Richard Armitage at WonderCon in Anaheim, California, April 19, 2014. Shown with ‘Into the Storm’ co-star, Max Deacon. Photo credit: NerdTalkRadio, via richardarmitagenet.com.
Actor Richard Armitage has been exceptionally busy over the past several weeks. We have collected a few items here that were not in our earlier stories about the actor. You can find a list of our recent coverage about Richard Armitage at the end of this story.
In a recent interview with The Independent, Armitage voiced his strong support for Peter Jackson’s creation of Tauriel, the wood elf warrior portrayed by actress Evangeline Lilly in The Hobbit films. Controversy over the character of Tauriel remains fierce and has prompted much criticism. “A lot of people didn’t like the idea of them inventing a character, but I think they’ve completely proved the critics wrong by creating a strong, compelling, battle-hardened, female elf warrior,” the actor told The Independent. Armitage believes that The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is better for the addition of the character. “Tolkien was, I believe, writing about his experience in the first and second world wars, where he would have spent a lot of time without any female contact,” he said. “He was part of the fellowship of men who went to war and I think, really, that’s what he’s writing about. . . . Translating that into a contemporary screenplay is something that (the filmmakers) are very aware of. I think they did the right thing by bringing Tauriel in.” The complete story from The Independent can be found here.
During the March 31, 2014 press junket to promote the home video release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Armitage did a Twitter Q&A session with DigitalSpy, answering a number of questions posed by fans. Among the questions that DigitalSpy asked were “ What would Thorin have done had he been the one to find The One Ring?” and “Which scene from There and Back Again are you most excited for fans to see?” The full story from DigitalSpy can be found here, and the video of the interview is included below.
Twitter Q&A, DigitalSpy
Warner Bros. UK also did a Twitter Q&A with Armitage, releasing two parts of the interview to date. In “Thorin Thursday: Part 1,” the actor answered fan questions such as how he felt to see himself in Thorin’s costume for the first time, and if he had any pre-conceived ideas about what it would be like to work on a Peter Jackson film. In “Thorin Thursday: Part 2,” Armitage talked about topics including how many Tolkien books he read to prepare for the role of Thorin, and the aspects of Thorin that the actor enjoys most and dislikes most. The videos of both “Thorin Thursday” segments follow.
Thorin Thursday: Part 1, Warner Bros. UK
Thorin Thursday: Part 2, Warner Bros. UK
Armitage was at WonderCon in Anaheim, California, on April 19 to promote the upcoming release of tornado disaster film Into the Storm. A few Hobbit-related questions were inevitable, and IGN asked the actor what he thinks of the possibility of films that are not directly from Tolkien, and if he would be interested in playing Thorin in his younger days, before the quest to reclaim Erebor. His reply is in the following video.
Are Hobbit Spin-offs Possible? IGN WonderCon Interview
Here are recent stories from Middle-earth News about Richard Armitage:
Richard Armitage in ‘The Crucible’ Announced by the Old Vic
Richard Armitage in ‘Final Discussions’ to appear at Old Vic Starting June 2014
