Evangeline Lilly, who plays Tauriel in The Hobbit movies, has been talking about her character in an interview with Collider.com,
“My character is different from all of the Elves you’ve met before, in that she’s really young. And I keep telling journalists this because I’ve really focused on that in my performance. I’m trying to distinguish her from all of these incredibly sage and wise Elves that have lived for thousands of years. She’s only six hundred years old, she’s just a baby. So she’s a bit more impulsive, and she’s a bit more immature. I think she’s more easily romanticized by a lot of things.”
She also says that her look is different, too:
“[…] I got sat down when I first arrived, to try on my ears, to decide what my years would be. And I was presented with three beautiful sets of ears […]. So we tried them on, and I was like, “Yeah, they’re kind of okay. Can I just try the large?” So we tried the large, and I was like, “That’s it!” I love them, they’re huge! I have these huge, pointed ears. They’re like three times the size of Orlando Bloom’s ears. And I think he has ear envy, I love my ears. And how I can get away with that is I have this wig that’s down to my knees. It’s a massive head of hair, and it’s almost shocking red. It’s sort of auburn red, but it’s a red wig.
And so, my hair is kind of big and it’s very noticeable. And I have what we joke around with on set, we call it my ‘IHS’, which is my Iconic Hair Shape, and it’s this big, beautiful, lustrous curl that runs down my back. So I could get away with having really big ears, because there was nothing that was going to distract you from the hair. And then otherwise, because I’m a warrior, because I’m not a princess, […] I’m in very practical, military clothing. I’m the head of the Elven Guard, so I spend most of my time in the movie slaughtering Orcs and Goblins, which is great fun. Although, hair down to your knees can get a bit troublesome when you’re flying around killing Orcs and Goblins. So yeah, I wear the military garb of the Woodland Elves.”
We were used to see Elves shooting with bow and arrow, but Tauriel will use mainly other weapons:
“I do archery, but for the most part, I have two daggers, and I wield my daggers, and they’re effective.”
Finally, Evangeline talked about how they realized action scenes.
“Generally, the action scenes get shot separate. Because action scenes for the most part, play either with scales, with our doubles which would be– We have small people who play the scale double for the dwarves. They’ll fight for the dwarves, and then my stunt double will fight for me for the wide shots. And then once we get in close for coverage, you don’t see anyone else anyway, so there might be a stunt double in the background of my shot that’s just a blur, but it’s me doing it. So we don’t really have to do that for the action scenes. But the scene I’m talking about where he’s grabbing for my knives– That looked a bit suggestive. Knives!– is the scene where I’ve just finished slaughtering, like, five different spiders. And he’s there, and I clock him, but we don’t actually have to fight together.”
You can read it in full interview at Collider.com.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is in cinemas from 13 December, 2013.
