For an about-to-be World Famous Dwarf, Richard Armitage wasn't looking too shabby when the man sat down in front of a bunch of eager journalists during a long press day in Toronto. Dressed in a waist coat and proper British slacks, the tall, angular man looked very different than his more hirsute kingly character he plays in The Hobbit saga.
Armitage sat down on a very different throne, this one a plush leather easy chair, seemingly oblivious to the global fame that's about to befall him. Sure, he's got an very vocal "Armitage Army" online, consisting of slews of UK and Anglophilic fans of his TV work, mostly middle aged women, but playing such a major role in Peter Jackson's Hobbit film will certainly take things to a whole new level.
What was the biggest change from episodic television to the massive production like THE HOBBIT?
Well, there's a lot more money! [Laughs] Not in my paycheck, in the production. The amount of people that work on it makes it bigger, but Peter made it feel incredibly intimate. The money buys you more time, so there was much more time to experiment with the character.
It's why I think many actors craving working in film, because you get time to develop your character further, there's time to push yourself further. I felt that Peter allowed me to do that.
On my first day on the set I had to stand up in front of the entire company and speak Māori to a line of people who were giving us a Pōwhiri, which is like a welcoming ceremony to bless the soundstage. I was more terrified of that then actually the filming!
You get on the set and there are 200 people, and behind a curtain are another 200 people on computers, so it's bloody terrifying. But when you get to the nucleus of Pete's set, it's just you and him and your fellow actors, and he keeps it so intimate and personal that he gets rid of the fear.
Once you're inside of the character, especially one of relatively high status as I was, then you're just inside the character. It was important to me to walk on set and have the crew believe that this person could be a king, so I tried to protect that as much as I could.
That speech actually became part of my vocal work. Because I wanted to pitch my voice lower, and create a resonance for the character, I built a program of works, I used Shakespearean speeches to find certain things, but I also used that speech every day. I found there was something in Māori culture that's essential to the feeling of Middle Earth.
READ THE REST OF THE WONDERFUL INTERVIEW HERE: http://twitchfilm.com/2012/12/interview-richard-armitage-talks-thorin-tolkien-and-being-a-leader-of-dwarves-in-the-hobbit-saga.html
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