I think you'd assume The Hobbit...
...was an easier book to adapt than The Lord of the Rings.
I mean, The Lord of the Rings is famous for its complexity.
But for us the dread was always in adapting The Hobbit.
We thought that one day if we ever did find ourselves doing The Hobbit...
...the question was always, “How would we deal with 13 Dwarves?"
BOYENS: Getting nine people in one fellowship on screen was hard enough.
The notion of getting 13 Dwarves on screen...
...giving them distinct personalities, that was--
I always thought, "Wow, that's-- Somebody's going to have a hard job there."
JACKSON: The Dwarves are delightful in the book.
You know, the way that Tolkien names them with the kind of rhyming names.
Okay. Oh, my God.
- Ori, Dori, Nori. - Dwalin, Balin.
Oin, Gloin.
Bofur, Bifur, Bombur.
JACKSON: It's very memorable...
...but really Tolkien doesn't spend the time to give each Dwarf their own particular personality.
BROPHY: In the book, it's really only three or four of the Dwarves that are expanded in any real way.
The rest are sketched into the story.
They're along for the journey, do the occasional thing.
They're there for the battles, but they're not talked about in any depth.
JACKSON: And that's okay in a book, but in a movie you can't do that...
...because if you've got 13 Dwarves, they're on screen.
They're there. They have to do something. They have to interact.
Dori is a comedy character.
BOYENS: For the audience, coming to know them...
...and coming to care about them as characters is terribly important.
And so we worked really hard to differentiate each and every one of them.
He's a tough fighter.
JACKSON: That was a combination of many things.
And most critically, obviously, is casting.
Because Tolkien hadn't defined the Dwarves, you know, in super detail...
...it was a case of finding really good actors who inhabited interesting quirks and personalities...
...and they could bring a lot of their own things to that role.
RIVERS: Finding the Dwarves is a massive task.
There's a worldwide search. It doesn't matter where they come from.
We thought, "Well, we don't need to specifically audition for every single character.
It would have just been too hard.
And so what we did was we had generic scripts that would pretty much cover the characters.
Stay home?
What do you take me for?
Gloin was the general Dwarf that we all auditioned for.
- An armchair axman who does--? - All his fighting in stories and songs.
I have followed Thorin Oakenshield all my life.
Through battles and brawls and famine and death.
I thought that they were using the Dwarf material to audition local actors...
...and the chances of us getting cast in that tier of characters was quite slim.
But perhaps we might get some of the smaller roles.
Gloin was one of the Dwarves who was particularly interesting to us, obviously...
...because he's Gimli's dad.
I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox.
Oh.
This forest will be teaming with Wargs and Ores.
Where you can see disemboweled Dwarf.
JACKSON: And Peter was just fantastic.
HAMBLETON: My agent rang me up and said, "Congratulations...
...you've been offered the role of Gloin in The Hobbit."
I said, "You're joking."
We really felt we found somebody who could carry that role and do John Rhys-Davies proud.
I remember Stephen's audition perfectly...
...because he's the guy from this funny Toyota commercial.
That's the only work I'd seen of Stephen's.
And he turned up and he had a sort of homemade tunic on.
HUNTER: I auditioned for Gloin. And he was quite a dour character.
But, you know, I just had to play it the way I played it.
So there were a few moments in there that I thought you could see like the comical side.
Ha-ha. Wolf?
No, Master Baggins, that is the howl of a Warg.
Several Wargs if I'm not mistaken.
He just did this fantastic, great, upbeat, enjoyable audition.
Claws like meat hooks, teeth like razor blades.
The Goblins call them bone-strippers.
RIVERS: And that's why he's been cast as Bombur.
I got a phone call from my agent and she just said I'd been offered the role of Bombur.
And I went, "That's the fat one. Well, that'll be fun."
It was probably one of the best days of my life, I think.
Although three months later Rosie was born and that was pretty insane.
That was the best day.
