Billy Boyd is a Scottish actor best known for his performance as Peregrin “Pippin” Took in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He landed his first role in a full-length film in 1998, playing a loan shark in indie British horror movie Urban Ghost Story. Just three years later, Billy’s breakout role hit the big screen—he charmed audiences as the hungriest hobbit Pippin in The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.

Billy is also an accomplished songwriter and musician. He fronts the band Beecake, whose name was inspired after LOTR co-star Dominic Monaghan sent him a picture of cake covered in bees. Ties between the LOTR universe and his music career are plentiful: Billy made a guest appearance on castmate Viggo Mortenson’s 2003 album Pandemoniumfromamerica, as well as the song Edge of Night in the film Return of the King he later wrote and performed the song The Last Goodbye, which played during the closing credits of 2014’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.