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Richard Armitage and The Hobbit: "It’s mind blowing the things we did"
Richard Armitage has travelled there and back again to promote Peter Jackson’s epic, three-part adaptation of The Hobbit. But far from flagging after the world press tour, the British actor – beloved on the BBC for his turn in Spooks, as well as for playing Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood – has doubled down to help spruik the DVD release.
Indeed, Armitage speaks about his character – exiled dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield – with the vim and verve of a lifelong Tolkien fan. And a bookish one at that, as the actor delves into his love of research, and the copious notes he writes for himself; notes that extend to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. No wonder he hasn’t tired of talking about Thorin! In fact, he’s itching to say more, but we’ll have to wait for the next two installments of The Hobbit.
And in the meantime, unsurprisingly, he’d like you to go and read the book.
Ed. Note: During our chat with Richard, the charming fellow was delighted to hear that some of his fans had sent through some questions on Twitter. Unrestrained by 140 characters, we'll publish our impromptu Twitter Q&A with fans tomorrow.
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So welcome back to Sydney! Will you organise a Star Wars reunion while you’re here?
God I don’t know. They shot one of the Star Wars [films] here didn’t they? I think there would be about a million people at that reunion.
But hang on, didn’t you have an uncredited role on The Phantom Menace?
I did. I did. I did two weeks on [The Phantom Menace] and I still can’t find myself in the film. I’ve hunted, [but] I think I ended up as a computer graphic.
Damn.
I know. But yeah I’d like to come and work here.
The last time we chatted was on the 500 meter long red carpet in Wellington for the world premiere of The Hobbit.
Oh you were on the red carpet as well? Awesome! Were you in a big long dress?
I was fortunately not in a big long dress. I would have melted!
[Laughs] It was so hot, wasn’t it!
So how has the world changed for you since that auspicious day?
Well it hasn’t really, which is great. There’s been a great response to the film, [but] what’s been really interesting is [Wellington] was the first leg of our press tour. And then going out to Tokyo and all of the other great places – we went to New York, London – just seeing the reception from the fans and seeing the excitement, and realising that it’s the beginning of a three year tour really, for the three films. It’s such a great global reach. It’s one of fifteen films to make a billion [dollars] at the box office, and for me it’s not about the dollar sign in front of it, it’s about how many people have gone to see it, and how many languages it’s been translated into. Which is to me exciting because that book [The Hobbit] was translated into as many languages. And I hope people go and pick up the book after seeing the film. I really do.
Yes, go enjoy the source material.
Yeah!
What’s the most exciting language you’ve heard Thorin speak?
I haven’t seen it in any other language, yet, but I’d love to see a Russian Thorin. Because actually when I was doing all my research and I was looking for a voice to sort of get me into the mood for the Misty Mountain Song, I listened to a lot of Russian Orthodox Church music – the basses. So I’d love to hear Thorin in Russian, I think he’d be…fierce.
I understand you have a musical theatre background. Did that also help you in that singing scene?
Yeah it did. But when I came in I didn’t realise I’d be singing. I knew that Tolkien had written a lot of songs in the book. And I did The Hobbit on stage when I was a kid, and it was sort of a musical, so I was really pleased that they managed to keep some of that great spirit of Tolkien in the movie, I think it was really important.
There’s adulation around the film, but what do you say to the naysayers? What about those who baulk at the (high frame rate) 48 frames per second?
Well…go see it in 24 frames per second! [Laughs] That’s the thing I loved about [the film], Pete’s trying to push the boundaries of cinemas: he wants an event that people are going to see in the cinema, but at the same time he is offering – and Warner Bros are offering – so many different ways to see this film, [there’s] choice. And now it’s on DVD, so you’re not going to see it 48 frames on DVD, but you can see it in 3D if you want, if you have a 3D TV. And I think that choice is great.
