The BBC has a great interview with actor Sylvester McCoy today that, again, confirms his role as Radagast the Brown in the upcoming Hobbit Films. We are pasting the relevant parts below, but make sure you check out the full interview with some other juicy tidbits at the BBC site.
With the internet awash with casting rumours, how much can McCoy actually say? After all, his role has not been officially announced.
Sylvester McCoy played the Doctor on TV from 1987 to 1989. “I can’t say anything! I don’t even know if I’ve said too much already,” he admits.
“I’ve already got my wrist gently tapped. I just want to tell the world about it… I know it’s all bubbling away and plans are being made.” McCoy is no stranger to Peter Jackson. He was down to the last two for the role of Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings.
“The other actor got it, and that was Ian Holm,” says McCoy. How does he feel about just missing out on such a major part?
“In a way you think, what a pity Ian Holm wasn’t working that week,” he says wistfully.
“But at the same time it was an honour to be up against Ian. He won, and he’s a brilliant actor.
“As an actor this happens all the time. You never know which way things go.”
That also holds true for the Hobbit’s drawn-out casting process. “When they sent out the character description for the part I’m playing, it says he’s between 57 and 75.
“When it started out I was 57, but it’s taken so long to get to fruition I’m now 75!” (Not so – he is actually 67.)
This reporter’s amateur take? The reason Sylvester has not been officially announced has more to do with adapting The Hobbit for screen and storytelling liberties, than something contract related…but I could be wrong! Afterall, we do already know that Radagast plays no major role in The Hobbit, but his role in the films is rumored to be significant. We are all looking forward to Sylvester and Sir Ian official announcements any day!
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(Thanks to Michael from DeHobbit.net for sending us this link.)
Today, Turbine announced the release of the newest content update for The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). The November Update brings in the holidays with more free content and a wide range of additions and improvements, giving players access to more quests, content and adventure than ever before, including:
- More Free Content! Players can now play the epic story in Moria, Lothlórien and Mirkwood all the way to level 65
- Improved Skills & Traits for the Lore-master & Rune-keeper
- Updated Elf & Dwarf starter regions
- Updates to the Crafting System and Vault UI
- A completely new Yule Festival set in Winter-home that will go live in December
Continue reading “LOTRO November Content Update Now Live!”
A casting agent for Wellington producer Sir Peter Jackson’s planned film adaptations of The Hobbit has been dismissed after placing newspaper advertisements seeking extras with “light skin tones”. A spokesman for Wingnut Films, Sir Peter’s production company, told Agence France-Presse the unnamed agent was not directed by the company to make such restrictions. “No such instructions were given,” the spokesman said. “The crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned”. More..
Actor Martin Freeman has been fitted for prosthetics to play Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, he has told the BBC.
“I’ve had wig, feet, ears,” he revealed at the Evening Standard theatre awards on Sunday. “Full steam ahead for me to look like Bilbo.”
Clybourne Park – in which Freeman starred – won best play at the event.
He said it was “really disappointing” he would not be able to perform in the West End transfer of the play because of his Hobbit commitments.
“In an actor’s life, there are so many times you hear ‘this will definitely go into the West End’ – and it doesn’t,” he told the BBC news website.
“I’ve heard that so many times, and the one time I do have the West End transfer, I can’t do it.
“it’s for a lucky good reason that I can’t do it,” he continued. “But I will feel a bit of a pang of regret that I’m not with them, definitely.”
[Read More] (thanks to Ringer Izzy for the tip!)
What was the real reason that Galadriel and Celeborn wanted no visitors in Lothlorien?
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From engadget.com: We’re still slightly bummed that Peter Jackson never made Halo, but this should patch things up a tad — the Lord of the Rings director will film The Hobbit in 3D entirely on thirty hand-machined RED EPIC cameras, starting early next year. That’s the news straight from RED founder Jim Jannard, but that’s not all, as a limited number of pre-production EPIC packages will be available to early adopters as well. $58,000 buys your deep-pocketed budding director a machined EPIC-M body, titanium PL mount, Bomb EVF and 5-inch touchscreen LCD, a REDmote, a four-pack of batteries, a charger and a solid state storage module with a four-pack of 128GB SSDs. Jannard expects to hand-assemble that first batch of 5K imagers in December or January, start the real assembly lines a month after that, and hopefully have widespread availability by NAB in April, though he’s not making any promises there. That’s how RED rolls. More..
Xoanon here, this is not the Peter’s first foray into Red cameras, Peter used one a few years back to shoot some plane footage at an air show. Meanwhile his post production house ‘Park Road Post’ has experience withe the Red series of cameras.
