Lord of the Rings Star Supports Italian Man’s Attempt to Become First Real-World Hobbit

An Italian pastry chef is hoping to remake The Shire in the real world — and he’s attracting support from people involved with the films, as a series of Cameo videos gave actors including Elijah Wood and Sean Astin an opportunity to se what he’s doing and comment on it. The man, whose name is Nicolas Gentile, is hoping to build a version of The Shire, complete with hobbit burrows and a pub, to bring the world of J.R.R. Tolkien to life in the real world.

You can see his photos at his Instagram profile, called MyHobbitLife. Below, you can see a video he edited together, in which he talks about his project and shares videos from The Lord of the Rings films.

“It is incredible what you’re doing,” Elijah Wood, who played Frodo in the movies, said in a Cameo. “I love all of the costumes and all of the set photos you’ve done.”

“What an amazing thing you are doing!” Astin said in his video. “You are making it – the real Shire in Italia. It’s incredible.”

“I have always loved fantasy literature and movies, Dungeons and Dragons, and video games,” Gentile says in his video, per a helpful translation from the folks over at Business Insider.. “But at some point in my life, I felt like I was living the adventures of others and not my own. I decided that I, too, would live my life like a character in the movies and books I loved so much.”

Twenty years ago, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released theatrically on December 19, 2001, and went on to earn almost $900 million at the global box office against a budget of $93 million. Its reliance on real locations and practical sets constructed in New Zealand means that many of the most visually memorable spots in Middle Earth, are places fans can visit in the country.