Elijah Wood: Bollywood is so amazing!

Mumbai, Sept. 4 -- He played a central role in what is possibly one of the most famous period trilogies of our times (The Lord Of The Rings; LOTR).

So, when we got Elijah Wood, aka Frodo Baggins of LOTR, to dangle out off a rickshaw for us on the streets of Bandra (W), we knew we would have to worry about crowd control. But before things got out of hand, we managed to wrap up the exclusive shoot for HT Cafe.

The 34-year-old star, who is currently in India for a music tour, says he has made his peace with the fact that he will always remain Frodo for his fans. "These movies will be around for generations to come. I'll always be associated with my character, and it's one of the best experiences of my life," says the Hollywood actor-musician, as he sits down at the coffee lounge of Taj Land's End in Mumbai for his first face-to-face interview since his arrival in India.

Talking about what he has loved about the city so far, Elijah says that he has taken a fancy to rickshaws, and wants to take one back home. Interestingly, earlier this year, he was even planning to travel from India to Nepal in one.

"There's a Rickshaw Run from somewhere in India all the way to Nepal. It's a month-long trip. You get a rickshaw and some money to fix and modify it, and you go with a group of people. Me and a couple of other people were planning to take this crazy journey, stay at local places, bring along a sleeping bag... it would be super rough," Elijah says.

The actor, who is heavily into music, reveals that he got exposed to it "at the age of nine". "By the time I was a teenager, I got into it seriously. Since I travelled so much as a child, I was exposed to different musical tastes," he adds.

Ask him what he likes about Indian music, and he says that it's the balance of western and eastern tones that attracts him. "That's what's exciting. If it's disco or dance music, it is filtered through the eastern side here.

The mixture of traditional and popular styles is really good," says Elijah, adding that he and his partners plan to buy some "Bollywood records of Asha Bhonsle, Bappi Lahiri, RD Burman and Lata Mangeshkar".

Although Elijah doesn't know many B-Town actors, he's quite fascinated with the industry. "Bollywood is so amazing... the output is so much greater than that of Hollywood. Hundreds of movies are made here every year. It's an extraordinary film industry," he says.