Richard Armitage attends the world premiere of ‘Into the Storm’ on August 4, 2014, in New York, New York. Photo credit: Gettyimages.com.
Happy birthday, Richard Armitage! Richard Crispin Armitage was born on August 22, 1971, in Leicester, England, making him 43 years old today. Although many filmgoers first became aware of Richard with his appearance as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit films, his long-time fans know that his success is built on years of steady, dedicated work.
The younger of Margaret and John Armitage’s two sons, Richard attended primary school in Huncote, and later studied cello and flute at Brockington College in Enderby. At age 14, he went to Pattinson College in Coventry, an independent school that specialized in performing arts. After completing his schooling at Pattinson, Richard began his professional performing career with a short stint in a circus in Budapest that gained him his Equity card. After returning to England, he began working in musical theatre, performing in the ensembles of shows including 42nd Street, Annie Get Your Gun, and Cats.
Richard has said that he was prompted to reexamine his career path after playing a piece of dancing seaweed in a Sarah Brightman video. The experience made him feel that his career was heading in the wrong direction and he had to make a change. The first step was to seek more acting training. He won a place at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and pursued his study of acting. During his final year at LAMDA, he had a brief (and difficult to spot) role in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as a fighter pilot on Naboo.
After completing the 3-year course at LAMDA, Richard performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company for 18 months, playing supporting roles in productions including Macbeth and The Duchess of Malfi in seasons in Stratford-upon-Avon and tours in the UK and abroad. During that same time, he appeared with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in Hamlet and Four Alice Bakers, and in a number of small television and film roles.
Richard Armitage as John Thornton in the BBC’s 2004 adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘North and South’. Photo credit: BBC, via http://allthingsrarmitage.blogspot.com.
Richard’s career then moved toward more television roles. In 2002, he had his first major television role as the awkward but charming John Standring in Sparkhouse, a modern reworking of Wuthering Heights. In 2004, Richard won the lead role as John Thornton in a BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. His portrayal of the complex northern mill owner quickly brought him to the attention of a wider audience. In fact, audiences were so enthusiastic about Richard’s performance that the BBC’s website message board crashed due to the overwhelming number of visits in the hours following the broadcast of the series’ first episode.
Sir Guy of Gisborne in BBC’s drama ‘Robin Hood’ was Richard Armitage’s highest profile role to that point in time, and remains a fan favorite. Photo credit: BBC, via RichardArmitageNet.com.
The next few years brought a succession of high profile, successful projects. Richard portrayed young Claude Monet in the 2005 miniseries The Impressionists, followed in 2006 by his most visible role to that time, Sir Guy of Gisborne in the BBC’s drama Robin Hood. After three series of Robin Hood and a number of smaller projects, he took on the portrayal of MI-5 officer Lucas North in Spooks (known as MI-5 in the USA). In 2010, he starred as SAS operative John Porter in the first series of Strike Back, based on Chris Ryan’s novel. That same year, he filmed in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) as Heinz Kruger, a Nazi spy.
Richard Armitage portrayed MI-5 operative Lucas North in BBC’s ‘Spooks’ (‘MI-5’ to audiences in the USA). Photo credit: BBC.
Richard appeared in only the first episode of the second series of Strike Back, due to commitments to another project: The Hobbit. The casting of Richard as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit was announced in October 2010, and principal photography began in May 2011. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey brought Richard’s work to the attention of a global audience at the end of 2012, followed by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in 2013. December 2014 will bring The Hobbit franchise to an end with the release of the final installment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
Audiences all over the world have gotten to know Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield of ‘The Hobbit’ films. Photo credit: Warner Bros, New Line Cinema.
Immediately after wrapping principal photography for The Hobbit in 2012, Richard traded Middle-earth for middle-America, heading to Michigan to shoot the tornado disaster film Into the Storm with director Steven Quale. The film was released in August 2014.
Richard Armitage goes ‘Into the Storm’ as Gary Fuller, high school vice principal and father. Photo credit: Warner Bros.
Spring 2014 found Richard back at work in the UK, filming Urban and the Shed Crew, an adaptation of Bernard Hare’s novel Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew. Richard plays Chop, a down-and-out former social worker who befriends a serial runaway boy, Urban. The film completed principal photography in May 2014, but no release date has been announced.
John Proctor is the good but flawed man at the center of the maelstrom in ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller, portrayed by Richard Armitage in the 2014 revival at the Old Vic in London. Photo credit: Johan Persson.
In May 2014, the Old Vic Theatre announced that Richard would lead the cast of a new revival of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, under the direction of Yaël Farber. Richard had been intrigued with the character of John Proctor, the flawed hero of the play, since he performed a portion of the show in drama school. The Crucible opened in June 2014 to rave reviews and packed houses. The play sold out completely from the beginning of August and the end of its run on September 13 2014.
In a recent interview for Into the Storm, Digital Spy asked Richard which three Hobbit actors he would choose for a real-life disaster survival team. You can hear his answer here. In the same interview Richard teased that he will have a cameo in an upcoming film. Speculating fans are debating whether the appearance will be in the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron or Spooks: The Greater Good. Richard hinted in another interview that he may have just auditioned for a “once-in-a-lifetime” dream role. Fans are eagerly awaiting word of the outcome of that audition, and what that role is!
Just in time for his birthday, Richard has joined the Twitterverse! You will find him as @RCArmitage, and this was his very first tweet:
We’re sure that many of you will join all of us at Middle-earth News in wishing Richard the happiest of birthdays!
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