He’s probably your favorite hobbit, right? Sean Astin—better known to ‘80s horror fans as Mikey Walsh—and better known to Lord of the Rings junkies as Samwise Gamgee—has entered a whole new fantastic world, a Discworld if you will. Astin stars as Twoflower, a simple tourist in a magical world, as he heads the live-action adaptation of fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett’s first two Discworld novels, titled The Color of Magic (after the first novel) and also starring Tim Curry.  The adaptation made waves across the big pond upon its UK television release, and on Sunday, March 22nd, The Color of Magic will make its US premiere on ION Television at 7 PM EST! We caught up with Astin recently to chat about dragons, his favorite horror movies, sexy hot-tub time with British actors, sequels and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s a mixed, magical bag…

It’s funny to see you in a starring role in a series that is, in part, a sort of parody of Tolkien’s work, including Lord of the Rings…
I think for me, someone who starred in Lord of the Rings, to be able to satirize the genre and at the same time paying homage to it is appropriate. It’s the way it’s supposed to be

Most Americans aren’t familiar with [Terry Pratchett’s] work or the Discworld series. There isn’t that Tolkien or J.K. Rowling, where they are just totally known quantities. In England, his popularity is massive. He is, was, and will be a massive J. R. R. Tolkien fan but he couldn’t redo what Tolkien did. As his voice developed, it’s a combination of reverence for fantasy films, dragons and wizards and this kind of biting satirical world view. I actually think for people who like fantasy but kind of feel sometimes like the fantasy world is a little redundant and formulaic, Pratchett is such a great antidote for that. He bounces back and forth between contemporary ideas and really fun old-fashioned fantasy. The Discworld is just awesome. There’s a giant turtle with four elephants on its back and on top of the elephants is this world that looks like a satellite picture of earth only it’s 2D and the water falls off the edges of it. There’s all kinds of worlds there.

What I love about my character is, he is the first tourist to go to the Discworld. His name is Twoflower. [Pauses.] Which I just think is hilarious. When you say the name out loud you feel sort of ridiculous. When people ask what I’m up to and I say I’m playing a character named Twoflower, they sort of look at me like “Huh? So you’re a florist? I don’t get it.” [Laughs.]

In a sense, the audience who would watch the movie is kind of like Twoflower the character because it’s the exposure to a new world. The world is peopled by ruffians and brigands and villains and all kinds of fun stuff. My character is a banker and he’s tired of living the life of a banker, so he takes his luggage—which by the way has about 100 feet and walks around on its own and when you open it up all kinds of magical things come out and endless amounts of gold.

The Color of Magic’s satirical moments call out many fantasy clichés. What are some of your favorite clichés in fantasy films?
There’s this world where all the dragons are and this villain in the books has to clip into these boots and walk upside down in order to saddle up with the dragon. In fantasy movies there’s always the jailbreak. The hero comes in and rescues somebody. In this case the hero is this failed wizard with a messed up spell. Instead of breaking in on a white STEED and carrying you off into the sunset, you kind of accidentally get the dragon to melt the bars and fly away using your imagination away from this upside-down dragon world. [Laughs.]

To me the upside down mountain is a nice visual of what Pratchett does. He takes these classic tropes and literally turns them on their head.

Were you a fan of the books and Pratchett before the project?
Yeah I was. I met Terry Pratchett. I stood in line to get an autograph from him in New Zealand years after Lord of the Rings. I was so taken with the idea of the Discworld and he loved that a Hobbit was getting an autograph from him that we just sort of bonded a little bit. I remember feeling a little sad when I read the books that I’d never get to play Twoflower. I just thought “Oh they’re going to make this and it’ll be a British film and they’ll never consider someone like me for that.” When my wife came in and said, “Listen they want you to play Twoflower in The Color of Magic,” I just looked at her like she was absolutely crazy. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. It was such a gift.

The Color of Magic is an adaptation of the first two Discworld books. There are 18 books that deal with the Discworld—any plans for a sequel adaptation?
Whenever you’re making a movie of a book—whether it’s Lord of the Rings and you always have hobbit people—whenever you do something that has its basis in a series, there’s always talk about doing a sequel. But I don’t know if there’s been serious talk. I don’t know if they’re waiting to see how the TV numbers did. I don’t know. They all know that if Twoflower appears in anything, I definitely want to be Twoflower. To think of somebody else as Twoflower makes me sad.

You’re certainly no stranger to the genre. Were you always a fan of fantasy?
I’ve always loved fantasy movies. I wasn’t a Dungeons and Dragons kid. I didn’t like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. The older I got I started to appreciate those things. But I loved Star Wars. I always loved dragons. I remember when I read The Color of Magic and the dragons were introduced to me I was really excited.