Well, that's what I said. You don't look unwell to me.
Then again, we all got the trots at Lake-town.
Maybe he's referring to that.
I thought, "I'll go and have a laugh to go out for this."
It's not something I'd done before.
Bilbo?
I mean, what chance does he have against that dragon?
And afterwards I thought, "Oh, God. I think that went really well."
I couldn't imagine going to New Zealand and being in this sort of thing.
So then Peter and Philippa and Fran were in England when I went to meet them.
And they were just so nice.
What was really attractive about it to me was how much importance they put on family...
...that they would want my family to come out.
I walked away thinking, “This could be a great adventure."
And Peggy and Mary, they're now both in the film.
MAN: I heard you're preparing for a journey.
Heard it from whom?
MAN: You did not think young Kili could keep a secret to himself?
Ah. No. That was too much to ask. Heh, heh.
CALLEN: My agent called and said, "John, are you sitting down?"
I said, "No. Actually I'm vacuuming dog hair off the sofa.
Should I actually sit down?" She said, "Yes, if you would."
So I did.
And she then told me that I'd been cast in this film playing Oin.
And I was, yeah, blown away.
My lord, Thranduil is wise, but in this instance his judgment is clouded.
Aidan Turner first read for an Elf.
This has to do with you meeting with Gandalf?
Would you at least tell me what I'm seeking?
BOYENS: He literally went on the board, but we didn't know who he was gonna play.
But he felt so right for the world of Middle-earth.
And as Kili began to swim into focus, this sort of sense of recklessness, but joyful...
...but also staunch, we kept going back to Aidan.
But I kept thinking, he's never gonna want to play a Dwarf.
There's no way.
But Fran said we should ask the question.
And we did and he said yes.
And I was, "Yeah!"
Rivers of gold. Poppycock.
These Dwarves are nothing more than a pack of wandering rogues and vagabonds.
Tinkers and tricksters, you mark my words.
William came in as Master of Lake-town.
Hope, you say?
That's good. Yeah. That is very good.
Hope is cheap.
MULLANE: And then we got a note back from Pete:
"We want Stephen Fry as Master of Lake-town."
Somebody has to take over the mantle from Orlando Bloom...
...as the most desirable figure to be in a Tolkien adaptation.
"But let's make William a Dwarf."
KIRCHER: I got a call from the casting director completely out of the blue...
...saying that Peter would like to offer me one of the principle cast characters of Bifur the Dwarf.
It was like somebody ringing up and saying that you had won the lottery.
Of course he has a plan.
He always has a plan.
The question is, is it any good?
McTAVISH: I'd had my third meeting for Dwalin...
...and every night after that my daughter and I used to look at the sky...
...and we would wait for the first star and she and I would wish-- Make our little wish.
And my wish was that I would get the job.
And on September the 8th, the phone rang...
...and it was my manager telling me that I'd got the job.
And it was that sort of crystallized moment in time that you remember forever.
And then I went into the gym. Ha-ha.
And I thought "Well, I really do need to work out now, because this will be a tiring job."
BROWN: This is my first movie.
I thought I'd aim high. Heh-heh-heh.
- Of course, it's a joke. MAN: Ha-ha-ha.
What do you take me for?
I'm a Baggins of Bag End.
Adam auditioned for Bilbo and he did an extraordinary audition.
It made us laugh so hard.
Shh.
He wants me to go on an adventure.
BOYENS: We wrote to our casting agent.
We sent back a note saying, “Is this guy for real? Is he that funny?"
And it was like, "We gotta use this guy."
I was going to a panto press launch.
Panto is a Christmas show that happens in pretty much every theater...
...up and down the country in England.
I was dressed up as a frog king...
...and I was going on the train with my flat mate...
...who was also in the show, and she had a bit of a rough time.
Her parents was going, “When are you gonna get a proper job?"
And I said, "The hard thing for your parents to understand is that this is the only job...
