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• Article on Mr. Wood
• Bobby
• Happy Feet
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Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Elijah Wood back to this program. The talented actor, of course, starred in one of the most popular movie franchises of our time, and perhaps all time, 'Lord of the Rings.' He has two new projects opening this month. One, the animated feature 'Happy Feet,' which also includes voices from Robin Williams and Nicole Kidman. I'm dying to see this.

I just love the dance scenes. You can also catch him in the new film 'Bobby,' about the final hours of the life of Robert F. Kennedy. This all-star cast includes Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, and Martin Sheen, to name a few. Here now, a scene from 'Bobby.'

Tavis: My first thought, Elijah, when I saw this project at my house was that I must be the only person in Hollywood not in this film. (Laugh)

Elijah Wood: (Laugh) I thought it was gonna get really serious then.

Tavis: No, no, no, not at all. (Laugh) It really is an all-star cast.

Wood: It's massive.

Tavis: We use that phrase all the time, but who is not in this project? It's, like, amazing.

Wood: I know, it's crazy. And it's funny, when we started filming the movie, there were literally cast members that were added, like, the night before. Heather Graham, I believe, was cast the night before I started working, and just immediately jumped in. It's pretty amazing.

Tavis: No, it is an amazing cast. What do you think about the life of Bobby Kennedy has not been exhausted? 'Cause that was my second thought. That when I popped the film in to check it out, I'm thinking okay, what am I gonna learn here? What am I gonna see here about an iconic figure that I think at this point I know just about everything about? But yet, it's not exhausted, as evidenced by the film.

Wood: It isn't, and I feel like - 'cause I'm coming at it from a completely different perspective.

Tavis: You weren't even born then.

Wood: That's the thing. And I, in school, I learned more about John F. Kennedy than I did about Robert F. Kennedy. So I had no idea of his impact. I knew he was assassinated, but that was pretty much it. I didn't know the kind of impact that he had on our country, and the hope that our country put onto this man. So for me, jumping onto this project was important, because I was essentially learning about this man for the first time, and getting an opportunity to bring information about him to a generation that had never heard about him.

Tavis: And what did you - I know you learned a great deal about Bobby Kennedy, but what sticks in your mind now, having immersed yourself in the subject matter?

Wood: Eloquence, grace, humanity. I think one of the things that struck me most about Bobby Kennedy, one of my favorite stories, was when he personally asked at the last minute to speak in front of a large crowd of African Americans. Because he had heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had passed away, (unintelligible).

Tavis: In my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, where this takes place. Yeah.

Wood: Wow. So he rerouted, and went to these people to speak, to essentially tell them, for the first time, many of them, that Martin Luther King, Jr. had passed away. And he didn't have a speech written. He wasn't prepared. All he knew is that he had to go and tell them, so that he could quell any violence that may come out after that reaction. And it's an extraordinary speech.

It's totally off the cuff. I think he actually quotes some literature in that speech. It's extraordinary. We don't have politicians like that anymore, and that story really sticks out in my memory as special, because we don't have people that just wanna connect, and just wanna do their part, and can do that in a way that is so eloquent and so unprepared.

Tavis: Share more about the character that you play. We mentioned earlier that everybody's in it, but so is Elijah Wood, so let's talk about Elijah's role.

Wood: (Laugh) I play a character named William, who is marrying Lindsay Lohan's character, Diane, to avoid going to the front lines.

Tavis: Not a bad person to marry, Lindsay Lohan.

Wood: Not so bad.

Tavis: Yeah. (Laugh)

Wood: And it's basically an echo to the young people of America at that time, the draft, and various ways to get around that draft. There were certainly a lot of people that didn't believe in the war. And there were - and this was completely unbeknownst to me - there were people, women like Diane, that would marry young men to allow it so that they wouldn't necessarily have to go into the front lines of war, which is pretty extraordinary. So it starts out being about that, but we ultimately kind of fall in love, and it's a sort of love story based on innocence and purity that we don't really have anymore.

Tavis: As I listen to you talk about this now, and I kind of had this thought watching it, it's interesting, the parallels, between then and now. A country at war, as we are, in a couple different places, for that matter.

Wood: Yup. We've got our hands in a few different pots, unfortunately.

Tavis: Precisely. A country that is trying to find itself in some interesting sorts of ways, as the country was trying to find itself then, around these assassinations and around these particular issues. Did the parallels kind of strike you while making the film?

Wood: Absolutely. And I think that was one of the things that struck me about the script, as well, is that it was so relevant to our time. It is kind of extraordinary that we are experiencing a lot of the same things, yet we don't have that kind of hope, or we don't have someone that we can attach that kind of hope to?

Tavis: Tell me how you go about choosing projects these days. And I ask that because every time I get a chance to see you, the projects are so disparate. (Laugh) The current is very different from the latter, from the last project. So I get the sense that you're, like, sitting in a room somewhere, trying to find these projects that are very different from one another.

Wood: Yeah. I think that I've always got a mind to that. You are, to a certain degree, at mercy to whatever lands on your table, in regards to scripts.

Tavis: Even Elijah Wood?

Wood: Sure, sure. I'm not necessarily actively searching things out, so I'm reading a variety of different things. And the films that I choose are just the ones that I happen to be very passionate about. And I like the fact that they are different. I'm attracted to different kinds of roles. As an actor, it's important to continue to challenge yourself. And I'm intrigued by many different kinds of characters and stories. So that's primarily where it comes out of.

Tavis: Before I talk about 'Happy Feet,' and some music that I wanna talk to you about, as many times as we've talked, I've never asked you about your first name. I can make assumptions about how you got it, but tell me the story about it.

Wood: Elijah, my mother named all of her children, I have a brother and a sister, biblical names. Hannah, Zachariah, and Elijah.

