Articles and interviews : 2012

"The boots give you a way of moving. There were times where they said, 'You don't need to wear the boots for this scene because it's only a mid-shot,' and I was like, 'I can't do this character without the boots on.' "

"We trained with a weight belt to drag us down, to get our centres of gravity low. But when you put the costume on, you're carrying 20-30 kilos extra, depending on your character. It's pretty heavy! I try to keep at a non-obsessive level of fitness. It's not about looking great, it's about just feeling good. So I do a lot of yoga. Bikram just blows my mind. It's mental as well as physical; if I don't train I get very depressed. But the training for The Hobbit was about stamina and back strength so that we weren't injuring ourselves with the extreme circumstances. It would be good to go back and find that level of training again."

On building a character out of the costume, the sword and the shield: "Tolkien described Thorin as a legendary warrior and a very important dwarf, which were two descriptions that terrified me. But then you get kitted up with this incredible set of tools that you just described, and they give you a body to operate. The entire face of Thorin is created by Weta Digital and Peter and Fran and Phillipa. It's great to be collaborating in that look, and even down to the arsenal of weapons that these dwarves carry, we had some input. But yeah, it's thrilling, and I love the transformation of a character losing yourself visually inside a character like Thorin. "

On whether it was now downhill all the way for his career after being cast in The Hobbit; "I don't care because I've had that moment. I could retire now and it would be okay, because I've had it. Of course, the fear kicked in soon afterwards, when you realise you have to actually play the role. You can't be the weak link, and there was controversy about my casting, along the lines of "he's not old enough... he's too tall... no one knows him". You just have to put your head down and earn it, by working like you've never worked before."

"Before I went to New Zealand, I did have quite a lot of time, so I obviously started with the book and looked at the Appendices in ‘The Lord of the Ring’s. I didn’t really read ‘[The] Lord of the Rings’ because I’d read it as a kid. But I just started looking at a lot of other Tolkien work. I looked at ‘The Silmarillion’, I looked at ‘The Book of Lost Tales’. I looked at a lot of biographies about Tolkien because I wanted to understand why he’d written ‘The Hobbit’ and what had influenced him to write ‘The Hobbit’. He wrote a lot about dwarves and the Nordic aspect of it and his fascination with language and etymology. So all of these things I was just interested in. I didn’t know whether I was going to be able to use it.

"So that was the beginning. And then when we got to New Zealand, it was all physical. Learning how to move like a dwarf, sing like a dwarf, fight like a dwarf…s**t like a dwarf. Then you put aside the work and start filming. Also the work about dressing Thorin and making him look right. It wasn’t just somebody else; my opinion was always involved. I found incredibly it flattering that it was democratic. I was always asked, “What do you think of this?”

"Actually, I had an idea for a weapon, and I remember going to Pete the very first week (we were having like a drinks thing in his garden), and I said to him, “I don’t want to talk shop when we’re being social, but I’ve got an idea for this thing. I think [Thorin] might have kept a piece of wood from the battle where it saves his life. And he’s honed it and he carries it around with him.” And he said, “Ok, well go and do a sketch.” So I did a really crude pencil sketch of this Oakenshield, and he said, “Okay, we’ll give it to Weta.” And they designed this amazing thing for me. It just became fascinating that it’s part of the character now, and I think, “How did that happen? He actually carries the Oakenshield around with him.” I don’t know how it came to me; I was like, “Oh, let’s have a go at that.” "

"On day 3, I think, these massive boots showed up that we were all going to be wearing. Because Tolkien describes the ironclad boots of the dwarfs very specifically, so they're like a boot that fits around a normal foot — so they’re huge. So we all had to learn how to walk in them, and it was very informative because a dwarf is a very heavy being. Their bones are denser and they’re heavier and their center of gravity is lower, so we had to work on all that kind of stuff. And also, when you have those big boots on, you sort of walk like you're wearing a diaper. So we had to de-diaperize ourselves.

"Literally like the costume, the body of the character, the skeleton of the character was different, so you feel somehow buried deep inside of there. But slowly you find your way through it and you can’t function without it then. When sometimes we had to go down and rehearse not in costume, I struggled. I couldn’t do it without the huge boots."

