Product Description

When Sean Astin, veteran Hollywood actor of over 30 movies including The Goonies, and Rudy, landed the part of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings, he knew it was going to be different to anything he'd ever worked on before. Here he shares his heartfelt opinions on his early movies, how he got the part of Sam at that point in his career, and what it was like to be on set for nearly two years of his life. How did he and the other cast members get along? What were the excitements and the dangers they faced during filming? What happened the evening that Elijah Wood lost the keys to his room? How did Sir Ian McKellen cope when he didn't like the music the hobbits listened to during make-up and what happened when the crew considered striking? Revealing and immensely readable, There and Back Again is the behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to be involved in the making of one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #282795 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
"'THE MOST PENETRATING ACCOUNT OF THE RINGS SHOOT.' EMPIRE 'Fans of Peter Jackson's trilogy will lap it up' Total Film 'Refreshing in its non-glitzy tone, all the while giving the reader a much better sense of an actor's life than a hundred kiss 'n' tells' Starburst 'Full of titbits, tales and tantrums from the set' SFX"

Film Review
A highly compelling and involving tale

SFX
Full of titbits, tales and tantrums from the set, it's a great insight into everything that happened...during filming

Customer Reviews

Must-have for fans but whiny and self-indulgent
A better title for this book would have been "Me! Me! Me" or "Poor me!" or "Three years of imaginary slights from fellow cast members revisited".

For fans of the movie franchise this reveals some things that have never been discussed in public before and as such constitutes a 'must have', but when it comes to the real 'meat' of acting in the movies, from Astin or any other cast member, this is very much an offering for vegetarians. Instead what one gets is 'the private diary of Sean Astin, aged 14 3/4' - or at least that's how it reads. Despite the impression that this is a book about LOTR it's over a hundred pages before Astin really gets onto the subject, and then we're into a long barrage of 'damning with faint praise' or long rants about imagined slights from fellow actors. At one point Astin argues that he's not a Hollywood brat, but this book seems to make a very strong case that he is - and an insecure, arrogant, bitter, hypocritical and self-obsessed one at that.

Most of Astin's fellow-actors are criticised over extremely trivial things. So we get complaints about Mortensen's 'trench warfare' in bombarding the writers with suggestions, complaints about Bloom not stopping a conversation with a Hollywood bigwig at Cannes when the obviously-more-important Mr Astin arrives, or complaints about McKellen and Holm (real actors, Sean!) not having the hypocrisy to repay his 'Your acting's fantastic' compliment.

Given that large sections of the book are given over to public apologies to those he's abused in interviews in the past (Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis) you'd think he'd have known better and learnt from past mistakes, but alas not. Repetition is everywhere so that eg we're told he doesn't like John Howe's work as much as Alan Lee's not once, not twice, not three times, and he takes stances on situations where he hasn't even checked his basic facts (for the record Billy Boyd is the oldest of the hobbits, not Sean, and his 9/11 Two Towers speech contains sentences written by Tolkien not written from scratch by Walsh and Boyens).

That being said it's a book that's hard to put down. It's an addictive, if at times unpleasant, read leaving one wondering at the end if Astin means to be deliberately malicious or is just not clever enough to realise the huge gaff he's made in putting his private whines and petty whinges into the public domain.

All that being said, fans of the movie will love the gossip and unique perspective on what it was like to get involved with these movies.

There and back again
Sean Astin is best known to film geeks around the world as Sam Gamgee, the lovable gardener in "Lord of the Rings." But there's a man behind the hobbit, and in "There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale," Astin gives us a glimpse of his life, his work, his family, and his time during the making of the immortal film trilogy.

Astin was born into a Hollywood family -- his mother was Patty Duke, and the guy he thought was his biological father was John Astin. But his early family life was marred by Duke's manic-depressive illness, and the question of who his biological father was (he now calls four men "Dad"). He made his movie debut in "The Goonies" when he was thirteen, and continued acting in various movies including "Rudy," the recent goofy romance "50 First Dates," and even created a sweet short film, "The Long and Short of It."

In 1998, Astin got the role of a lifetime -- Samwise Gamgee, hobbit Frodo Baggins' loyal pal and pillar of strength. So Astin gained weight, packed up his wife and daughter, and went to idyllic New Zealand for eighteen months. In this book, Astin reveals the hardships, the revelations, and the friendships from the vast movie shoot, and what came after.

People just looking for more behind-the-scenes movie dirt may be initially disappointed by "There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale," since it focuses a lot on Astin's non-"Rings" life. But this isn't just a "Rings" story -- it's Astin's story. He focuses not just on the "Rings" trilogy, but on his own struggles and triumphs. And his life story is an interesting read that seems to mirror Astin's own personality: erudite, funny, friendly, sad and family-oriented.

But the "Rings" shoot is pretty fascinating, especially since Astin was right in the middle of it. He gives us a better idea of what his costars were like (Viggo Mortensen likes to "blow through a party handing everybody a copy of three different books that he's read, and then move on"), and how they felt about him. One particularly interesting part is Astin describing the time ex-Aragorn Stuart Townsend spent on the set, and the reasons why Townsend didn't work out in the role.

Astin frank and candid, doesn't whitewash the truth, but also seems quite generous with his costars. Sometimes he comes across as a bit whiny and know-it-all-ish, but he's also the first one to admit it. Everyone has their arrogant moments, but Astin is brave enough to bare his unflattering mistakes before the world, and say he was wrong. And his writing (with Joe Layden as coauthor) is polished and literate -- not something you see in many Hollywood autobios.

Astin also includes a load of personal pics. Most of them have a very laid-back, almost intimate feel -- the hobbits and their costars hanging out, showing off their costumes, bungee jumping, or filming (including Elijah Wood covered in webbing). Not to mention ones like Billy Boyd playing with Sean's daughter, or Sean and his daughter looking over the beautiful landscape of New Zealand.

Sean Astin gives readers a glimpse of his life and work in "There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale." It's not merely for fans of "Lord of the Rings," but also for fans of Astin and the moviemaking experience.

A very honest book!
The book is nicely structured explaining, not just Sean's involvement with Lord Of The Rings, but also his previous movies. How things were different on various movie sets, how Sean was treated, and what other things were going on in his life at the time of certain movies etc.

The main focus on Lord Of The Rings is so honest and striking. Sean doesn't hold back how he was feeling about certain elements of filming or how he interacted with the other actors on set. In some places it paints quite a different picture to how he appeared in public when talking about the movies.

The book also has quite a few surprises from Sean, on how he perceived certain things on LOTR, and very courageously he doesn't hold back from showing his insecurities and fears.

An enjoyable book for any LOTR fan or person that wants to know more about Sean and the day to day hardships of the acting world. The only down point was some of the text is a little repetitive, but it is written in Sean's rambling style, and that's just him; you can almost hear him say the words.