Tavis: Wow.

Wood: So, after the Prophet Elijah.

Tavis: That's amazing.

Wood: Yeah.

Tavis: And Elijah is quite a character in the bible.

Wood: Yes, yes.

Tavis: (Laugh) But a good character.

Wood: Yes. Very much so.

Tavis: I didn't mean character in, like, crazy character, but anyway.

Wood: I was actually at a - this is a good story. I was at a Seder once, for Passover, and I'd never been to a Seder before. And I was really excited, because I was able to make the prophecy come true, 'cause I was Elijah there, at their table, drinking their wine. (Laugh) So I was, like, see? Here I am, right? Bring it on. (Laugh)

Tavis: That's a great...

Wood: Open the Manischewitz, let's go. (Laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) That's a great story. But all of you have biblical names; that's cool. That's very cool.

Wood: Yeah. Zachariah, Nathanial, Hannah Blessing, and Elijah Jordan.

Tavis: Wow. That is really very, very cool. 'Happy Feet,' speaking of cool. (Laugh) I have not seen - it's a nice segue.

Wood: It's very beautiful.

Tavis: I have not seen 'Happy Feet' yet, but the trailers, I'm like a big kid now. The trailers have me so excited to see this film.

Wood: It's really fun. It's really fun. It's not often you get a chance to do animation, and it's something that I really enjoy. So, the opportunity to work on something like this, that includes music and dance, specifically with my character, Savion Glover did the motion capture, which is amazing.

Tavis: Great tap dancing.

Wood: Well, he's the best.

Tavis: Did you get a chance to see 'Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk' when he was doing it on Broadway?

Wood: I missed it.

Tavis: One of the most amazing Broadway musicals I've ever seen.

Wood: I heard it was amazing.

Tavis: Absolutely amazing. Tell me about the character you play, though. The voice.

Wood: I play a character called Mumble. He's a...(laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) And you should explain...

Wood: Aptly named.

Tavis: Exactly, explain why he's called Mumble.

Wood: He's an emperor penguin who's born without the ability to sing. Our emperor penguin community that we represent in this film, their identity is based on the ability to sing, (unintelligible) heart song. Well, he can't sing at all, but he dances. He has this amazing ability to dance. But for that, he's kicked out of the community, because they're seeing, he's seen as different. They don't accept him. But yet in the midst of all that, he has this amazing confidence and sense of himself, and that spins him off on this journey that he takes.

Tavis: So what's cool about doing animation amongst all the other stuff that you've done?

Wood: It's a completely different kind of work. The time that it takes is less, which is attractive, sometimes. The opportunity to simply work on the voice. It's very freeing. You don't have to worry about yourself physically, how you move, necessarily, what you're wearing. It's all about the character. And in this case, I got a chance to work with Robin Williams. He's sort of the king of that, which was incredibly inspiring and hilarious. (Laugh) And kind of overwhelming and amazing.

Tavis: I don't know how you got anything done on a sound stage with him.

Wood: I don't know either.

Tavis: He's out of control all the time.

Wood: Yeah, completely. (Laugh) And off-mic, as well. And we would start a scene as scripted, and he would take it somewhere else, as definitely inspired by the director, to kind of see where the scene would go, but man. (Laugh) Ridiculous.

Tavis: Just the thought of it makes you laugh.

Wood: Oh, so wonderful.

Tavis: Speaking of music, we were just talking about music in terms of 'Happy Feet,' how's the record company coming along?

Wood: It's good. Did we talk about this last time?

Tavis: We started to talk about it in the last 30 seconds of our conversation, so I wanna come back to that.

Wood: Well, I've been working on it, and it's finally kind of gotten its feet. In fact, I'm co-releasing a record with Yep Roc Records, it's called Simian Records, is the name of my label. A band called The Apples in Stereo, and it comes out in February, so.

Tavis: The Apples in Stereo.

Wood: The Apples in Stereo.

Tavis: And how did they come up with this name?

Wood: That's a good question. They've been around for about seven years. They're an incredible, like, 1960s, seventies bass-pop band, absolutely amazing. And this is their first record in about four or five years, so. I've been a fan of theirs, so to start my label essentially with a band that I love is really exciting.

Tavis: Where'd the love for music come from, come for?

Wood: I can remember being in love with music when I was six, seven. I had a tape of the Monkees that I'd play incessantly. But when I fully grasped music, and the wide variety that it is, was probably around 11 or 12. And I became obsessed. I was lucky enough to travel at a very young age, and I was constantly meeting different kinds of people, and thusly exposed to all sorts of music at a young age, and I ate it up. And I've been passionate about it, and searching ever since.

Tavis: Is that what Simian is going to put out? A variety of stuff?

Wood: Absolutely.

Tavis: Eclectic stuff, or just a certain genre?

Wood: No, it'll be, it'll be a variety. My music taste is so varied; I listen to all kinds of music. So it's essentially whatever I find that I really love and wanna put out there.

Tavis: Isn't that cool, to just say, 'You know what? I wanna have a record company, and I can, 'cause I'm Elijah Wood, and I'm gonna put out whatever I like.'

Wood: It's just a hobby.

Tavis: And hopefully, ya'll will like it. (Laugh)

Wood: Hopefully. I hope so. I hope so.

Tavis: This guy, he came on the stage, he was teasing me about how busy I am, and I shot right back, I don't have two movies out at one time, (laugh) and a record, and a record company. Oh, God, you're doing well.

Wood: Same to you.

Tavis: Always happy to have you.

Wood: Thank you so much.

Tavis: Thanks, Elijah. That's our show for tonight. Don't forget, 'Happy Feet,' 'Bobby,' you can see the guy in just about everything. (Laugh) Public Radio International, check your local listings, and we'll talk this weekend on the radio. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A., thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.