Hier gibts ein schönes neues RA Interview !!!
EDIT: Der Link funktioniert leider nicht mehr. Maike
Funktionierender link: http://theuktvguide.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... -hood.htmlNot such a nice GuyRichard Armitage as
anti-hero Sir Guy of
Gisborne
Having become a heart-throb to thousands of women
after playing romantic hero John Thornton in the BBC's
costume drama North And South a couple of years ago,
Richard Armitage is set to shock his adoring fans as
anti-hero and bad seed Sir Guy of Gisborne in Dominic
Minghella's stylish and witty version of the Robin Hood
legend. But Richard himself is more than happy to
embrace the dark side, as he tells Judy Leighton.
"I'm having fun playing the bad guy because you can be
really quite vile to people and it's very amusing to do
that," laughs the 6'2" tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed
Leicester-born actor, who manages to turn heads even
without the help of period costume. "It's enjoyable
because you get to express all those dark qualities that
you can't always do in everyday life," he continues,
though he does stick up slightly for Sir Guy: "In my head
Gisborne is his own hero; what he is fighting for he
completely believes in, I've convinced myself!" he smiles.
A dispossessed lord, very ambitious and very much a
social climber, Gisborne has been babysitting Robin
Hood's wealth and lands – so when Robin returns from
the Holy Land to claim them it's not good news for
Gisborne.
"They're opposite sides of a similar coin – they were
contemporaries of each other and they've grown in very
different directions," explains Richard. "While Robin is the
hero, Gisborne is the anti-hero. He wants the trappings of
fame, fortune and popularity but he just doesn't have the
qualities to achieve that." He's also a rival to Robin when
it comes to Marian.
"He's very much there in the stakes," says 35-year-old
Richard. "His initial move towards her is that she could be
a token bride. She's a lady, she's the daughter of the old
sheriff, she carries great status with her – and also she's
obviously the most desirable woman in the vicinity. But
actually he does fall for her and when Robin is made an
outlaw it is very convenient for Gisborne because it sets
him in a much more favourable position as a marriage
option. Love aside, the prospect of Marian going into the
forest and living as a vagrant, although the romantic in us
would hope that she would do that, actually on a practical
level she has got to think of her father and Gisborne
knows this. Whether or not she will ever love him doesn't
really matter, because she may well be bound to him by
those practical voices."
But despite being the Sheriff's weapon of destruction,
Gisborne finds himself becoming affected by his feelings
for Marian. "She does unravel him slightly towards the
end of this series," Richard reveals. "It's been very
interesting playing moments where he is doing the most
awful slaughter and then in the next moment he is
declaring how much he loves this young girl. It was quite
a challenge to work out what kind of guy could separate
himself like that. Mind you, I'm sure that these kind of
tyrants in history have been able to go home to their
wives and say I love you!"
The awful slaughter he's referring to is on behalf of the
evil Sheriff of Nottingham, played by Keith Allen – who
Richard says at first he was rather nervous about working
with. "Initially I took very baby steps with him because
he's quite a volatile man but actually it's turned out that
our relationship character-wise and off screen has
developed," says Richard. "I really enjoy the scenes with
him – the best fun has been working with Keith."
He's also enjoyed the physical side of the role, as he
explains.
"We all went over for two weeks before filming started to
what they termed the Hood Academy, where we did
riding in the morning and then we went to the studio and
did fighting, sword fighting, and archery in the afternoon.
You've got grown men from 20 to 40 all in a room being
10 years old again and loving it. When guest artists come
out to work on all the different episodes, you can see in
their eyes that they're about to have the greatest
adventure of their lives. It's so appealing!"
Though it turned into quite competitive sessions which
even spilled over into non-Robin Hood activities such as
go-karting (at which Joe Armstrong, who plays
Allan-a-Dale, trounced everyone) it all helped bond the
cast into a family unit. "It really is," Richard agrees, "and
what's great is that the atmosphere has remained
buoyant and jolly and everyone gets on brilliantly."
Although he admits he hasn't quite got the same
relationship with his horse... "As soon as you point a
horse towards open land, when it has been standing
around all day, you can guarantee that it will want to run
in that direction, so when they said 'Action!' – and to be
honest the horses understand 'Action!' – they go whether
you kick them or not ... and my horse bolted," he recalls
with a laugh. "It wanted to run for its life and I was on
the back of it. Everyone was shouting at me to stop,
which made me laugh because I thought I actually really
do want to stop and if I had any control over this horse I
would be stopping it!
"It was okay and I didn't get thrown – but it's very
amusing working with animals in general, particularly
horses because they have no concept of bodily function.
Once in the middle of a love scene with Marian where
we're standing by a horse, the horse did an enormous
dump... it's very amusing! Lucy's [Griffiths, who plays
Marian] a trouper and carried on, but I was crying with
laughter."
His first brush with horses came during his time with the
circus when he was 17 – coincidentally in Budapest,
where Robin Hood is filmed.
"My mum always finds it amusing when she reads that I
ran away to the circus," Richard grins, explaining, "I got
my Equity card by going to Budapest and working in the
circus – that was my very first experience of
showbusiness.
Since then he's racked up roles in many high-profile TV
series, including Sparkhouse, Cold Feet, Between The
Sheets and, most recently, The Golden Hour – plus a
starring role as Claude Monet in the BBC docu-drama The
Impressionists earlier this year – and those teenage days
in the circus seem a long time ago, especially as he found
Budapest so changed.
"Budapest is an unrecognisable place to me – it's opened
its eyes and woken up. At that time it was 1990 when the
[Berlin] Wall had come down the year before and it was
just waking up from its Communist days, so my heart did
a little flip when they said we'd spend six months here
filming, because of my previous experience. But getting
here and seeing why we were here – the forest is
extraordinary and the studio and set is absolutely perfect;
there's nowhere else we could do this. And now it's such
a vibrant, exciting place – we've really enjoyed being
here."
Ironically, it could have been a lot closer to home for
Richard if Sherwood Forest was still as intact as in Robin's
day. Originally from Leeds, he was based in Leicester for
many years and has fond memories of the area.
"My mum's sister lived in Nottinghamshire and as kids we
regularly used to go – before Center Parcs invaded – up
to Nottingham and spend quite a lot of time there," he
recalls. "I remember having day trips out to the forest –
what little there is left of it. And yes, I do remember the
Great Oak; you can walk underneath it."
Although in his youth Richard admits to being more into
The Lord Of The Rings books than the Robin Hood story,
he does recall being mightily impressed with one
particular incarnation...
"As far as heroes were concerned, Michael Praed as Robin
Hood – I remember opening Smash Hits and thinking
yeah, that's what I want to be like, and getting a black
marker pen and painting hairs on my chest as a
10-year-old because I wanted to look like Robin Hood!"
he admits, laughing.