Are you shooting anything at the moment?
Yes, I’m shooting a film called The Stone of Destiny. Way back when England and Scotland were fighting about this and that, England took a symbolic Scottish stone to Westminster Abbey. It sat under the throne, so when a king was crowned of England he was also crowned king of Scotland. So then these students in the 1950s decide to go and steal it back.

So kind of a heist movie with a rock?
Yep, a huge rock!

Now, who do you play in The Flying Scotsman?
Well, it’s the true story of Graeme Obree, the cycling world champion, played by Johnny Lee Miller. My character, Malcolm, is not an actual real character — he’s an amalgamation of three or four characters in Graham’s life at that time: his trainer, his brother in law, the head of the British team, people that helped him in some way.

Do you cycle yourself?
I do enjoy getting on my bike and wheeling around for a bit, but not in the way these guys do. You know, they go on their bikes from about six and won’t be back until about eight at night. But I did some long ones to train for the film, and I can how these guys can really get into it. There’s a real meditation to watching the world go by. Do you cycle?

Not really. It’s too dangerous in London.
You look like a cyclist.

Erm, thanks. I think. (Both laugh) Were there any accidents?
The velodrome is quite a dangerous place. If you’re going too slow you just slip down — Johnny did that a couple of times and ripped his knees. I suppose the worst accident could have been when we were out cycling in the Highlands, because we were cycling right behind the camera truck and if they’d braked, it could have been awful. So that was a slightly scary time — it was wet as well — but it worked out all right.

In the movie you do some hustling, trying to get sponsorship for Obree from the public. Have you ever had to go door to door in real life?
I don’t think so. I used to work a Saturday job in a jean store and the manager used to ask us to push the stuff to get rid of it and I used to hate doing that. You just want to give people what they want, rather than telling people they look good in things when they don’t. I hate that, it’s horrible. For Save Angel Hope, a few of us played con people and Luke Mably had the idea for us to go out and do a little con. Luckily we never did it, because I think it could have gone a bit wrong!

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
It was a kitchen that goes out and does banquets in places. You’d go in first thing in the morning and make 300 little starters, bloody lantern fruits or something, and then serve this banquet all night, put all the seats and tables out, and at two in the morning take it all back and wash all the dishes. I did Lord Of The Rings for four years and I think I was more tired doing that job then I did for Rings! That was hard work.

Coming back to acting, what’s your new film, Dominator X, about?
It’s a cool idea, kind of a manga film, I suppose. All the illustrations are brilliant and they’ve got a famous Japanese artist to help with some of the characters. The idea is that there’s always this dominator that fights the dark side and who has to do whatever his reincarnation does. This one plays in a band so when he becomes dominator he like the dominator of rock’n’roll. My band Beecake is going to do the music for it, kind of like a Gorillaz type project.

You’re not the only musician from the Lord Of The Rings cast. How many of you play instruments?
Well, Viggo plays, and when my band were out in LA playing gigs Viggo and Orlando came along and I think Viggo really liked it. We may produce something together. Umm, Elijah plays a bit, Dom plays a bit… I mean, we have all jammed a few times, but nothing too serious.

You should all do a Christmas single — it’ll go straight to number 1.
Yeah! (Laughs) ‘Follow The Fellowship’.

When did you last see any of the Rings guys?
I was over in the States in April and saw quite a few of them. I saw Viggo, Orlando, Dom, Elijah, spoke to Sean but never saw him… I saw Orlando a couple of weeks ago down here, because I was down doing a radio play and he’s down rehearsing his play. Bernard Hill is with me in Save Angel Hope. You don’t get to see Bernard do much comedy but he’s playing a comedy police chief in this one and is great.

Are you still planning on writing a film with Dominic Monaghan?
Yes. It’s just that we made the mistake of telling people about it before we’d done it. It’s so hard to get a film made even when people want to make it — the months just go on and you say. ‘Okay, we need a meeting’ and you know, Dom will be in Lost and I’ll be in a film and the first time you can get a meeting is like ... August and that’s a meeting about setting up a meeting, and it all just trundles on and on.

You’ve done LOTR in New Zealand and Master and Commander in Mexico. Are you doing more films over here now because you’re tired of travelling?
Well, I found out that my partner was pregnant and we didn’t really want to be running around, hence The Flying Scotsman. Now, if I get offered the lead in Babel I’m definitely going to say yes and go wherever for it, but I’m just more interested in what I’m being offered over here, you know. It’s totally about being lazy and saying that I want to go home at night.

There’s a lot of biopics going around at the moment. Are there any musicians you’d like to have a go at on screen?
There was talk about a project about Jeff Buckley. That’s a really interesting story, I think, so that would be good. Anything, although it’s been done to death, about the Beatles. My friend has just written something about the Beatles travelling through time, which sounds interesting!

Just to wrap up, a lot of rubbish gets put on the internet, so we thought we’d read a few Billy Boyd rumours to you. Please confirm if they’re true or false…
Hit me.

First up, you whistle in your sleep.
No, but I do mumble. Maybe during the mumble I slightly whistle, but the answer’s no.

You hate cinnamon.
I do hate cinnamon. I hate the taste, the smell, everything, and when you arrive in Los Angeles airport, right across the arrival door is a store with the sickening smell of cinnamon. So it’s there right when you arrive in America… and they put it in everything. In Mexico they put it in coffee! I mean, come on… the smell of it, the taste. I dislike cinnamon a lot.

Okay. Next one is, you insist on eating porridge for breakfast.
Absolutely true. I’d say, out of a 40-day test period, I’d have porridge 33 days. With honey and milk and very occasionally a banana or raisins or an apple if it was going bad.

But no cinnamon…
No cinnamon. But they put cinnamon in porridge in America! They put cinnamon on French toast in America!

It’s a conspiracy!
It is!

You have made your own puppets…
What?! I love it — where do these come from? (Thinks) When I was in drama school there was another acting course that was for a BA. We used to call them the puppet-makers, because they weren’t like real actors. But I have never made a puppet! (Laughs)

And finally, the cast of Lord Of The Rings had group showers together.
(long guilty pause) Semi-true. When we were learning how to canoe, me, Dom, Sean Bean, Elijah, Sean, Viggo, Orlando and John Rhys-Davis all went together down the river. After the canoeing sessions, the four Hobbits and Orlando did have showers together.

You heard it hear first, it’s confirmed
And before you ask I am the biggest.

(Laughs) Do you want me to put that up on the internet for you?
Please!

Interview: Nick de Semlyen

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