reading the
novel when they weren't playing football together.
“I was always a big fan of The Hobbit, I read it as a boy growing up in Cranhill,” said Billy.
“My friends and I were a big group of boys that liked playing
football and didn’t read books that much, but we all read it at the same
time – there were about ten of us.”
Although a life-long fan of the novel, Billy confesses that it wasn’t
until he secured the part of plucky young hobbit Pippin that he began
reading the rest of Tolkien’s canon of epic tales of adventure.
It was the absence of heroic hobbit Bilbo Baggins in the later novels
which deterred Billy from reading the books that followed, and Billy
shelved Tolkien's chronicles of Middle Earth until his career called for
him to pick the stories up once again.
“I didn’t really read the other Lord of the Rings books until I got the part in the films, then I read them all,” said Billy.
“In the beginning I just fell in love with Bilbo Baggins in the
Hobbit, and when it came to read the other books he wasn’t in it - there
was Frodo. I felt that I didn’t want to read it if Bilbo wasn’t in it.” Martin Freeman plays Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit
The hobbits as a race faced numerous difficulties in Middle Earth –
from battling Uruk-hai to convincing Ents to attack, but there were also
many challenges involved in playing this courageous clan of pint-sized
heroes.
Billy and his fellow actors endured several hours of hair and make-up
each day on set in order to accurately depict their characters – from
the tip of their pointed ears to the tufts of hair on their hobbit feet.
It's a makeover that Martin Freeman and the rest of The Hobbit trilogy
cast will be well accustomed to by now, and not one that Billy misses.
“Everyone goes on about John Rees Davies and the orcs and the make-up
they had to put on, but they didn’t have to do that every day,” said
Billy.
“It takes three hours to become a hobbit. You have a wig, ears, and
hobbits don’t have facial hair so you have to shave twice a day.
“You’ve got big hairy feet that take an hour to put on, and you have
to stand on a box because you couldn’t have the weight of your feet in
them. All this was happening at 4.30am in New Zealand’s South Island,
surrounded by snow.”
Billy names the metamorphosis from human to hobbit as the worst part
of being from the Shire, but says that the comraderie between his on-set
hobbit peers and being part of such a positive film trilogy more than
made up for the effort required in transformation.
“The best thing about being a hobbit was that there were four of us,” said Billy.
“You had Vigo who was the ‘man’ and Orlando the elf, John was the
dwarf, but there were four hobbits and we did everything together. We
came on set and we were like ‘ ‘yeah! Let’s go kill some orcs.’"
The friendship between hobbits worked on and off set, as Billy struck
up a firm friendship with fellow actor Dominic Monaghan who plays
Merry, and the two are currently working on a comedy film script about
two British guys who go on a road trip to America.
Currently turning his attention to being lead singer-songwriter in his Glasgow-based band Beecake,
Billy still appreciates the hoards of Lord of the Rings fanatics that
honour not only the legacy of Tolkein's books, but the film adaptations
that have followed.
“There’s lots of crazy fans, but they’re all a lot of fun. There’s
such a positive vibe about Lord of the Rings. People love Tolkien and
there’s such a good feeling surrounding the films.
"In Germany, there are weekends that you can go as your chosen
character. You go into the country and live as an elf for that weekend.
"It’s amazing to be part of something so positive. I’ve met some of my closest friends through Lord of the Rings."
Back home in Glasgow, Billy is now passing on his love of The Hobbit
to six-year-old son Jack, and Bilbo’s magical adventures in Middle Earth
have already sparked the little boy’s imagination.
"He loves it," said Billy.
"He's started asking questions about all the characters."
From Gandalf’s trickery of the trolls, Smaug the sly dragon and
Bilbo’s escape from the goblins, there are more than enough twists and
turns in this epic bedtime story to see Jack gain the same passion for
Tolkien as his dad.
The radio broadcast of Enquirer – a co-production from the National Theatre of Scotland, the London Review of Books, and Hopscotch Films - premièred on Friday 16 November.