I personally don’t like 3D in general for anything – I don’t like wearing glasses – but I went to see it in IMAX and it didn’t have the 48 frames, and I wanted it back! It was like ‘the clarity of this image’ [is lacking] – particularly for the fight scenes. But yeah it’s just about choice and taste, so if you don’t like it, go and see it in a different form.
And what about those too say the film takes too long to get off the ground? That the first act drags?
You know, I think because [Peter Jackson] is playing the long game with his storytelling, and the third movie is called There and Back Again, I think you need to invest in the story of those dwarves. Because, come the third movie, you need to understand who these guys are, and that they’re on they’re way home, and that the losses that are sustained – having read the book! Not talking about the third or second films!
No we shan’t spoil the films.
Yes in the book there are losses; they sustain huge losses. You know Tolkien wrote these books based on his experiences of World War I, and he lost a lot of his friends in those wars. I think taking time to really understand his characters in Bag End was really important. And of course finding humour, which throughout the course of this story – the story gets so much darker as we go along – that it was important to give that time to breathe so you can enjoy those moments.
But I think we’ve become quite impatient in the cinema. Gone are the days when you’d sit through 3 ½ hours of Gone With the Wind, and it’s a shame because it’s the director’s prerogative to tell the story that he wants to tell. But I found myself engaged from beginning to end; I find all of the characters fascinating.
What I do love about Thorin is that epic hero shot that he gets…
I didn’t know [Peter] was shooting those! Because I don’t really go and watch playback; I was just sort of in the moment and he would talk to me about – I know the hero shot you’re talking about. Because they hadn’t finalised Azog; we didn’t really know what he looked like. He’d been through a number of manifestations, so Pete was like, “OK so you’re seeing your nemesis. It’s this pale Orc that has beheaded your father.” And I’d [already] shot that sequence. And [Peter] was just talking me through the psychology of what [Thorin] was seeing when he was facing him, because he believes that the creature is dead.
So I was kind of creating Azog in my head and just thinking it through, [but] I had no idea what he was shooting or how he was shooting. So it was quite a surprise for me in the cinema to see a big drum beat going on and the ritualistic sort of thing. It was almost as if Thorin’s heartbeat was speeding up.
If you didn’t know what you were looking at, are you just like, “Bring it, Weta Workshop! Do your worst!”?
Well kind of. It’s one of those ‘hundred-mile-stares’ that they talk about. I suppose I was looking at nothing, but visualising something in my head, which is kind of hard to describe. It’s not really about seeing a being; it’s about remembering how it felt when you saw him. So all I was doing was remembering how I felt when I saw him holding my grandfather’s head. So it’s actually my grandfather’s head that I was visualising, rather than the being. But I think that the way Weta has created Azog is really interesting…it’s terrifying.
There was a fraternity built up on set, but I understand you stayed in character and therefore stayed a bit more aloof?
God. I hate to think that I was aloof! [Laughs]. You know the thing is the prosthetics and the costume were quite uncomfortable, and when you’re in a big group of people who are uncomfortable, it can turn into a ‘who’s the most uncomfortable’ competition. And when you’re in close proximity to other hot people, it can just get hotter. So I sort of did sit with my head down, in a corner, mainly to concentrate, but also to just get rid of the distraction of the costume and really think about what I was doing. Because I felt that I had a lot to do with regards to that character, and I didn’t want anything else to distract from it.
Speaking of Thorin’s costume, one often hears you described as ‘dapper’. Is it possible to remain dapper under all those layers of yak hair?
No. Thorin wasn’t dapper! Thorin’s elemental really. I remember doing my research into the dwarves: in The Silmarillion they talk about how the dwarves come into being; they’re borne of the rock, and they’re laid in rock in the end. And I remember thinking, “That’s the key to this character; he’s of the earth.” They live underground; he sort of is a kind of a cave man, but he’s also a member of the royal family. His prowess on the battlefield is extraordinary. So all of these elements, I guess I saw someone who didn’t really have any vanity.
