Richard Armitage happy to ditch dwarf
Richard Armitage's new movie is a far cry from The Hobbit films, but the British actor is enjoying playing characters who are of regular height.
Richard Armitage is enjoying playing normal height characters again.
The British actor takes on the role of Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit trilogy, with the third and final film due out in December.
But as the famous franchise, based on J. R. R. Tolkien's books, gets ready to come to an end, Richard hasn't been short of work offers. His latest film Into the Storm hits cinema screens next month, and tells the story of a group of high school students who document the aftermath of a devastating tornado.
"This is possibly not the kind of movie I would have run towards. The storm aspect of it, I swept aside and looked at the bones of the story: a single father, who is father and mother to two boys, and a family that's already breaking up, and how that's [exacerbated] by this single day. That was interesting enough. Also I could be normal height. That was very appealing," Richard laughed to Total Film magazine.
The movie co-stars Sarah Wayne Callies as Richard's character Gary's love interest Allison.
"There's an instant bond when someone saves your life. There's a love story there, but not in the way that you think of a love story," he hinted.
The devastating nature of the film got Richard thinking about how he would handle the situation if ever faced with it in real life.
The 42-year-old actor admits that while it's hard to put yourself in the eye of a devastating storm, his research meant he automatically went into survival mode.
"When you're preparing, you look at every scene and give yourself a whole bunch of questions as to what your motivations are. With this, it came down to one word: survival. That's all I could write. It must be like that when you're in this situation. You're living second to second," he explained.