...that really one day the phone will ring and that phone call could literally change your life."
[PHONE RINGS]
And then my phone went and it was my agent, and he said, "The Hobbit have been in touch...
...and they think you're perfect for Ori."
I remember the window steaming up and having, like, palpitations, going:
[PANTING]
"Oh, my God. Slow down. Slow down.
You're saying what? Two movies. It's two movies. It's two movies."
And then just going, "Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I'll live in New Zealand.
Eighteen months. Ahh."
BOYENS: Balin was really important to us.
We needed the audience to care about him...
...so we knew that Balin had to be played by a really great actor.
And Ken Stott was, like, right up there on our wish list.
Fingers crossed kind of moment. “Oh, my God. I hope he says yes."
He's got a phenomenal voice.
He wants to be part of it.
Not for honor. Not for glory.
But because he believes.
He believes we can take back Erebor.
BOYENS: And he can play status really easily.
He actually is like that in real life.
WOMAN: Jed Brophy, Nori.
Jed has worked on, I think, pretty much every one of Peter's productions.
Mordor will pay for this.
Why can't we have some meats?
It's a zombie!
[SCREAMS]
He's dead.
Jed is a stalwart of the New Zealand film industry.
He has always been there for us.
So when we knew we were gonna get to work on The Hobbit...
...we all started our quiet campaign that maybe Jed could be one of the Dwarves.
But we needn't have bothered because of course Peter and Fran are so loyal...
...and dedicated to the people that work with them.
Thinking of Jed's qualities and what he could bring to it...
...we started to kind of, you know, think that he could be the slightly shady, world-wise Dwarf.
Well, show us your gold, then. Go on.
Oh, thank you very much.
The best call ever was to Jed Brophy.
Normally, I would go directly to the agent, but I remember calling Jed.
I just wanted to tell him directly.
He couldn't believe it. He could not believe it.
I thought she was kidding. I said, "Oh, yeah."
And she said, "No. No. They have.
Would you be willing to accept?" And I was like:
It makes me quite teary, because he had put the phone down.
I burst into tears.
I, um...
Yeah, I just-- I didn't quite know what to do with myself.
There was no one in the house to talk to.
There's no one that I could tell.
So I went from being in tears to going around the house going, "Whoo-hoo!"
To being in tears to going, "Whoo-hoo!"
And then my neighbor was like, he was doing something and said, "Are you all right?"
And I was like, "Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. Whoo-hoo!"
[CACKLES]
JACKSON: Mark Hadlow is just a funny, great guy with a really interesting face.
Good actor. And somebody that we have known for years, right since our Meet the Feebles days.
- Oh! - Eat lead, you man-stealing slut!
[SCREAMS]
Isn't she gorgeous? Yeah.
That was me in drag for King Kong, 2003...
...in the Vaudeville number with Naomi Watts.
He is family.
And where I come from you don't give up on family...
...no matter how stupid they are.
He probably had the longest audition process out of all the Dwarves, I would say.
This quest was never more than a pipe dream for a madman.
I did my first audition and I thought, “That's it." And then nothing happened.
And three months later I got the call, come back and do another call back for something else.
Aye, and there be one less Elf if you're thinking of coming any closer.
I think he came in for three or four different roles.
I had four call backs. I had four call backs.
He kept saying, "Please, this time. Let this time be a good one."
I mean, I audition terribly. I really do.
I audition terribly.
RIVERS: He always did great auditions...
...but I think Peter and Fran and Philippa were just wanting to experiment.
I must be off. It's been nice having a chat, catching up.
Nice to know we're all on the same page.
All good.
RIVERS: And then he ended up being cast as Dori, which is exciting.
When the wizard came to me with the map, I thought:
“Let this be a mistake.
Let it be a fake, a forgery."
This task, it's impossible.
Why did it come to me?
For Thorin, the leader of the Dwarves...
...we wanted somebody with a-- Who was going to have authority.
