In his letters, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that "the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for elves' and sheer beauty."

The parentheses in that quotation are Tolkien's, not mine—and his words make it quite plain that, while other characters such as Frodo or Aragorn may have heroic roles to play in the War of the Ring, in the author's mind (at least) the real hero of the story is Sam Gamgee.

Last December in Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to sit in on a roundtable interview with Sean Astin, and talk with him about Sam's heroism and Peter Jackson's movies. Either Jackson did a great job of casting, or Astin acquired a great deal of Sam's personality throughout the years of production on The Lord of the Rings.

The questions in the interview are posed by press from a variety of publications, and Astin's reponses are given verbatim. Where necessary, extraneous, unintelligible or profane remarks are indicated by bracketed ellipses, so: [...].

In my mind, Sam is the hero of the story. To me, from my reading of Tolkien, there was no doubt in his mind that Sam was the hero of the story. So it was great, it was terrific to see the story [in the movie] wind up with Sam, as it does in the books. But still it seems to me that Jackson and company really haven't that same confidence that Sam is the hero of the story. We even get a voice-over of Frodo at the end, as Sam comes home. What's your take on that? How do you feel about that?

I'm the hero! No, no, no. I mean, I agree with you that they didn't have the confidence in that. I'm not sure, actually, why.

Maybe that it wouldn't play with audiences?

I don't know. I mean, I really don't know. Maybe it has something to with Elijah being sort of the actor whose face is... You know, he's the Ringbearer and somehow maybe they felt that it wouldn't be emotionally satisfying for the audience to have been with this protagonist for so long, and then have him sort of abdicate his role at the center. And also, I think they must feel as though they?re in some way honoring the conception of the relationship. That, uh, I don't know. I mean, for years—for years, I've been talking about this movie—but this gets talked about a lot, and I was always sort of uncomfortable or coy, or trying to figure out how to talk about it: I wanted to be sort of like Sam, self-deprecating, and wanting to—

So I would say things like, "Frodo sacrifices more by degrees than Sam ever does because he's the one who has to bear the burden of the Evil One. There are interesting challenges, cinematically, in terms of depicting that, and dramatizing that, because Tolkien's writing about what's going on in his mind and how the evil is sort of seeping into his consciousness, the fabric of his being and everything else. The mind is able to (and language)—you can do a lot... It is a lot easier to explore extremes in that. And when you're dramatizing that, it's harder to do that, it's harder to act that. I mean, I've watched Peter a million times telling Elijah, 'You're suffering.' You know, short of having Elijah become addicted to heroin, or starving him to death, or something like that, during shooting there's only so much you can do. I mean, with Gollum, it's got to be animated, in order to get the idea across."

So, you know... And I would say that "Sam was nothing, if not what he was in relation to Frodo." So I still think that there's a lot of heroism and courage and a lot of strength that does come through in the final film as it's been adapted, but I know that they were worried that, somehow, some kind of price was paid by Frodo being too—by not being strong enough, that somehow that bothered them.

In the final moments of the film when he has to struggle with Gollum again to throw the Ring into the fire.

Yeah, yeah.

Even when he died, though—when he goes off into the ship to go to the other side of the water—he's looks almost like a kind of physical perfection. You know, it's almost like a portrait as he smiles there at everybody.

I thought that was pretty effective. I thought that sequence at the end showed the denouement as it's played out... I thought Howard Shore's score concludes nicely, and I think the imagery of it showed the golden light and that sort of stuff, and I think that plays out. They really let the camera rest on all of our sad reactions, and I think that plays pretty well.

[At this point, Astin becomes distracted, and wants to return to the original question about Sam as the hero of the story.]

Your point is more toward the climactic destruction of the Ring, and there are some—whatever. It doesn't matter. You— Each character has— It's a really hard thing to do, with so many different characters.

[Astin is having a hard time being polite about his frustration with Sam's portrayal. But in true Gamgee fashion, he masters himself and becomes politic once again.]

And when you're reading it in the book, you're— The moment I cried at in the book was when Aragorn kneels before the Hobbits. That's the one spot. And the rest of the book... So it's amazing how you're— I'm studying a little bit about reader response here—but the idea that you're controlling your relationship to the work, or the work is controlling you, but it's private. It's the author and the reader who are having this experience together, when in cinema it's a totally different thing. I mean, Peter and Howard Shore and the editors and like everybody's movement helped take the audience emotionally through the narrative and everything else, so it's... And there's a lot of masters that need to be served. It comes down to a lot of payoffs, and it's hard to balance all that.

I saw the book as the triumph of simple fidelity and virtues, the slow climb toward goodness and mercy and saving the day, in that they let Gollum live. And Sam is the symbol of that. Several authors, including this man sitting right over here, have written books that argue that Sam is Tolkien, in other words, that how he viewed strength and everything is all embodied. [...] When he kneels to the Hobbits, you might as well have it written across the screen, "and the meek shall inherit the earth." To some degree, it is the triumph of the meek.

It's simple, and elegant and graceful. Yeah. I'm sure that there's a... If you want a strong Christian reading, I'm sure it's there to be had. But I don't think you have to have it. I think that in a secular time the movies can allow for people of different faiths to experience it without feeling the imposition of that worldview on the story.

At the end when you guys are standing there, it's like you really love each other. And what I was thinking in my mind was, it saddened me that we don't love each other like that, especially men. That you can love each other, like almost not with a passionate, romantic type of love, it's—you adore that person.

It's a very powerful love bond between two males.

It's friendship. But I think people are afraid of that now, men are afraid to even show that type.

[...]

It's a relationship, the officer-to-enlisted-man relationship. I think that's how Tolkien framed it, based on his experience in the first World War. There were these enlisted batmen—I don't know what rank you had to achieve in the British Army, major or colonel, or general or whatever, in order to get assigned this particular enlisted aide, or attendant, or whatever. It kind of harkens back to a kind of class thing.

They didn't start out as just real close friends?

No, no, he's his gardener. His dad was Bilbo's gardener. And there's a sense of—you know, Bilbo reads and stuff. A lot of Hobbits aren't interested in reading and writing. They're interested in farming and, you know, gardening and drinking and smoking and dancing and singing—and living. The art of living away from the life of the mind. Except Bilbo. And he's seen as kind of this eccentric living in the middle of his hole with his books, and Hobbits generally are uncomfortable with that. And there's something about— I think I connected really quickly and easily with the idea of being deferential and respectful...

Jeffrey Overstreet, at Looking Closer, offers a transcript from another interview with Sean Astin, conducted on the same day.