Richard Armitage’s Journey From Musicals to Middle Earth

WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dec. 4, 2014 5:35 p.m. ET



RICHARD ARMITAGE IS known for his controlled and stoic performances, so it’s rather disconcerting—and funny—to get an excited and happy yelp out of the 43-year-old British actor.

“Ah, thank God, thank you, thank you,” he says with a deep laugh when told that his diverse roles over the years, from brooding John Thornton in “North & South,” the 2004 BBC dramatization of Elizabeth Gaskell ’s novel, to British spy Lucas North in the TV series “Spooks,” to Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the dwarves in Peter Jackson ’s “The Hobbit” trilogy, make it hard to typecast him—except, perhaps, as a heartthrob.

Born in Leicester, England, and an alum of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, the New York-based actor has had a busy year. He received rave reviews in London over the summer for his spellbinding performance as the tormented John Proctor in the Old Vic’s production of Arthur Miller ’s “The Crucible.” The production was so well-received, in fact, that it’s being screened in cinemas in the U.K. and Ireland next week, and other locations world-wide in February.

Mr. Armitage says playing John Proctor in the Old Vic’s production of ‘The Crucible’ gave him resilience. TRISTRAM KENTON/THE GUARDIAN

The actor was also on the silver screen this summer, in Steven Quale ’s disaster movie “Into the Storm,” and he filmed “Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew,” which is currently in postproduction and co-stars Anna Friel. In October, he began work on “Sleepwalker” with director Elliott Lester —which Mr. Armitage says is a psychological thriller along the lines of “Memento” or the Italian film “La Doppia Ora”—and he will also be making a cameo appearance in a new film adaptation of Lewis Carroll ’s second “Alice” book, “Through the Looking Glass,” alongside Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway .

In December, Mr. Armitage—who at the age of 17 joined a circus in Budapest to get his actor’s Equity card—will be busy promoting “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” the last in the blockbuster trilogy, which premiered in London this week. “I know Peter has made an extraordinary film, because it is his last visit to Middle Earth—he will certainly do it justice,” says Mr. Armitage. “It will be a great way to end the year.”

We spoke to him about the bohemian life of an actor, joining Twitter and why he’s not cut out for musical theater.



READ MORE HERE; http://online.wsj.com/articles/richard-armitages-journey-from-musicals-to-middle-earth-1417732548

10 Years Later, ‘North & South’ Remains the Greatest Period-Drama Miniseries of All Time

FLAVORWIRE
By Sarah Seltzer on Nov 14, 2014 12:00pm




Ten years ago tonight, the BBC premiered a four-part miniseries, North & South (not to be confused with the Patrick Swayze-starring civil war drama of the same name), adapted from Elizabeth Gaskell’s 19th-century novel of cross-class romance in the industrial North of England. The BBC didn’t harbor huge expectations for the series, coming as it did in the midst of a glorious decade of nonstop adaptations of major works by Austen, Brontë, and Dickens. But then, a few weeks later, the fourth installment of North & South ended with a tender, long-awaited kiss (now known to viewers as “The Kiss”). Immediately, so many people flooded the BBC’s online message boards that they crashed and shut down. It’s been enshrined in fangirl lore as “the infamous night that period drama fans broke (a small part of) the BBC (dot com).”

Richard Armitage, who played the brooding hero John Thornton, became a star and heartthrob — move over Colin Firth! — and the show was enshrined as a fan favorite.

I had a similar reaction to those first viewers’ when I watched North & South on DVD across the pond a few years later. I tracked down an email I sent eight years ago after a binge-watching frenzy:

“We watched the final three hours of North and South... you must must must must watch it. I literally couldn’t breathe at the end it was so good.

Literally. I literally couldn’t breathe! Yet somehow I lived! In all seriousness, what about the miniseries sends so many viewers into apoplexy the moment it ends? It’s hard to see at first: North & South has the marriage plot of an Austen adaptation but with no witty repartee, and the social strife and coughing deathbeds of a Dickens adaptation yet without any broad humor. In addition, it’s filmed in a mostly muted register of colors to signify the dark, industrial vibe of “Milton” (a stand-in for Manchester). We enter very few polished drawing rooms, witness not a single ball or country dance, and everyone speaks with accurately indecipherable Northern English accents. Over the course of four installments, quite a few main characters die of various lingering illnesses. The downtrodden working people of Milton get supplanted by even more desperate, literally starving Irish strike-breakers, and then they almost murder the strike-breakers, which is not something you see very often on TV. It’s bleaker than Bleak House.

But all these qualities make North & South so unforgettable, too. Like the best “prestige TV,” its concerns are with social justice, moral ambiguity, and individual responsibility. Everyone is rendered sympathetically, to some degree, even those who stand in opposition to each other. Surrounded by the conflicts of this complex world, we have the love story between Thornton, who transcended his modest background to become a mill owner (a boss with principles, but a boss nonetheless), and the refined, socially liberal Margaret Hale (played by a radiant Daniella Denby-Ashe), who comes from the gentler South and thinks him an oppressive brute. It’s one of the most explosive, chemistry-rich misunderstanding-laden romances that’s ever graced the small screen. Their courtship has a structure that clearly imitates Pride and Prejudice, but each step along the way is ten times as dramatic.

READ MORE HERE: http://flavorwire.com/488347/10-year-later-north-south-remains-the-greatest-period-drama-miniseries-of-all-time