{"id":39811,"date":"2010-10-27T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=39811"},"modified":"2010-10-27T22:09:34","modified_gmt":"2010-10-28T03:09:34","slug":"ew-peter-jackson-talks-about-casting-a-heartthrob-dwarf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2010\/10\/27\/39811-ew-peter-jackson-talks-about-casting-a-heartthrob-dwarf\/","title":{"rendered":"EW: Peter Jackson talks about casting a ‘heartthrob’ dwarf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It\u2019s been a long time coming, but there was finally cause for rejoicing in Middle-earth last week when director Peter Jackson announced he\u2019d cast several key roles in his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s classic fantasy novel, The Hobbit. The casting of Martin Freeman of the UK Office fame as Bilbo Baggins was widely expected, but some Tolkien fans were surprised and slightly befuddled to see English actor Richard Armitage, best known for the BBC series MI-5, cast as Thorin Oakenshield, the gruff leader of a company of dwarves. What was Jackson doing hiring a hunky actor to play a character most often depicted in illustrations \u2014 and in the 1977 animated Hobbit movie \u2014 as a squat, crabby, Wilford Brimley-ish old dwarf with a long white beard? In an interview (after the jump), Jackson tells EW the choice is actually right in line with the casting of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn and Orlando Bloom as Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. More..<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a long time coming, but there was finally cause for rejoicing in Middle-earth last week when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[499,4,74,1292,148],"tags":[1309,1174],"class_list":["post-39811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hobbit-movie-characters","category-hobbit-movie","category-jackson","category-richard-armitage","category-hobbit","tag-thorin","tag-thorin-oakenshield"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t