With such a great cast and crew, could you speak to the magic on set?
Sir David Jason, the beloved British actor who… people in America don’t know who he is. I didn’t know who he was—has been in a major hit television show in England in every decade for 40 years. If you think of one of the actors from Friends and Cheers and the Love Boat or one of those ‘70s shows that were really popular. He’s been in series like that in England. He can’t leave his house without being mobbed. He’s a legend

We were filming in Pinewood Studios, which is the historic studio in England where they made most of the James Bond movies. On the back lot, they have this water tank. It’s huge. It’s still one of the three or four biggest water tanks in the world with a huge blue screen behind it so you can do water battles or whatever else you need to do. We were doing stuff where you have a bunch of boats lined up together and they turn the engines on to create waves. We’re kind of holding on to a branch. It was really, really cool.

But it was cold. I mean, really cold. Not just the air, but the air outside. It was probably in the 50s if not colder. We’d get out of there and our lips and hands would be blue and our faces would be so pale and we’d be shivering. They set up an inflatable hot tub [laughs] with a pop-up tent over it. As soon as we’d finish me and this legendary, knighted actor would strip down to our skivvies and sit in this tiny inflatable Jacuzzi where hot water was being added by the cup full, and thaw for a minute. That was pretty funny.

Any favorite fantasy villains or monsters you’ve come across while working or fanning in the genre?
It’s not a villain as much as it’s a thing of danger. In Flash Gordon there’s this tree stump and he has to put his hand in it and there’s this prickly porcupine inside of it. If he touches it, it will kill him, but it’s a trust exercise. That spiky thing, sea-urchin/porcupine tree thing really freaked me out.

The one I really hate… I forget which one it’s from, but the guy opens up his shirt and there’s a little person inside of his stomach. I think it was in Total Recall. He opens up his shirt and there’s that little person living off the host. Ahh, I can’t stand that.

You of course have some roots in horror as well. Any favorite horror movie?
Anything that creepy crawlies. The Mummy when those things crawl up their leg and devour them. The one that scared me the most when I was a kid was in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Ark got opened up and those guys’ faces melted. That scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. Any of the good horror movies like—nowadays it’s Saw—I was freaked out by Blair Witch.

When there’s someone whose job it is to go in there and hack you up, like Jason… Jason didn’t scare me. I knew it was a movie, but when the music comes on and it’s dark and there’s a guy with a machete walking in, I think that… And Freddy Krueger, when you talk about your nightmares, that scared the shit out of me.

Any updates on The Goonies 2?
I will maintain as I always have that the sequel will get made. I would say that I—we all—have kids. I have a twelve-year-old daughter, and I was twelve when I made the movie so I would think that they might have wanted to wait. I would think that one of the reasons that they’ve waited is because they haven’t been able to figure out the next generation of Goonies and how that fits in with everything else. Now that we’re that much old[er] it might make sense to them. I would not be surprised in the slightest if a sequel started to heat up.

Would your daughter be interested in starring?
Oh I don’t know. I’m sure she would. Yeah, she probably would. She did a lot of theater stuff when she was a kid, so I feel like she’s comfortable performing, but she’s had such a big school life and all the other extracurricular [activities] like soccer and girl scouts, so I think that she’s focused on that. I don’t know. If a sequel came up and they wanted her to be in it, I’m sure she’d be like “Dad, you know I’m doing it right?” I would think they’d want The Goonies actors to do the sequel. We don’t have to but…

But you would be interested?
If it’s good. If [Stephen] Spielberg is doing it and Dick Donner’s doing it then it’s going to be good.

Who would be your dream writer/director team to do the sequel?
Well Dick Donner has said… Well, he didn’t say it in years directly after that he wanted to do a sequel—and I was always under the impression that he didn’t want to do it. In the last five to ten years, I’ve heard him say in several places with great emphasis that he would direct the sequel. I think he and Spielberg would want to do it. I think Spielberg would want him to do it and I think he would do it. And I think he would be the perfect person to do it. In terms of writer, I think I’ve been aware of different screenplays that they’ve commissioned—I don’t know if I’ve read any of the scripts—but... I don’t know. I think Stephen... He gets it. He’s dealt with people over the last twenty to twenty-five coming up to him telling him he has to do a sequel. I’m sure, knowing his fertile mind, that he’s thought about it and I’m sure he has ideas of what he’d want to do. I don’t know if he’s ever written anything about it, but he’d be the ideal person to decide where the characters have gone and come to.

What’s your biggest fear?
Suffocating. When there’s a show when someone gets locked in a coffin and they’re buried alive with a match or a lighter and only a certain amount of air in there, I hate that. If I’m in the movie theater watching that I turn my body 45 degrees from the screen. I just can’t…