10 Amazing Behind The Scenes Stories From The Lord Of The Rings
5. Dominic Monaghan's "Near Death Experience"
With all the action sequences in the LOTR trilogy, people were bound to get hurt. Viggo Mortenson broke a toe at one point; Orlando Bloom cracked a rib falling off a horse; Sean Astin impaled his foot on a shard of glass; and, that's not to mention all the countless injuries sustained by the stunt crew...
Well, judging by the way Dominic Monaghan tells it, no injury was as excruciating as the one he sustained while running for his life from the dreaded Black Riders. During one of the Fellowship of the Ring's very early action sequences, all four hobbits are trying to make it too Bree while alluding the dark servants of Sauron. We all remember the tension felt when the hobbits desperately tried to outrun the galloping Black Riders, only for them to escape by a hair's breadth when they reached Bucklebury Ferry.
During the filming of that iconic scene, the cast and crew were shocked when Monaghan stopped filming because of an unbearable pain in his foot. Needless to say the crew took it all incredibly seriously. But when the medics came to examine Monaghan, it turned out all the fuss was due to the smallest of wooden splinters, buried in his prosthetic foot... that's how you give hobbits a bad name.