Photo by Faye Thomas – © Faye Thomas via IMDB
Happy Birthday, Ryan Gage!
Ryan is a British actor who brings a smile to our faces as Alfrid, the Master of Lake Town’s councillor, in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. He was originally cast as Drogo Baggins but, as Peter Jackson explained, “Ryan is a great young actor who we originally cast in a small role, but we liked him so much, we promoted him to the much larger Alfrid part.”
Ryan knew from an early age that he wanted to be an actor. As a youngster he went to The BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology and from there, to train as an actor at the Drama Centre in London.
Until recently, Ryan worked largely in the theatre, appearing in many plays including the London West End production of Ghost Stories and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. Last year, however, in addition to appearing on stage in American Justice, he was cast in a major role in the TV drama Murder on the Home Front. He is about to grace the UK’s screens on a Sunday night as King Louis XIII in the BBC’s The Musketeers (from 19 January 9 pm).
Asked about The Hobbit Ryan said, “Working on The Hobbit films was an incredible and sometimes quite a surreal experience for me. At the beginning I would find myself talking to big stars like Orlando Bloom or Ian McKellen and felt a bit like that guy from Quantum Leap – like I’d beamed into someone else’s life. The other odd thing is how quickly you forget about all that stuff and take people as you find them. The experience of being involved in a film on that scale was also pretty mind blowing. My main memory of the film is that the cast and crew were great fun and so brilliant to be around. Peter Jackson has a great sense of humour as does Martin Freeman. Then you chuck people like Stephen Fry and Billy Connolly into the mix and you’d have to have something wrong with you not to enjoy yourself. It was hard work but a lot of fun!”
Here’s wishing Ryan a very Happy Birthday from everyone at Middle-earth News!
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