Jenny Cooney Carrillo, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald comes through with a couple of golden quotes in this short feature on Richard Armitage.
‘In the first film, the quest was controlled very much by Gandalf, but in this film you see him leave it in Thorin’s hands, and the first thing he does is to get captured by the elves, so I guess it’s the lowest point in his career,’ Armitage says. ‘But what’s also an important turning point in this film is he goes from being anti-Hobbit to being pro-Hobbit and finally learning to trust Bilbo.’
Looking clean-shaven and with short hair, Armitage says he’s not often recognised for portraying the ruggedly handsome, bearded and long-haired dwarf, but he does miss the hair. ‘We tried to make him not look like an ageing rocker,” he says sheepishly, ”but deep down I kind of did enjoy having that hair!’