Sean Astin

There was a combination of not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, but also really not wanting to be stuck in Lord of the Rings for the rest of my life, and being desperate to kind of make sure that I could do something else with my life.

I don't want to use the word 'instinct,' but when something good happens - something big or good in my life - I have this sensation that it was inevitable. Anything careerwise, 'Lord of the Rings,' 'Rudy,' or getting married. Which is weird, because you don't ever want to be ungrateful for what you have.

I absolutely do not think that I have even a vague recollection of what normal life is like.

I don't want to play the fat guy or the friend for the rest of my life.

The first stage I preformed on were the stairs to the hallway in the living room. There was a really nice platform, and when people were sitting in the living room, it was kind of an elevated platform and we would put on shows and skits.

You can't play a hobbit if you're not prepared to be a part of nerd culture.

By 14, I had decided on three modest goals and repeated them often to everyone. I wanted to be a world-class filmmaker, CEO of a multi-billion-dollar entertainment company, and president of the United States. I've had to settle for journeyman actor.

The sidekick business has been good to me.

My interactions with my family members are all one-to-one. We don't all get together for Thanksgiving dinner. But I can sit and tell any one of them about a conversation that I just had with the other one, and they're all curious and interested and respectful.

I'd never heard of the 'Lord of the Rings', actually. So I went to the bookstore and there it was, three shelves of books about Tolkien and Middle-earth, and I was like, 'Holy cow, what else am I missing out on?'

I definitely loved going on stage, I loved the nervous feeling and the performance and the doing-ness of it. It always felt kind of natural and inevitable and logical.

I'm like the universe; either expanding or contracting at any given moment. The most that I had put on was about 35, 36 pounds, and I've taken all of that off.