So that would be the opposite of “dapper”…
[Laughs] The opposite of “dapper”, yeah. But he had to have a charisma, which has to do with his nobility, and the way that he commands his troops. I think that he commands through example rather through just instruction, which is something that was important to me.
You also go toe-to-goiter with Barry Humphries in this film…
Toe-to-goiter, yes! [Laughs]
Did you actually get to work on set with him?
I worked with his voice. He would sort of sit in a booth and the voice would be kind of beamed out. We were looking at a green stick with a head on it, which was a little bit skinnier, a bit slimmer than Barry. But I did spend a fair bit of social time with him. Which was really useful, because [laughs], I find him incredibly amusing. He is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met.
Some of the wise cracks he came up with…I’ve got a great joke for you…oh that was it: he was talking about motion capture and he said, “I thought that was something that you give to the doctor when you’re offering him a sample.” [Laughs] I mean he is the funniest guy. So it was kind of hard to not laugh when he was the Goblin King.
You’re touring the world answering questions about minutiae to fans time and time again. Are you a fan like that? Is there an actor or director who you want to sit down with and pour over their work and pick their brains?
Not with an actor or director, really, but once I get into work mode and I’m studying for a role, I do like to turn the book inside out, and really pour over it, then look for that other work. What have I been doing recently? Oh god I can’t talk about it because it might happen as a potential job! But there’s a novel I’ve been reading...and then you read then novel, then you read the social comment on the novel that was written at the time, then you start looking at their other work. And I love that. That’s what I like working from literature, because you can often find the writer and you go off and read all their other stuff. Which is what I did with Tolkien. I couldn’t get enough of it. I got through The Silmarillion, then I found The Book of Lost Tales, and all other sorts of bits and pieces. I found the recording of his voice that he did for the BBC. I love that.
So you’re a bit of an historian then.
I guess so. I suppose I like to try and make it into a little bit of a science, just for myself. Partly because I don’t like to risk not investigating every avenue. But it’s the best kind of research. But I love it, because what else would you do? Sit and put your feet up?
I do like practical research though. I remember I did a play about genetic cloning, ages ago. And I remember going to Cambridge University and sneaking into one of their science labs and putting on one of their lab coats and pretending I was a geneticist. [Laughs] No one batted an eyelid! But I love it because I was pretending to have a look; just observing.
What did you glean about geneticists?
The sort of silence that they were working in, and the intense atmosphere. But it was just the thrill of doing it.
So there’s the bookish side of you, but you’re also willing to get your hands dirty.
Yeah. I like the practical side of things. That’s why [with] this sort of stuff [The Hobbit] [it] is hard to get any sort of practical research. Because this isn’t a world that we know, and it’s a digital world as well. But that’s why for me, with this role, one of the important things was doing as many of the stunts as I could, and all the fight sequences. I didn’t want to hand it over to someone else, because I felt like the root of the character was very much in the way that he fought; his kind of violent energy, which I felt was part of the character.
And you got to work closely with the Weta Workshop armory in that regard?
And that’s the other thing as well: the respect that Weta give to all of the weaponry. The weapons are characters in themselves, and Tolkien characterises them; he gives them all names, and he gives them an identity as well. And I think Weta really had respect for that. I also worked with [Weta co-founder] Richard [Taylor] and Peter on The Oakenshield – which was a sort of a creation which Tolkien didn’t write about – but it was just an idea that I’d come up with, that he’d saved the branch of wood from the fight and he’d kept it over the years, and honed it and carved it into something that was going to be a shield. And again it was about giving that weapon an identity, so I really enjoyed all of that side of it.
You talk about discussing things with Peter Jackson and presenting ideas. What was the process of workshopping your character?
Yeah, in a way, [but] not prior to filming. It was sort of during filming. Pete doesn’t really want to sit down and talk about the character around a table; he has that conversation while the camera is turning, if you know what I mean.
So you’ve got to be on your toes then.