And what would you have me do?
Would you have me sit here growing fat and old at my leisure?
One of the things we knew the character needed to have was innate strength.
That's what we saw in Richard.
We were once a noble people.
Not tinkers and merchants scraping around in the dirt for copper coins, but Dwarf lords.
Once we were kings.
MAN: That's great.
BOYENS: He came in and read and it was one of those moments where you go:
"Thorin Oakenshield just turned up. He's our guy."
ARMITAGE: One of the things that always troubled me about playing the role...
...is I was always conscious that my age didn't match Thorin's age.
JACKSON: In the book, Thorin's like in his 180s, 190s.
But, I mean, in human years that--
You know, I think the image will be somebody who's in their 60s, maybe 70s.
BOYENS: We made a decision early on that he needed to be younger than he is in the book.
We knew we wanted to tell the back story and we wanted someone...
...who could potentially play himself as a young prince.
You need the audience to invest in the notion that this guy is going to take back Erebor...
...and has the potential to be a king and produce an heir and live a long life after that.
We also knew he needed to be a great warrior and it would have been, I think, difficult...
...for someone in their 70s or 80s to actually physically play this role.
JACKSON: But really, we just thought that Richard would do a fantastic job for the movie.
And that's really why we wanted him.
We were prepared to put the age thing to one side to get Richard to play that role.
ARMITAGE: When I was first cast, I was just very excited, because this particular book...
...I think it was one of those books that really made me become an actor...
...because it sort of got me into literature and got me excited about films as well.
MAN: Thank you, fellas.
JACKSON: We began to shoot the movie and then one of our Dwarves, Rob Kazinsky...
...had to leave-- Unexpectedly leave the production.
...just I think about a week into shooting, and we had to replace Rob.
RIVERS: The most important thing was to find someone who would fit with Aidan...
...because Aidan was already cast.
Dean was the first person that Peter said to specifically check the availability on.
I'm a Baggins from Bag End.
I can't just go running off into the blue.
MAN: Knew it. - What a ridiculous idea.
O'GORMAN: I had auditioned for Bilbo...
...but I remember specifically saying, “There's no way I'm gonna be Bilbo."
I'd probably forgot about it a couple days after.
And then, yeah, I got this call a year later saying they're interested in you...
...for a role and it's Fili, the brother of Kili, one of the Dwarves.
I was like, "Wow, one of the Dwarves. They're, like, a good role in the movie."
And then-- Yeah, I went down and I did the audition.
What's the matter? You don't look very good.
WOMAN: I thought someone was going to light a fire?
Fire? Oh, no, no. Shouldn't think so.
- Not for this. - Just a bit of rain.
I did the audition with Aidan. And the great thing with Aidan is that he and I--
As soon as we met we got along.
Which I knew was gonna be important for the characters...
...but it was nice to know that I didn't have to fake it. You know?
And I think he probably felt the same way.
He better.
Do you hear me, Moria scum?
- You'll answer for this. MAN: Very good.
O'GORMAN: Couple days later, couple of very anxious days later...
...Philippa called me up and said, "We'd like to offer you the role."
And I was so shocked that I actually got the role...
...I went into complete New Zealand mode...
...which is underplay everything and went, “Okay. That's pretty good. That's great."
She's like, "Yeah, Peter really liked it and we'd like you to play Fili."
And I was like, “That's good. That's just great."
You know? And inside I was like, "Oh, my God."
RIVERS: Once Dean was cast we ended up having seven of the 13 Dwarves being Kiwis.
We were very excited to cross over the threshold of more than half, I must say.
It was a very proud day.
Coming together as an ensemble and as a group, that has been an exciting process.
[SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]
McTAVISH: It's a remarkable testimony to the casting...
...that 13 guys can spend all of that amount of time together...
...and there's been no real problems between us.
You know, none that a good fist fight can't sort out.
- Oh, you're so tough. - All right.
