If you’re a fan of Neil Gaiman and his fantasy novel Neverwhere, here’s a treat for you -– BBC Radio 4 is re-broadcasting the for-radio version that proved a hit earlier this year. No wonder that it was popular considering it features the following cast: James McAvoy as Richard Mayhew, Natalie Dormer as Door, Benedict Cumberbatch as The Angel Islington, Anthony Stewart Head as Croup and Christopher Lee as The Earl of Earl’s Court (to name a few).
Three episodes have already aired (and can still be listened to on the Beeb website) while the remainder will air over the next few nights at 11:30pm GMT, up until Monday December 30. Go and have a listen over on the Radio 4 website and enjoy. Continue reading “Listen to Chris Lee and Benedict Cumberbatch in Neil Gaiman’s ‘Neverwhere’ on Radio 4”
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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.’ Continue reading “Armitage: we tried to make him not look like an ageing rocker, but…”
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Not sure how I missed this first time round (possibly because of the fuss over the international cinema hookup and a quick visit to Wellington), but this is an insightful and at-times hilarious interview with several of the dwarven actors from the cast of The Hobbit, including Jed Brophy, Graham McTavish, Dean O’Gorman and William Kircher. Be sure to follow the link at the bottom to read the full transcript. It’s long, but worth it.
Or as Fairfax puts it: At one point we had one interview with an everchanging cast of dwarves. The following is the edited transcript – amusing, informative, long (very long) and occasionally anarchic.
JED BROPHY. My name is Jed Brophy and I play Nori the Dwarf. In The Hobbit. Which is a film. And a book. And possibly a TV series. And a radio play. Yeah.
QUESTION. How would you sum up your Hobbit experience so far? What has it been like?
JED BROPHY. It’s been amazing and exhausting. But mainly amazing.
QUESTION. So you have worked on nearly all of Peter’s films?
JED BROPHY. Yeah, I played a hardcore zombie in Braindead way back in the day in 1991, and then the boarder in Heavenly Creatures who seduces Mel Lynskey’s character, puts her off men for life. We’ve done Lord of the Rings, all three movies, and then got to work on King Kong and did a bit of work on Tintin as a mocap actor. So yeah, I’ve been very lucky to be included in a lot of his projects. It’s been a good run for me.
QUESTION. And he just rang up and asked you, “Want to be a dwarf?”
JED BROPHY. It was really interesting. I had got to do pre-vis on the mocap stage. So we were doing lots of working as a dwarf. They shot it as an animated feature to have a look at how they were going to progress the story and look at the script. I thought I was going to be possibly playing Orcs and maybe Goblins, similar roles that I did on Lord of the Rings. So it definitely went out of the box to be cast as a dwarf. I didn’t see myself physically in that role, but given the fat suits and the boots and the beards, they can do a lot.
QUESTION. What’s the progression been like, from all the way back then, as compared to now?
JED BROPHY. Yeah, look, I think that Peter hasn’t changed his process of filmmaking an awful lot. He is a visionary. People say he’s a genius. He is. He’s a visionary, he has the vision in his head, he surrounds himself with people who are all at the top of their game who share a similar vision, and he’s always been very, very careful to make the movie that he wants to make. He never shies away from making people work really hard to get that. Yeah, I don’t see a lot of difference in the way that he works, from the very first time.
QUESTION. How long did it take before you were comfortable to have lunch in the beard?
JED BROPHY. It’s never really comfortable to have lunch. I eat a lot of the yak hair. I’m pretty sure I’ve got fur balls. It’s just one of those things where you just have to get used to holding it down to [eat]. I don’t have morning tea once the mustache is on. It becomes impossible because it kind of hangs in there and you end up just eating yourself, which is not the most enjoyable thing, really.
QUESTION. Seeing as you’ve worked with Jackson on the previous ones, how’s the makeup changed for you? Is it much better now?
JED BROPHY. Yeah, the old days of foam latex. The foam latex is difficult in that once it gets dry, you can see the edges and it’s very hard for people doing the paint work. They have to continuously recheck and repaint and keep it moist. But with the silicon, with the translucency, it looks a lot more like skin. It’s a lot lighter to wear, you don’t sweat quite as much in it, and it looks fantastic.
I’ve had people come up to me not knowing which is my face and which is the prosthetics, which you can take as a [good or bad] thing. Obviously my nose is a lot smaller than this in real life. But yeah, it’s always a buzz that people can’t quite tell.
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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug finally opened in Australia on Boxing Day, and promptly took the second-highest Boxing day box office ever to add to the Smaug-like hoard that it’s already amassed globally.
Peter Jackson has confirmed his position as Lord of the Ringing Tills with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug recording the second-highest Boxing Day opening in Australian history. Continue reading “The Desolation of Smaug strikes box office gold in Australia”
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Editor’s note: Our latest staff review comes from Saystine. As always if you’re still to see the film and are avoiding spoilers, please be aware that there are spoilers all through this review.
After seeing the film five times in the opening weekend, here are my thoughts… Continue reading “TORn Staffer Saystine reviews “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug””
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Disclaimer: I enjoyed ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ very much, and have seen it 3 times as of this writing. Smaug is, in this writers opinion, THE dragon to end all dragons, and the creative team deserves kudos for the incredible sets, cgi, costumes, and Thranduil’s eyebrows. So it is with love and respect that I ask the following questions (spoilers ahead):
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Illustration by Otis Frampton
- Is it ever sunny and dry in Bree?
- Where does Beorn keep his pants post-skin change?
- What snarky remark must Thranduil have said to the dragon (Smaug?) to get that nasty scar on his face?
- Does Tauriel secretly have an “I (heart) Hot Dwarves” t-shirt under her outfit? ( Legolas must be jealous.)
- What is the landspeed velocity of an unladen Orc?
- Gandalf appears to use the Patronus spell during his encounter with
The Necromancer Saaauuurrron. What form would it take?
- Where did Tauriel (a self-described ‘lowly Sylvan Elf’) learn such impressive healing skills? (Arwen must be jealous.)
- How would Smaug have known the name ‘Oakenshield’, unless he leaves Erebor for the occasional pint at the Prancing Pony?
- Did the dwarves REALLY think that a little molten gold would hurt a fire-breathing dragon with impenetrable scales, or did they just think a little bling would soothe his hurt feelings?
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