Merry and Pippin actors Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd recently started a podcast, Friendship Onion, where they have been speaking about their experiences working on the Lord of the Rings films. By the end of the trilogy, the One Ring was cast back into the fires of Mount Doom, saving Middle Earth in the process, and the war against Sauron had come to an end. Not a lot of people died during the journey, but the Merry and Pippin actors recently revealed director Peter Jackson had to fight off an unexpectedly tragic moment.

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As the protagonists of the franchise, Merry, Pippin, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) were given most of the screen time in the three films.

Monaghan explained that Merry was most likely going to be killed off if the producers had their way. 

He said: “It’s a good job that didn’t happen because it would have been me.

“It definitely would have. There’s no way they are killing Frodo and Sam, and the only ones that would be left would be Merry and Pippin.”

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Monaghan went on: “They wouldn’t kill Pippin because Pippin has a really strong story with Gandalf. It would have definitely been me.”

The actors then praised Jackson for his resilience in standing up to the production company.

Monaghan went on: “I think Pete quite rightly was like: ‘This is a luminary piece of written work, and we need to stick close to the text.’

“So, he stuck by his guns. Yeah, I’m thankful that didn’t happen.”

Merry was certainly the most likely to be killed off in the story.

While Frodo and Sam were in Mordor trying to destroy the One Ring, Pippin was in Gondor trying to keep the peace between Denethor, Steward of Gondor (John Noble), and Theoden, the Good King of Rohan (Bernard Hill).

Meanwhile, Merry was on the battlefield alongside Eowyn (Miranda Otto) fighting against the devilish orcs of Mordor.

During this fight, he took on the Witch King of Angmar, one of Sauron’s fiercest foes.

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Considering Merry was in the middle of a war, his death would have made a lot of sense.

Elsewhere in Monaghan and Boyd’s podcast, the pair spoke about having to reshoot the final scene multiple times.

The scene in question was the Grey Havens – the moment in the trilogy which saw Frodo leaving the Shire forever.

Monaghan recalled: “Well, we had to do it three times!”

Boyd said: “For those of you who don’t know why we did it three times… Sean Astin [who plays Samwise] was wearing the wrong costume.

“After lunch, he took off his vest to eat lunch. When he came back he forgot to put the vest on, so for continuity, it was ruined.

“We came back another day and filmed it again, and the film got destroyed in the factory where it gets processed. So we had to then do it again another day! That’s why we had to do it three times.”

The Lord of the Rings films are available on NOW.

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