Yeah. I think he assumed that part of meeting him for the role was to explain to him, “This is what I would do with it. This is the work I would do.” And then when you go to film, that’s really when that dialogue starts to happen. Which I love, because sometimes those ideas come to you in a flash, and if there’s not a camera rolling then it might get lost. That’s why I make copious notes, because I’m afraid I’ll forget something that I’ve had a dream about, or suddenly be walking down the street and something will occur to you about the character - because you’re always thinking about it – and you just jot it down so that you don’t forget.
What kind of notes would you write for yourself?
I mean, apart from the biography. As I’m writing that biography, like, I remember having this obsession with [wanting] to know what it felt like to be there on the day that the dragon attacked. And so I was like, “What was he doing in the morning? What happened through the course of that day? And the wind changed, and then this hurricane happened. Where was his father? Where was his grandfather? What did it feel like to go through that day when, effectively, a holocaust struck, or a nuclear bomb hit Erebor?”
Years ago I had visited the memorial museum in Hiroshima and I’d seen what happened, and I had a book, and I took it to New Zealand with me. And, I don’t know, just looking at pictures and getting ideas, because it’s all about sensation: just remembering what that fear was, because we were going to go shoot it. So you just have little flashes: I remember seeing a melted bicycle, and I remember thinking, “Oh yeah, the melted bicycle. A child sat on that bike.” So this is what happened at Erebor: there were women and children there that just got annihilated. I wanted to feel the fear for them.
So you’ve taken this fictional, digital world and you’ve grounded it in history.
Yeah. I think you have to, because it’s fine to say, “OK, look scared,” [laughs] but it’s like, there’s looking scared – I mean, I did the [Sydney Harbour] Bridge Climb…
Oh were you scared of the Bridge Climb?
[Laughs] Marginally!
There are a few trusses that are a bit dicey.
But then there’s being scared when someone’s saying, ‘There’s a nuclear bomb flying towards your city.” Which is effectively my image of the dragon. That’s the worst thing I could imagine happening to a country or to a community, is being struck in that way. And that’s what the dragon was for them.
Now you’re going from battling flying dragons to twisters in Black Sky, so what can we see you in next?
After Black Sky? Oh I wish I could tell you. Every script that I’ve read has got a book attached, and I think I’ve read five books.
So I just need to steal your Kindle, is what you’re saying?
[Laughs] You just need to steal my Kindle. There are some big scale projects, and then one incredibly charming book that I love so much. But I don’t have anything confirmed, so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed.
That’s interesting, how do you go about selecting roles? Is it different after The Hobbit?
It’s not as easy as people think. My job at the moment is to convince people that I’m not 5 foot 2 and hairy. [Laughs] But I suppose the priority for me at the moment is to try not to repeat myself, and also to really focus on how I want to stretch myself, and what kind of directors I’d like to work with. So that’s been the focus.
So Thorin has opened doors then?
A little bit, yeah, but I’m now swimming in a much bigger pond, you know. I’m going up for roles that are going to big actors, big actors! And I’m in my forties and those big actors have got big CVs. But hopefully I’ll win one of those roles that I love so much.
And then you’ll be back on the road promoting The Hobbit 2 and 3: do you tire of it?
I haven’t so far. This is the first time I’ve ever done a long – it’s not a franchise – but it’s a long running movie roll out. We will have spent nearly two years in New Zealand, so there are infinite things to talk about, and it’s exciting. Pete’s excitement is so infectious [that] I never tire of talking about this. Because you know we keep getting told we can’t talk about movie two; there are so many exciting things in movie two and three, but we can’t talk about them now! But I’m bursting to tell you some of the things that happened. It’s mind blowing the things we did.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey releases on DVD on May 1st.
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Alice Tynan hat sich den Wangenkuss redlich verdient. Sie hat es geschafft, die üblichen Fragen und Themen so mit neuen Fragen zu verbinden, dass auch das Bekannte nicht ermüdet. Nicht umsonst thematisiert sie das Wiederholungsproblem ja direkt. 
