When filming in New Zealand, Amanda told Daily Mail journalist Vicki Power: ‘When he’d been out there for over six weeks, he really needed to see us. His heart ached a little bit. But we know the film is going to be huge.
‘He does get stressed, though. Sometimes he rings me up at 7 am to say: “I’ve been covered in c**p, hanging upside down and I’ve got bloody ears on.” But he knows it’s for the greater good and he does it with a smile.’
Peter Jackson is so glad Martin took on the role. He told fansshare.com: ‘He is fantastic and there is simply nobody else for the job. We couldn’t find anyone who was better than him. He is simply fantastic.
‘He’s Bilbo-esque. You might not always want to say that about you, right? But seriously he has the essential features of this little English gent, this country gent who is slightly old-fashioned and has to go around in the world and try to cope with it.
‘That’s not exactly who Martin is as a person, but as an actor he does that so well – the fish out of water with a sense of courage but also a wonderful sense of humour. The things that happen to him and the way he reacts to them – things he’s never seen in his life before as a stuffy little Hobbit – his response to it all is part of the charm. And he does have a great openness in his face.’
Playing an upbeat hobbit was hard work on the days when Martin was covered in mud and there were long days filming, too.
Sir Ian Holm played the older Bilbo in The Hobbit movies and in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Born in Goodmayes, London to Scottish parents, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1953, and then worked in Stratford becoming one of the lead actors in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Throughout the fifties and sixties he performed in numerous Shakespeare plays in the UK and USA before appearing in his first movie, The Bofor’s Gun (1968). The part of Flynn earned him a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor. Throughout his long career, Ian has been nominated for over 30 different awards and, altogether, picked up 19 of them – quite an achievement. One of the finest actors the UK has ever produced, he has previously been nominated for an Oscar but that was back in 1982 for Chariots of Fire, so he is well overdue another nomination.
During a press conference before shooting began, Martin was asked how he would be playing Bilbo. He replied: ‘Obviously I’ve been looking at what he [Ian] was doing; there’s a certain level of course of which I have to match what he’s doing and then forget it as well so I’ve not been tying myself in knots about it but I have been trying to be sensible and just literally look at what he’s doing, what his voice is doing, what his movements are doing. And I genuinely, without being bigheaded or falsely modest, I think I’m quite a good match for him. I’ve seen worse matches and I think I can do a young Ian Holm. So I’m looking forward to it, but bearing in mind that I can’t be playing Ian Holm, you know what I mean. But of course I’m going to have that echoing and nod to what he did.’
Ian filmed his scenes and close-ups for The Hobbit in England rather than coming all the way to New Zealand, so Martin actually stood in for him in a scene with Elijah Wood (Frodo). Before they began shooting, Jackson and his crew watched the footage that Ian had done in London so they could easily match up the shots. Hobbit superfan Eric Vespe got to witness what happened and wrote in his report for AintItCool.com: ‘While I didn’t talk to Elijah about it, I bet it meant the world to him to have Martin there actually giving a performance for him to act off of. Freeman even adopted a little bit of Ian Holm’s speech patterns for these scenes and was so good at impersonating Ian Holm that more than once I wondered if the voice I was hearing over the coms was Ian’s on playback or Martin’s in real life.
‘Usually in these situations they’ll have the script girl or one of the dialect coaches read the lines and while that works a charm, there’s something extra special about a performer giving a performance.’
DID YOU KNOW?
While filming in Hobbiton one of the cow extras decided it didn’t want to be in the movie anymore and so it ran off! A crewmember had to run after it and the scene was reshot.
Birmingham
J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit, may have been born in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (known today as Free State Province, South Africa), but tourism bosses in Birmingham, England are keen to point out that from 1895 to 1911 he lived in the city. His grandparents owned a shop in the centre, which had been in the family since the early 1800s (the building it was situated in was called Lamb House). Tolkien’s great-great-grandfather had run a stationer’s and bookshop from Lamb House and following this, his great grandfather had a drapery and hosiery store there.
Birmingham tourism bosses are hoping that The Hobbit movies will bring tourists to the city to see where Tolkien spent his childhood and witness for themselves the buildings that are said to have inspired Tolkien while writing. It is thought that the Two Towers from The Lord of the Rings are based on Perrott’s Folly and Edgbaston Waterworks. Perrott’s Folly is nicknamed ‘The Observatory’ and is a 29 m-high tower. Built in 1758, it is Grade II listed.
Local volunteer Chris Hoare told Darren Cannan from the BBC during a trip to Perrott’s Folly in 2003: ‘Don’t forget Tolkien lived at 25 Stirling Road, went to the Oratory and drank in the Ivy Bush.’
Tourism bosses have recently opened a new Tolkien themed gallery at Sarehole Mill in Hall Green, which shows The Hobbit author’s links with Birmingham through photographs and film. Chairman of the Birmingham Tolkien Group Michael Wilkes is overjoyed with the gallery and told Neil Elkes from the Birmingham Mail: ‘This is a step forward for Tolkien heritage in Birmingham. The Birmingham Tolkien Group has worked closely with the city museum service on this. We get visitors from all over the world here and we’ve even had visitors from Eastern Europe.’
As well as the gallery, the city has held a Tolkien weekend every year since 2000. The 2012 weekend celebrated 75 years since The Hobbit was published. It was called ‘Middle-earth Weekend’ and took place at Shire County Park on 19 and 20 May. There were re-enactments of key scenes from Tolkien’s books, medieval craftsmen, archery, dancing, music and much more. It was a free event and people travelled from far and wide to take part.
Bofur
Name: Bofur
Alias: None
Race: Dwarf of Khazad-dûm (not of Durin’s line)
Played by: James Nesbitt
Character description: Bofur wears a yellow hood and is the brother of Bombur, cousin of Bifur.
The actor chosen to play Bofur was James Nesbitt. James, or ‘Jimmy’ as he likes to be called, is originally from Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. At thirteen, he made his stage debut playing the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist. Although he dreamed of being a French teacher, he changed his mind while at university and dropped out of the course, having decided that he would much rather become an actor, and enrolled at the Central School of Speech & Drama in London.
James talked to Stuff.co.nz about why he changed his career ambitions, saying: ‘I got fed up writing essays and I’d done a bit of acting, so I packed in the degree. Drama school was a really good way of meeting girls [laughs] but then I started work the day after I left drama school and all of a sudden it was like “OK, I’m an actor”.
‘I think I was very lucky that I came from Northern Ireland at a time