LOTR Stars Praise Fan Who Lives Like a Hobbit In His Own Shire
Stars of The Lord of the Rings movies praise a super-fan who lives like a hobbit in his own Shire. Peter Jackson's trilogy of films adapting the beloved novel by J.R.R. Tolkien released from 2001-03 and were met with tremendous acclaim. They have inspired their own dedicated fanbase and remain very popular, even getting recently re-released in select theaters.
One prominent example of that dedicated fanbase is an Italian pastry chef named Nicolas Gentile, who, after years of loving the franchise and craving adventures of his own, decided to build his very own Shire. After purchasing land in the central Italian region of Abruzzo that resembled the rolling, verdant hills of the hobbits' homeland, Gentile built his own version of a hobbit-hole and has been living there with his family for three years. His Instagram account, MyHobbitLife, captures his daily activities as a real-life hobbit, and he aspires to expand and turn the surrounding area into a like-minded community that lives off the land. However, his plans require crowdfunding $1.78 million, meaning he will need to make some serious community outreach to realize his dream.
And, to do just that, Gentile has called in the big guns - Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, and Sean Astin, who played Frodo, Pippin, and Sam in The Lord of the Rings, recorded videos for MyHobbitLife to call for aid. Each gives their best attempt at reading a sentence in Italian that translates to everyone help Nicolas build the Shire before leaving messages for Gentile telling him how much they love his project. Check out the video below:
Wood tells Gentile that he has enjoyed the photos of him doing typical hobbit activities, such as smoking a pipe in front of a fire, but that the designs for the replica of Bag End, Frodo's ancestral home, have particularly impressed him. Boyd, after apologizing for his Italian, expresses excitement at Gentile's progress in building his own Shire in Italy and urges fans to support him in his efforts. Astin brings up Gentile's quest from earlier this summer, in which he and eight others dressed as the Lord of the Rings Fellowship hiked through Italy and tossed a replica One Ring into Mt. Vesuvius, before passionately praising the Shire project.
While Gentile's project on its own is enough to interest Lord of the Rings lovers, this rallying of support from bonafide hobbits is truly exciting. Their starpower will surely help with his fundraising efforts, and might even convince a few people to join this Shire community if it is ever completed. Fans are now probably keeping their fingers crossed that more Lord of the Rings actors, and maybe even Jackson himself, also record their support.
Source: MyHobbitLife