Australian DVD and Blu-ray retailer Crave Online chats with Martin Freeman about his personal history with J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy series, how the ending of An Unexpected Journey changed when the film split from two films into three, and Andy Serkis’s first turn behind the camera as Peter Jackson’s 2nd Unit Director.
On the script: “[Jackson] knows this world — as far as a filmmaker is concerned — better than anybody else in the world. I knew it would be good… and then I got the script and it was good. But we didn’t get the second script until way into shooting. Because they like to work on it and work on it. There’s no way they’re going to show you anything… I mean Like most writers, actually, they don’t want to show you their baby until they’re really, really happy with it. They’re no exception.”
On the original final scene of An Unexpected Journey: “The ending visual was the same. Smaug’s eye opening — it was the same. I loved that ending as a visual thing. But more had happened up to that point.”
On the casting of “Sherlock” co-star, Benedict Cumberbatch: “I saw his picture in the production office, and was, like ” yeah, that would really, really work”. And I knew he really wanted to do it. Because when we went up for it, we both went on tape for The Hobbit at the same time while we were shooting the first series of Sherlock. He read for Smaug. and that was Benedict’s childhood book, so he was delighted.”
