When fans discussed who they would like to voice Bert on The Hobbit Movie Forum, popular choices included Robin Williams, Vinnie Jones and Bob Hoskins. Others believed actors who had already appeared in The Lord of the Rings movies should play Bert, William and Tom.
Bifur
Name: Bifur
Alias: None
Race: Dwarf of Khazad-dûm (not of Durin’s line)
Played by: William Kircher
Character description: Bifur is the brother of Bombur and the cousin of Bofur. He wears a yellow hood and joins the quest to get a share in the treasure. He is descended from ironworkers and coal miners from the West, not from the Longbeard Dwarves of the House of Durin. He plays the clarinet and is fond of apple tart!
The actor chosen to play Bifur was William Kircher, who is hugely popular in New Zealand. His professional acting career started when he graduated from the New Zealand Drama School at the age of eighteen (he had been the youngest student in his class as he had lied about his age in order to get on the course). Since then he has acted in over 100 professional theatre productions, as well as appearing in numerous TV shows and movies. He has played several police officers over the years and quite a few bad guys, too.
William has also stepped the other side of the camera as a producer and television company executive. For years he refused to attend auditions and turned down jobs he was offered because he no longer wanted to act. This all changed when Robert Sarkies approached him for the 2006 movie Out of the Blue, based on the Aramoana Massacre. Up until that point he had thought that being a producer might be better than being an actor, but changed his mind after being offered the role of police officer Stu Guthrie, and after he had a disappointing experience at a conference. He explained to NZ on Screen: ‘For some time I thought being a producer would be a more fulfilling career than being an actor but then I went to a conference in Cannes with 300 other producers, all desperately chasing finance for their projects and realised being an actor wasn’t so bad after all!’
In his spare time William likes to spend time with his wife, Nicole Chesterman, a rock singer and talent agent, and their four daughters. They enjoy walking their dogs as a family and William loves fishing. He lives in Eastbourne in the southern North Island of New Zealand.
During one of the behind-the-scenes production videos, William discussed how the dwarf actors prepared before filming began. He said: ‘We started with three months of intense training: we did stunt fighting, horse riding; we did the gym four times a week, we did dwarf movement intensely. They did it essentially by breaking us down, reducing us to the absolute ameba stage and then building us up again as dwarves.’
All the delays to filming at the start actually helped William and his new colleagues as it allowed them to spend more time training, and they also had more time to bond with each other. When in costume they had to carry 80 kg of props, plus the weight of their fat suits.
In the first Hobbit press conference, William admitted that The Lord of the Rings movies had set the bar high. ‘We are all really focused on the work at this stage,’ he said. ‘We have a lot to live up to and are completely and utterly determined to live up to it.’
Bilbo Baggins
Name: Bilbo Baggins
Alias: Elf-friend, Ringbearer
Race: Hobbit
Played by: Martin Freeman and Ian Holm
Character description: Bilbo is a stereotypical hobbit. Hobbits are jolly, little people, roughly half the size of humans. Clean-shaven, they are smaller than dwarves. They have hairy feet with leathery soles and they dress in yellow and green.
Bilbo is the main character in The Hobbit and becomes a hero adventurer after a wizard called Gandalf calls by his hobbit-hole. Although not interested in adventure, Bilbo ends up being given the job of burglar and goes on a quest with 13 dwarves.
Several actors have played Bilbo in the past. In The Lord of the Rings trilogy he was played by Ian Holm and in the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit, Orson Bean took on the role. Orson also played Bilbo in the 1980 animated version of The Return of the King.
The actor chosen by Peter Jackson to play Bilbo in his Hobbit movies was Martin Freeman. In a statement released to the press, Peter said: ‘Despite the various rumours and speculation surrounding this role, there has only ever been one Bilbo Baggins for us.
‘There are few times in your career when you come across an actor who you know was born to play a role, but that was the case as soon as I met Martin. He is intelligent, funny, surprising and brave – exactly like Bilbo, and I feel incredibly proud to be able to announce that he is our Hobbit.’
Before being cast in The Hobbit Martin was best known in the UK for playing Dr John Watson in Sherlock and Tim in The Office. In the USA he was best known for his part in the movie Love Actually (2003), but as soon as he was cast as Bilbo that all changed. Back in January 2012, he admitted to talk show host Graham Norton: ‘I have had ten years to prepare since The Office, but we were on holiday recently and I realised that maybe this time next year there won’t be many places where I can go where The Hobbit won’t have been seen. It’s a funny thing [fame] and I have a troubled relationship with that sort of stuff.’
Martin had auditioned for one of Peter Jackson’s past movies, The Lovely Bones (2009). He had wanted to play the murderer George Harvey but Stanley Tucci got the part instead. At the time he was gutted, but it really was a blessing in disguise: had he been successful, he might not have been able to play Bilbo because people would have associated him with that role.
Initially, he actually had to turn down the part of Bilbo because he was already committed to playing Watson in the second series of the BBC drama Sherlock, but he did say that if something could be done with the timings, then he would like to be involved. Because of the various filming delays in the months that followed, it turned out that he was able to take on the role as he could film Sherlock in the gaps. He explained what happened in a New Zealand press conference in early 2011: ‘I put myself on tape for it early last year and I’d always had very generous feedback from the team that they would like me to do it ultimately, which was a very nice vote of confidence and certainly relaxed me a bit. I thought I was not going to be able to do it because of other commitments in Britain then it was made that I could do it. So yeah, it’s genuinely flattering and it means that I get to do two things [The Hobbit and Sherlock] that I really love this year.’
DID YOU KNOW?
David Tennant, James McAvoy and Tobey Maguire had all been considered for the role of Bilbo.
If Peter Jackson had to liken himself to any character from Middle-earth, he would pick Bilbo. As he explained to Sasha Stone from the Mirror: ‘I really should identify with a sword-wielding hero like Aragorn [from The Lord of the Rings] but really, I identify more with a comfort-loving hobbit like Bilbo Baggins, who would rather put his feet up in front of the fire and eat cakes and drink ale, and not go on any adventures and lead a quiet life.’
Martin Freeman is a British actor, originally from Aldershot, Hampshire, England. He trained at the Central School of Speech & Drama in London and is a versatile actor, having appeared in numerous TV shows, theatre productions, movies and radio shows. Best known for playing Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Tim in the UK version of The Office and Dr Watson in the TV series Sherlock, he won a 2011 BAFTA TV Award for playing Dr Watson (picking up the Best Supporting Actor Award). This has been his biggest accolade to date, but his performances in The Hobbit movies could see him win an Oscar or Golden Globe