"I read the book when I was 11 … I remember picking it up for myself and sitting under the bedsheets with a torch and I really feel like it inspired my imagination. And if I really think back, it’s probably one of the reasons why I became an actor, because my imagination was fired and those things that Tolkien really taps into — the secret doors, the keys, the code words, the scary threat of the darkness — I think those are the things that really appealed to me as a kid,"

"I really needed the crew to believe in my character.  Sometimes we were called to set half way through the process of getting ready – so sometimes I was asked to go to set without the wig on – and I remember hating it, and wearing a hoodie – because I just didn’t want Thorin humiliated in front of the crew.  I wanted them to believe that when the King walked onto the set, that they felt a change in the atmosphere.  It’s like I didn’t want anyone seeing the dwarf suit underneath, coz that’s like Thorin being half naked – so I know it sounds stupid, but I was really protective of that.  I could always gauge it because a lot of the time, leaving the set through the gates – I used to cycle to the studio – most of the crew didn’t speak to me because they didn’t recognise me.  So it took a long time for them to go, ‘Ah!  That’s the guy that comes in on a bike! That’s Thorin!’  Which I always took as a compliment."

He was asked by Peter Jackson to read for the part of Thorin. "I thought, first of all, I'm six foot two [1.8 metres] and Thorin's an old guy. Maybe they want me to read it for a general audition. But then when I read what they'd done with the audition speech I realised that they were looking for something quite different. They needed someone who could play a warrior, who could play a young Thorin and old Thorin and also to bring the idea of somebody who could return to his full potential to become a king. That's when I sat down with Peter and we talked through the journey and the arc of the character – and then they offered it to me. I had to pick myself up off the floor."

"I think the dwarves by nature are greedy and stubborn, and they covet gold, there's no getting away from it. They don't see that as a bad thing. You have to remove your human sentiment when it comes to greed and the accumulation of wealth. They see it as a very positive thing. But this particular group of dwarves, only thirteen of them have come out on this quest. Everyone else turned their backs and said, 'No, no, no, leave it alone. Stay away from that mountain.' So it really is about thirteen survivors that are going to attempt to do something which people have dissuaded other dwarves from doing. And so there is a sort of spirit of conquest in the dwarves."

"From Thorin's point of view, I think he's thinking less about the gold and more about his people and his own personal agenda with his grandfather, his father, and his nemesis Azog who slaughtered his grandfather. And also the dragon Smaug, he has this personal relationship with Smaug who came and-- I've used Hiroshima, actually, as an inspiration for that kind of devastation that drove them away from their homeland. So that's been Thorin's driving force."

"I’d read The Hobbit over and over as a kid. Then I got into The Lord Of The Rings as an adult, but sadly I was never in a position to even be considered for that trilogy. There’s nothing that could have stopped me from doing Thorin. If I never do another piece of work again after this, I think I’ll be happy, genuinely happy. It feels like an arrival."

Asked to sum up his experience of being in The Hobbit, he said, "I've loved it - you leap out of bed in the morning.  I know that sounds really corny, but you do.  You constantly pinch yourself: "I can't believe I'm standing in front of Hugo Weaving, in front of Elrond, and he's telling me the secrets of this iconic map." I learned how, in one of the drafts of the book, Tolkien wanted the moon runes to be actually written in, printed into the ink, and they couldn't afford it.  But just seeing the map for real and going, "Oh my God, I'm holding it, I'm holding it."  It was quite nice that I'm bringing a little bit of that wonder and magic to the character..."

"It's really weird now because I can't play the character when I haven't gotten everything on. It's very hard to rehearse when you're not in costume, when you haven't gotten the prosthetics on, but I look in the mirror when it's all finished and I don't see it. I can't see where it starts and where it ends. I just see the character. I've never had that before. It's such a unique experience. It's a face that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to WETA workshop and the people that created it."

On leaving behind the character of Thorin after fiming finished, he said, "I don't think it will be possible to leave it behind me. I think this is one of those characters that always stay with you because you spend so much time with him and it's such a transformation. I'm in the character every day, and I've become so familiar with him. I sort of know how he thinks. I feel really close to the character, and he will continue beyond this job. I think he is a fascinating character. I will probably wake up in six years' time and be inspired to think about him again. It's really exciting."