In a recent sitdown with IGN, Richard Armitage talked about the final two movies in Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy, ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ and ’The Hobbit: There and Back Again,’ and the evolution of his character in the story, Thorin Oakenshield. Asked how Thorin will evolve, Armitage said,
“Sadly there isn’t much room for comedy in the rest of the story (laughs), it does get darker. We did try to find moments of lightness and humor for him, which are pretty difficult to find because he’s a pretty serious guy. The closer they get to that dragon [Smaug], the stakes get higher and things become more more threatening for the dwarves and particularly for Thorin as he gets closer to that gold. That’s the thing we established in ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,’ that his family have an affliction to dragon sickness. As he approaches that it’s going to kind of spiral down into madness.”
Asked about the importance of the relationship between his Thorin Oakenshield and Martin Freeman’s Bilbo Baggins, Richard Armitage said,
“I think when Thorin gets to Bag End early in the first movie, he really doesn’t have much time for Bilbo Baggins. He sees him as a liability as he sees him as a halfling, someone who’s not prepared for war. He disregards him. But over the course of that first leg of the journey Bilbo really proves him to be a great use to the quest. That turns Thorin’s mind around and his heart around towards this seemingly insignificant little thing, who saves his life from Azog in that moment. And that’s what that last scene is about, it’s a kind of forgiveness – albeit dressed up in rage. That relationship is interesting, it will evolve through the course of the story.”
The actor also confirmed that he has 10 more weeks of filming to go on the ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy. Check out the full interview after the jump.
