Dominic Monaghan

My mom and dad just loved the fact that I fooled around. They just embraced it. They'd always kind of enjoy it, and they liked it when I made them laugh.

I've always traveled, as a kid my parents moved me around, a different place in Germany every four years. But I got the travel bug when I was a kid, living in different countries.

I enjoy the preparatory elements of travel - packing my bags and choosing my outfits - but my favourite part is getting there.

My brother's a teacher in Costa Rica and actually does a more important and significant job than I will ever do.

What I'm attempting to do is to show people that if I can spend some time with very dangerous spiders and snakes and scorpions, then maybe they'll feel different about the spiders and snakes they find around their areas. I don't need people to keep them as pets. I just like them to be respectful and see that everything in nature has its place.

I used to get quite upset that I'd make friends with a guy or a girl and then within the space of three years we'd move and go and live somewhere else, and you'd have to say goodbye to that person.

I think a lot of young kids at school are very conscious of trying to keep credibility in case they kind of stand out in a crowd and get bullied by trying to stay cool and stuff. And my whole thing, all the way through school, was I was just a goof... I didn't care.

The term 'geek' for me is like you having a passion, interest in something that is unabashed and you don't care if people think it's not cool. You think it's cool and that's your thing.

I hope to be an actor and never retire.

I have been heartbroken once and it has affected all of my relationships from there on. But now I look at it as an occupational hazard. If you are in the meat market at some point you are gonna get mad cow disease.