My Interview with Sean Astin
Updated: Sep 22, 2020
I went to the Big Lick Comic Con (my first comic con ever!) in the high hopes of asking the actor Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings movie, a few questions about "The Lord of the Rings" books by J.R.R. Tolkien and reading in general. I knew the chances were small that he would have time to answer just one question, let alone all three that I had hoped to ask. Surprisingly, Sean kindly took the time to answer all of my questions in great detail so that I could share them with my readers. Here are the questions I posed and a summery of his answers...
Question: What Lord of the Rings character are you most like and why?
Answer: After Sean thought for a few seconds, he initially said the character "Treebeard" was most like him, but then decided he is more active than Treebeard and that character is more like his Dad. During the second refection, believe it or not, he decided he was most like Samwise, but he felt he wasn't as "good" as Sam because no one can be.
Question: Have you ever read the "Lord of the Rings" books?
Answer: He said he read the books three times while filming, but never allowed himself to get into the world of Tolkien because he was afraid if he got into the book's world, he would never be able to get out. Sean also said as he's gotten older, he's realized you have a choice on whether or not to get into the book when you start reading them. You need to train yourself to do it and sometimes it doesn't come easy.
Question: What's your favorite book?
Answer: Sean said favorites are always hard... but the Lorax is still a book he loves. He also highly recommend I read Candide by Voltaire because he really enjoyed it and he thought I would like it too.
(so you may see it in a future blog post!)
After we talked for a little bit about my reading habits and this blog site, he was very inspiring and said I have "already found a good vocation" that will last me the rest of my life and will never let me down. All in all, I found Sean to be a lot like Samwise Gamgee : nice, encouraging, funny, and good natured.
Please write what you would have asked Sean Astin in the comments if you had the chance.
