Announcer: Richard Armitage, Thorin
Announcer: Aidan Turner, Kili
Announcer: Rob Kazinsky, Fili
Reporter: Richard, we haven’t heard from you yet.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role?
RA: Yeah I'm playing Thorin who is the leader of the dwarves
...of this particular group of dwarves on this particular quest.
Reporter: Can you tell us about yourself?
RA: Me as a person? Would you like to be a little more specific?
I've got 40 years to talk about.
Reporter: Why do you think you're suited to this role?
RA: That's a good question actually. That might be one for Peter, Fran and Philippa.
Reporter: Why do you want to play this role?
RA: I just think it's just a really amazing opportunity to take a character
...from a book that I was brought to as a child.
I mean my first experience onstage was in a production of The Hobbit.
Martin Freeman: Really?
RA: At the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. And I played an elf.
And Gollum was a little papier mache puppet with a man offstage on a microphone.
Off-camera: Michael Sheehan?
RA: Yeah his voice was not that different.
So it's kind of been in my childhood very prominently so to come to it as an adult,
a middle-aged man, and have another look at it is a brilliant opportunity.
Reporter: Richard, you mentioned about papier mache Gollum.
Are you looking forward to acting against green screens?
RA: Yeah, I was in the mocap studio yesterday which is a first for me.
I've never quite understood the technogy behind it but it really does appear that it's like being in
Avatar the movie and I quite look forward to that.
But also I think with this film in particular there's enough creative genius in terms of
the art department and the technological department but at the same time
I think we're going to get out there in nature and really experience this possibly more so than
a purely technical film which is really exciting. It's a good marriage of both I think.
Reporter: And you're all going to be covered in prosthetics. Are you looking forward to that?
RA: We don't know yet actually.
It's still up for grabs, hence the little bit of experimentation in the facial hair department.