The Hobbit Interview: Richard Armitage on Thorin’s Madness
The actor based part of his performance on Benedict Cumberbatch’s interpretation of Smaug.

December 13th, 2014 William Bibbiani

Richard Armitage brought the sexy back to Middle Earth. The star of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy plays Thorin Oakenshield, the heir to the throne of the dwarves, who is on a mission to recapture Erebor and the treasure hoarded by the dragon Smaug. It’s a character Richard Armitage has had an opportunity to expand from the novels, delving into the heroic nature of Thorin and transforming him into a more dashing figure than he was in J.R.R. Tolkien’s original book. But in this weekend’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Thorin has achieved his goals and fallen prey to the madness that stems from acquiring untold riches. (And STILL he’s charismatic!)

I talked to Richard Armitage on the phone about the differences between the novel and the motion picture trilogy, and the seemingly rapid descent into paranoia that befalls his character in the final film in the series. We also talked about the influence Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as Smaug had on his own performance in The Battle of the Five Armies, how Tolkien’s life story impacted his portrayal of Thorin Oakenshield and his favorite scene from all of the films.






CraveOnline: I know a lot of people who never thought they would be attractive to a dwarf from a Tolkien movie until they saw you.

Richard Armitage: [Laughs.] Yeah, I still find it a bit weird to think of it in that way, but hey, I’ll take it.

You get to take a character who, in the original book, is a bit more allegorical, and you get to turn him into a heroic figure. That must have been an interesting job to do.

Yeah, in those first few chapters of the book, Tolkien really has him as a bit of a fuddy-duddy, someone who’s quite stoic and a bit boring. Then he turns on a little bit. So we took some elements of that and tried to feed into something that was going to play over three films that the audience will be able to engage with. Because really, the character is really the spine of the story and all of the villains that come up, in way, they just hang off his story. They just hang off the spine, which is the quest to Erebor. So it was important that we created something that was aspirational, you know?

Yeah, his motivation is much more about his people than about gold in this trilogy. Which is why it’s interesting to watch the third film, to see him go a little crazy. It seems to come on very quickly. That must have been a challenge.

It has been a bit of a split focus, because the thing that sets him on the road is to try and reclaim the wealth, because with wealth comes the reestablishment of his kingdom. But when he actually gets in the presence of the gold, it has this corrupting effect on him, and takes him down that path he watched his grandfather tread. It’s got a fatalistic taste to it.



“I think in every actor there’s a certain amount of paranoia…”


What’s that like, creating a character who has all of these deep emotional connections with the supporting cast, and then all of a sudden you have to get very paranoid about it? How do you know when you’re going too far?

You know, I think in every actor there’s a certain amount of paranoia anyway. There’s just something you [latch] into. It was about making the character as inconsistent as possible. Normally when you make a film and you put a character together you try to keep them consistent, so I sort of deliberately didn’t do that. I let him have really quite extreme mood swings, and so one moment he seems very clear and lighthearted, and then the next minute he goes to a very dark place. So I wanted to him to feel a little bit schizophrenic. But it was something Peter [Jackson] has sort of chosen in the edit, so really the final shape of the character is in Peter’s hand.

So how was it different on the day? Did you try different shadings?

Yeah, we tried all kinds of extremes. We tried quite softer readings of the scene and then he’d really push you to a place that felt sometimes abstract, and what’s really interesting me is that the takes chosen are all of the extremes that we went for. There’s a version of the scene where you think it’s much too far… the moment where Thorin starts to become a dragon a little bit. I’d gone into the soundstage and watched Benedict [Cumberbatch] recording Smaug’s voice, so I made some of the sounds he was making, I did some of the movements he was making. So it was good. It was fine-tuning, which I really enjoyed.

CraveOnline: I didn’t know Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance would have been such an influence on you. Was that your idea or did Peter Jackson encourage that?

Richard Armitage: It just happened by chance. He just happened to be down, recording. Peter actually showed up and said, “Why don’t you watch Benedict recording some of his stuff? Because in the stage direction I want you to kind of follow him.” I sort of heard his voice and saw what he was doing, and it felt like I could just let it rub off on me a little bit, just for one scene. Just a tiny shade of that, which I just thought was interesting.

Tell me about the action sequences. You spend a lot of time fighting motion-capture actors. Is that easy for you at this point, after this much production, or is that a trick?

No, I mean, it’s the only possible way to do it. The good thing is when you make an action sequence like that you have to have contact with somebody. You can’t just throw a sword into nothing. You can see when there’s no impact, because the impact kind of resonates through the body. So I was lucky, I had a great opponent in a stunt guy who I think was over seven foot tall, this basketball player. This physicalization of Azog fighting comes through. So I really got to do all of the fighting, and it was something I had requested because I didn’t want them to bring a stunt double in for me, and likely it was a scale issue. So I really did fight every move of Thorin’s last fight of the story.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you got the role, what your audition piece might of been, what Peter Jackson discussed with you?

This was quite a simple process. He evidently had seen some of my other work on British television, and I had to meet him for… I think I was there about an hour and a half. I read one of the scenes, it was one of the scenes from the first movie where Thorin was talking to Balin about why he must reclaim the gold. So we read that scene, but I had actually injured my back doing a stunt on show I was doing, so I nearly didn’t make it to the casting and I had taken quite a lot of painkillers, but I was still in a kind of agony. Which I think maybe played through the audition tape a bit. So when it was time to shoot I just remembered in my head, “Think about the thread of pain that’s running through the character.”



“My expectations of my own work are higher now than they’ve ever been before.”


Do you get requests at parties to belt out “Misty Mountains?”

Not at parties. It’s not really a party song. But I’ve been asked at a couple of interviews to do it, and weirdly enough, when I was down in Brazil, I was invited to sing the song and it was just off the top of my head, and I actually forgot the words. Which was a little bit embarrassing, because you know, one would expect… but it’s been three years since I’d heard that song [and] I forgot the words.

What are you going to take with you from this production? This is years of life and I’m wondering what’s going to stick in your memory the most?

You know it’s really interesting, because we were at the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday for Pete, the celebration, and Andy Serkis gave an amazing speech. The one thing he said was that Pete has this sense of mischief and anarchy about him, and it really stuck with me because I think that’s what I’ll take away with me, and it’s something that I find quite difficult. Because I had taken it quite seriously, but he really gave me the ability to laugh at myself and work with that same sense of mischief and anarchy, hopefully.

Has this experience impacted your work on other shows, since? Would you say you’ve learned something as an actor, or gained a certain kind of experience?

Yeah, definitely. When you collaborate with someone like Pete he really forces you to raise the bar in your own work. I work physically and emotionally in a way that I haven’t worked before. So no matter who the next director is or whatever the next project is, my bar is in a certain place and I’m not going to lower it. So my expectations of my own work are higher now than they’ve ever been before.

CraveOnline: What is coming next for you? What’s the next project that we’ll see?

Richard Armitage: Well, I’m producing something which hopefully will get shot before the end of next year, which is a true story set in Ireland. I’m not going to give you the title because someone else might grab the idea, but yeah, I’ll be also acting in that piece. It’s a historic piece. But also there’s another possibility next year [called] Pilgrimage, which is an 11th Century Crusade story. I might possibly just be speaking Ancient French.

You’ll be speaking Ancient French?

Ancient French. Yeah, yeah, ancient French.

That’s crazy. Did you need to learn the whole language?

That will be needed of me. But I’ll be playing full height.

That’s really, really cool.

No more dwarves.

I know a lot of people who never thought they would be attractive to a dwarf from a Tolkien movie until they saw you.