Elijah Wood's Unexpected Reunion with LOTR Cast: Why It's Stirring Fans

Elijah Wood and The Lord of the Rings cast recently reunited, proving you can always journey back to the Shire. “The band’s all here,” Sean Astin wrote via Instagram on Saturday, August 8, snapping a selfie from a recent gathering with Wood, 45, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan. Monaghan, 49, shared another image from the cast’s low-key reunion, revealing the group dined at La Royal in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Four Halflings. Three cocktails. Two desserts. ONE great night of conversation. More to come,” Monaghan teased of the evening. “#becurious shoutout to the couple [photobombing] in the back. Well played. Thank you @laroyal_cambridge.”

Wood, Astin, 55, Boyd, 57, and Monaghan starred in the big-screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic Lord of the Rings franchise. The first movie, which premiered in 2001, followed hobbit Frodo Baggins (Wood) on a journey to destroy the One Ring to help save Middle-earth from the evil powers of Dark Lord Sauron. In the years since wrapping the LOTR series, Wood has largely stepped back from the limelight to enjoy a more private family life. (Wood and his longtime partner, Mette-Marie Kongsved, are parents of two.)

“We’re well out of toddlerville and they’ve entered kid-dom. It’s incredible,” Wood told The Times of London in a March profile, noting his children have yet to watch his LOTR work. “They have not, but only because I genuinely don’t think they’re old enough. I feel like it might be appropriate when they are 8.” Wood previously revealed that he loved how “all-consuming” fatherhood had become.