You're in the new Hobbit film,
and you play the dragon Smaug.
I do, I do. Which is great.
And uh, we had Evangeline Lilly here,
I think it was a week ago,
it seems like yesterday.
And she... (audience laughing)
She uh, she corrected-
She said I said Smaug correctly,
and that I was one of the only...
Yeah. Spot on. Smaug.
Yeah, yeah. That's how I've been told to say it.
You studied reptiles for this role. Is that true?
A little bit. A little bit.
Yeah, no, I just...
I wanted to sort of,
you know I obviously needed to humanize him a little bit.
He's this mythical fire-breathing serpent who can fly, so...
He can also speak English,
(laughing) so there needed to be
some kind of humanity to him.
But at the same time I wanted to honor
some of the, sort of animalistic side of him.
And yeah I guess like a sort of eager actor student,
I went to the London's own Regent's Park
and looked at the reptile house,
looked at Komodo dragons,
and serpents, and even bats as well cause he has wings.
Um, and thought what can I bring to the floor
of a motion capture stage,
cause that's how we began to create-
See this is what's fascinating,
I wasn't aware,
when I first heard that you were going to be the voice,
I thought you'd exclusively be the voice of the dragon,
and then I found out,
and you're fantastic at it,
that you also said, "Let me be...
I can do the body motions as well."
Well I just figured it would make sense
to have the voice coming from a body that was in motion,
and so it didn't feel too disjointed.
Because it's the most extraordinary creation that Weta,
you know the digital department
at Peter's studio has created.
And it is phenomenal.
It looks very different from me,
which is a very good thing. (chuckling)
But it's a...
I just wanted to sort of
give some anthropomorphic qualities of it.
Some facial movement, some emotions, and temperatures,
and sort of speeds of movement that were
sort of characteristic What did you learn
of him in the book. about reptiles,
like that you could teach me? Or a dragon, or...
Is there anything-
I mean, well no, this is...
What I'm doing right now is probably
excellent. The salsa?
(Conan and Benedict laughing)
A slow salsa? Yes!
I'm a dragon doing a salsa, yeah.
You are. That's great. That's my dragon.
(Benedict laughing)
I don't know if there's anything you could do
that would, you know, help me,
or is it in the face that you do it?
Or is it the body? A bit of both.
Yeah, so you can kind of-
If you just lean on your elbows a little bit,
and then kind of just
hyper extend your neck
to the point that you'll need some...
Um, yeah you'll need some physical therapy after it.
(audience laughing) Yep. Very good.
And now just sort of...
A bit more still. They're very still for a long time.
I'm a very hyperactive dragon.
You are. Yeah. (audience laughing)
I'm a dragon that's had a lot of coffee.
A whole load of caffeine, yeah.
And maybe some amphetamines by the look as well.
(Benedict laughing)
That's my- [Benedict] Wow.
Yeah! It's like a young
male ginger Meryl Streep.
(everyone roars with laughter)
That's totally what I was going for!
Wow. I was channeling
ginger Meryl Streep.
Seriously, you knocked it out of the park.
Thank you so much.
We have a clip here from The Hobbit,
and this is the first time that Smaug is seen.
Cool. And it's very-
It's quite a dramatic...
Wow. They're letting you show that. Cool.
Yeah. They said no,
and I said, you know,
Conan O'Brien. Hello. Conan.
Hello. Hello.
Then they hung up.
(everyone laughing)
Well I prefer to see this than me naked in a shower,
cause at least it's less of me.
Well, we'll see.
We'll see what the viewers prefer.
Take a look.
(gold clinking)
(gold rattling)
(sinister music)
[Smaug] Well, thief.
Where are you?
(Smaug growls)
Come now, don't be shy.
Step into the light.
(Smaug roars)
(audience cheers)
What a great uh...
What a great sinister quality.
I mean obviously there's
some effects going on. There's a processing
But there's such a process. thing going, yeah.
But the sinister quality to your voice.
Oh, thank you. I think.
Have you always known you could do that? Yeah.
Yeah, since a young child my parents were terrified of me.
(everyone laughing)
(mocking Smaug) I will not go to bed now!
(audience laughing) Yeah, exactly.
Voted most likely to do evil.
(everyone laughs)