Richard Armitage Hobbit Interview

Below is the Richard Armitage Hobbit interview and transcription

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transcribed, edited and uploaded by bccmee

Note: the transcription below will make it easier for you to translate this page. Google Translate is my favorite.

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Announcer: Richard Armitage, Thorin

Announcer: Aidan Turner, Kili

Announcer: Rob Kazinsky, Fili

Reporter: Richard, we haven’t heard from you yet. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role?

Richard Armitage: Yeah I’m playing Thorin who is the leader of the dwarves, of this particular group of dwarves on this particular quest.

Reporter: Can you tell us about yourself?

Richard Armitage: Me as a person? Would you like to be a little more specific? I’ve got 40 years to talk about.

Reporter: Why do you think you’re suited to this role?

Richard Armitage: That’s a good question actually. That might be one for Peter, Fran and Philippa.

Reporter: Why do you want to play this role?

Richard Armitage: I just think it’s just a really amazing opportunity to take a character from a book that I was brought to as a child. I mean my first experience onstage was in a production of  The Hobbit.

Martin Freeman: Really?

Richard Armitage: At the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. And I played an elf. And Gollum was a little papier-mâché puppet with a man offstage on a microphone.

Off-camera: Michael Sheehan, then?

Richard Armitage: Yeah, his voice was not that much different.  So it’s kind of been in my childhood very prominently so to come to it as an adult, a middle-aged man, and have another look at it is a brilliant opportunity.

Reporter: Richard, you mentioned about papier-mâché Gollum. Are you looking forward to acting against green screens?

Richard Armitage: Yeah, I was in the mocap studio yesterday which is a first for me. I’ve  never quite understood the technogy behind it but it really does appear that it’s like being in Avatar the movie and I quite look forward to that. But also I think with this film in particular there’s enough creative genius in terms of the art department and the technological department but at the same time I think we’re going to get out there in nature and really experience this possibly more so than a purely technical film which is really exciting. It’s a good marriage of both I think.

Reporter: And you’re all going to be covered in prosthetics. Are you looking forward to that?

Richard Armitage: We don’t know yet actually.  It’s still up for grabs, hence the little bit of experimentation in the facial hair department.

McTavish: (off-camera) Yeah, we don’t all normally look like this.