Blending fact, anecdote and passionate opinion, Enquirer is a rapid
response to the unfolding events in the newspaper industry. It is based
on interviews with over forty journalists and was first performed in
June as a site-specific piece of theatre performed in an empty media
office block in Glasgow.
As
its tour draws to a close, we would like to invite you to listen to a
specially produced radio broadcast on Radio 4 (Friday 16
November at 9pm).
Edited and directed by Vicky Featherstone and John Tiffany, co-edited by Andrew O'Hagan. The Enquirer cast includes: Maureen Beattie, John Bett, Billy Boyd, James Anthony Pearson, Gabriel Quigley and Billy Riddoch.
In the meantime, you can visit the microsite at Enquirer
Billy Boyd & Dominic Monaghan writing movie comedy Lord of the Rings stars Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are putting the finishing touches on a film comedy they have been writing since becoming best friends on the set of the movie trilogy a decade ago.
The two Brits discovered they had a similar sense of humour on the New Zealand set of Peter Jackson's epic and producer Barry Osbourne was so impressed with the friends' film ideas he offered to help fund their debut as screenwriters.
The busy pair have reunited for writing sessions whenever their schedules permit and Monaghan tells Wenn that one recent creative spurt has given them both the confidence to take their project back to Osbourne.
He says, "Billy just stayed with me for the last few weeks. He and I have been writing a script for a long time, since we spent the best part of nine months in a tree together making Lord of the Rings. We found each other very funny and we wanted to work together.
"The producer of Lord of the Rings, Barry Osbourne said to us, 'You guys should come up with an idea for a script and I'll produce it.' We both love quality comedy, like Life of Brian and Dumb & Dumber and Spinal Tap and Being There and Pink Panther and we're circling around a couple of things right now that we've co-written with some actors.
"Hopefully, in the next six months or so, we'll have something real."
And Monaghan reveals Boyd isn't the only lifelong friend he made while shooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy - he often hangs out with Elijah Wood and his other co-stars.
He adds, "I see Viggo (Mortensen) whenever I can and Orlando (Bloom) and Ian MCKellen and Pete Jackson. We've all remained really close friends." Source: Contact Music
Billy
Boyd singing Pippin’s song at Ringcon
"Said it’s the first time he’s ever done
it. So good."
New banner artwork and White Council poster for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
There's just over two months to go until Peter Jackson takes us back to
Middle-earth for the first of his three-part adaptation of J.R.R.
Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit, and now the official Facebook page has released four new banners for the hotly-anticipated first installment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which you can check out right here
Meanwhile, earlier this week a new promo poster also arrived online via Filmcells,
which gives us a look at White Council members Gandalf (Ian McKellen),
Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Saruman
(Christopher Lee) meeting in Rivendell.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
stars Martin Freeman in the
lead role as Bilbo Baggins, along with a huge ensemble cast that
includes Richard Armitage, John Bell, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John
Callen, Billy Connolly, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow,
Peter Hambleton, Barry Humphries, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher,
Evangeline Lilly, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, Mike
Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt,
Conan Stevens, Ken Stott, Jeffrey Thomas, and Aidan Turner. Also
reprising their roles from The Lord of the Rings trilogy are Orlando
Bloom as Legolas, Ian Holm as the elder Bilbo Baggins, Elijah Wood as
Frodo Baggins and Andy Serkis as Gollum.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is released on December 14th,
while The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens on December 13th,
2013 and The Hobbit: There and Back Again concludes the saga on July
18th, 2014.
Scottish quote of the week: Billy Boyd on Hobbits and Scots
Scottish actor Billy Boyd was born in 1968 in Glasgow and is best
known for playing hobbit Peregrin “Pippin” Tookin in the film
adaptations of J.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings series.
Boyd worked
as a bookbinder for several years before embarking on his acting career,
and one of the books he bound was The Lord of the Rings.
The films were shot in director Peter Jackson’s
native New Zealand, a country whose landscape is often compared to that
of Scotland, and many of whose people are descended from Scots, lending
an extra dimension to Boyd’s comparison of Scottish people and hobbits:
“Hobbits are a lot like Scots. It’s all about nature and enjoying their land, which is a very Scottish thing” – Billy Boyd
