I'm a bit of a sucker for celebrities showing their nerdy tendencies and it's recently been brought to my attention that Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd—who you may know as The Lord of the Rings' Merry and Pippin—are huge League of Legends players. So much so, it seems they'll take any opportunity to talk about it.
A clip from League of Legends podcast Rift Reaction popped up on YouTube, showing Monaghan and Boyd chatting about their favourite champions to play. Boyd's a jungler man, saying he recently started playing Nunu which has been "the most fun I've had in the game since Heimerdinger." Monaghan has a few more champs in his pool, listing off Teemo, Jinx, Arhi and Ziggs as his favourites. He said he has a tendency to pick champions that "annoy" other players and do better at quietly chipping away at enemy health bars.
"I think the characters that I play and certainly the characters that Billy plays speak a little bit to our personality, to our actual personality in real life," he told podcast host Travis Gafford. "I tend to pick champions that poke and annoy people. Not big bruisers."
As it turns out, this isn't the first time they've gushed about Riot's MOBA. The two started a podcast called The Friendship Onion last year, and the game comes up in conversation a fair few times across episodes. Episode three is a particularly special one, where they try and rope fellow LOTR co-star Elijah Wood into playing a few matches with them. "Elijah, you know through lockdown we've been playing this game called League of Legends," Monaghan says. "It's a five-man team and we only have four!"
The same episode also reveals that the two had their "first-ever official fight" while playing a game of League, with Boyd claiming he "was not defending the tower well enough" for Monaghan's liking.
You can always tell when celebs are sincerely geeking out over a neat hobby, and it's clear Boyd and Monaghan have been thoroughly enjoying themselves over in the world of Runeterra. I'm 100% here for more celebrities sharing their favourite games and nerdy activities—there are only so many times the PC Gamer team can swoon over Henry Cavill's Warhammer obsession.
