Lord of the Rings actors praise Italian man who lives as a hobbit

Elijah Wood among stars to laud project of Nicolas Gentile to transform land into personal shire'

Lord of the Rings actors including Elijah Wood have expressed their support for the project of an Italian man who lives as a hobbit and is building his personal shire" from JRR Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth in Italy.

In a series of video messages posted on Monday on Instagram, the actors who played the hobbits in Peter Jackson's movie expressed their appreciation for the project by Nicolas Gentile, a 37-year-old Italian pastry chef who dresses and lives as a hobbit and whose goal is to transform 2 hectares (5 acres) of land in the countryside of Bucchianico, near the town of Chieti in Abruzzo, into a hobbit village.