Dominic Monaghan on "Wild Things", Nail Polish, and Pillows

Good to see you. You look really far away all of a sudden. Let me get closer. We have an issue with this cushion.

you had an issue with the pillows. So now you've put them, you've built a wall in between us. I have like a life long crusade to try and eradicate cushions from my life. I don't sleep with a pillow. Come on.

I don't, I don't understand the concept of cushions or pillows. But don't you want something soft on your head?

No, I'm sleeping in a bed that's pretty soft. But here's my thing, right? It's all about like Get comfy. Well, you know, like you have you have to have like a nice posture when you're sitting and stuff to like, you know, take care of your spine. Yes, okay. So you sit like this, right? That's the best that you can do in this situation. But then, if you put a cushion there, What that does is it makes you do that. It makes you slouch. See, you've just, this is a this is me on a Friday night. Okay? Alone. There's me.

Now you do you. You're never alone on a Friday night.

I am. You'd be surprised.

You're never alone because you have so many friends now that you travel and seek out in the world.

Yes, that's true. I do have international partners.

You do have a lot of international partners. You know what's I find so funny now? Is you have women tweeting you about nails?

Yeah, I do have women tweeting me about nails.

Let's show them off, Dom. Come on.

These aren't that good. I only did them the other day. So this is some sort of OPI glittery thing.

When a man can embrace nail colors. Men out there, take a note.

Yeah, I, you know, I've worn nail polish, or nail varnish as they call it, in other parts of the world. Yes. I love what you just did this. You're like, for for a long time. Like your legs crossed. I kinda wore it through school and did some kinda weird stuff through school, like I wore two watches at school because I've always like, I've always want stuff on my wrist, so I wore two watches.

But why two? Like different time zones, you just

No, same time. I was just like protecting my wrists, I think.

But from what?

I don't fractures, I guess. I don't know. And now you're risking your life on a constant basis. Right. And I But I'll continue to wear nail polish because I just, I don't think it's fair that women get to have all the fun. There was a point in history where women were forbidden from wearing trousers and then eventually they were like, no, we want to wear whatever we want. We have complete clothing rights. But men don't seem to have that in terms of fashion and I don't think that, you know, wearing a little bit of nail polish is a bad thing.

So Dom's wild things. Let's talk about the show. You've been all over the world.

Uh, yeah, we've been lucky enough to go to some pretty well-known places. We went back to New Zealand. Went back. So this we this year we go to uh, Kenya, Zambia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Thailand, Japan, Arizona, Australia for two, and New Zealand.

What which encounter scared you the most? Cuz on your show, your show is so addictive, and every moment, I mean, there's no backup there. I mean, you're really like they're the snakes, and the whatever, the elephant you almost got trampled by. I mean, what has been the sort of the most frightening?

I feel like it sounds a little hokey when I when I answer honestly, but but truly, none of it really scares me. It doesn't. Not to say that in that moment with the elephant, my adrenaline wasn't going and I didn't find it exciting and I wasn't sweating. But in terms of having the experience, nothing wants me to not have that experience. So yes, that moment with the elephant was a little scary, but I wouldn't have exchanged that moment to me. You know, people talk about this whole near death experience, but for me near death experiences, I I understand as acute life experiences because you feel so alive. Your vision is better, your hearing's better, your sense of smell's better, you're faster, you're stronger. So, scary experiences, the elephant was certainly scary. You know, I've been bitten by a few venomous snakes. I've been stung by a few scorpions before.

I love that you just throw that out. I have been stung, I've been bitten, I don't know, whatever.

I I'm acutely aware in those moments that I've made a mistake. It's not the animal. So all of those times, I'm disappointed in myself and I try and break down what I did wrong to make that animal do that.

So what does scare you? What outside in life?

Intimacy? Really? Uh, no, I'm kidding. Uh, what Get clo get those pillows out of there. Move those pillows. Embrace it. I'm a I'm a little nervy around heights, although I have I have faced those fears. I've done the world's biggest bungee jump. I've, you know, jumped off of cliffs into water and stuff like that. I'm a little scared of heights.

Does that cure? When people say face your fears, does that help or?

It definitely helps. I went in season one of Wild Things, I went like 130, 150 feet into a tree to uh, be close to these bees and that was that was a terrifying experience, but it it did help me.

You have that hashtag Be Curious that you've started. Be Curious. Where did that come from?

There's a couple of quotes by famous people in terms of curiosity that I've always really liked. Um, Einstein said, blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures. I thought that was kind of interesting when I was a kid. Um, I've always rejected the idea that curiosity killed the cat. You know, curiosity is labeled with this kind of negative connotation. And I don't felt I I didn't feel like it was true. I thought curiosity helped us understand our world a little better and uh, being inquisitive about things and trying to work out how things work and how things behave was something that I was turned on by. So as a signature on my email, for the last four or five years, it always says Be Curious. And when I when I came around to do the second season of Wild Things, uh, Harry Simon who is the head of BBC America said to me, you should have be curious be your driving force for season two because it's such a positive idea and it speaks to the show.

This was a lot of fun.

Yeah, it was good to see you again. Come back again.

I would love to. I think I'll be old Hollywood by the time I come back again, but it's a state of mind.

remove a pillow next time. Remove all the pillows next time. We can work on that intimacy.

Yeah. I'll leave you with that.