All those misfits all get together and ultimately become quite a tight, cohesive unit here.
Right at the beginning of this journey, Peter, Fran, and Phil set us down.
And talked about creating these characters.
JACKSON: We can have different attitudes and that'll help sort of get a sense...
...of where some of the loyalties are.
We wanted to distinguish the Dwarves from each other.
And one of the first things we started with was the family groups.
So there's me and Kili and Thorin, and there's Bombur, Bifur and Bofur.
There's Nori, Dori and Ori.
TURNER: And then you have Oin and Gloin and Dwalin and Balin.
And every family has their own vibe going on.
The Ori, Doris and Noris might have sold a dodgy used car to Oin and Gloin.
SERKIS: Yeah. MAN: Yeah. That's it.
- That crapped out on the first day. BROPHY: It was fine when we sold it to them.
BROPHY: One of the things Peter, Fran and Philippa have done that's really smart...
...is giving us very clear back stories.
But within that we've had to come up with back stories of our own to fill that out.
We had opportunity to feed into the discussion about our character...
...and also what might be some of the different skills and strengths...
...within that group of Dwarves.
Balin is the guru of the group, Nori is a thief.
Then we have Gloin and Oin, who are the northern family.
There's a whole range of skills in the group that complement each other.
HADLOW: And Thorin is trying to put all these...
...slightly maladjusted Dwarves together as one body.
That's why they're the Dirty Baker's Dozen.
- The Dirty Baker's Dozen. - The Dirty Baker's Dozen.
[GUNFIRE]
NARRATOR: Forced into exile.
KIRCHER: Run for your lives!
Pushed to the limit.
Thirteen armed renegades--
BALIN: And not 13 of the best...
...nor brightest.
--On a desperate mission no one else dared to take on.
[YELLS]
Thirteen reasons not to mess with:
The Dirty Baker's Dozen.
In the face of any normal, rational thought...
...they decide to go and fight a dragon on their own.
Madness.
You know, you have to question whether Thorin is the full shilling...
...when it comes to that.
Hold your ground!
ARMITAGE: Thorin Oakenshield is the son of Thrain...
...son of Thrór, the last King Under the Mountain.
Tolkien talks about this smoldering ember in Thorin's heart...
...so one of the things I talked to Pete about was the idea...
...that there's a flame in him that's guttering. It will go out if he doesn't go on this quest.
And he will die and fade away. He feels that if he doesn't do this now, it will never happen.
Richard is such a smashing guy.
[LAUGHING]
I don't think you'll find many actors who are...
...capable of being more focused than he is.
[YELLS]
Richard's process is that he has to have this time to have it in his head...
...before we start shooting. Quite often, we'd be sitting around telling jokes...
...and Richard would be off on his own preparing.
He would isolate himself because he was isolated as a character.
ARMITAGE: I hid from the EPK camera...
...for the entire shoot because I needed to be alone.
And the time it takes to set up the cameras and the lighting is crucial time for me...
...because you process what you're gonna do and you rethink things.
BOYENS: He's always trying...
...to get more of the flavor of Thorin into the storytelling.
The Thorin of the book. And, ha, he does his homework.
--The Elves looked on and did nothing.
You've gotta be on your toes. He really knows his stuff.
ARMITAGE: I pretty much read...
...everything Tolkien had written about The Hobbit...
...and a lot of stuff that he'd never published...
...because I think that when you want to find something more...
...you look for why a writer shifted an idea.
That gives you a clue to what they needed from that moment.
There was an early draft of The Hobbit whereby names and characters were different.
Smaug was called something else, for example. He was known as Pryftan.
I think at one point, Thorin was called Gandalf.
And of course, Gandalf means “Elf of the Wand." It's kind of weird for Thorin.
So he'd obviously deliberately changed the name...
...because he wanted that name to represent something, as all the names do.
And the translation of Thorin is "Darer."
So Thorin is the one that would dare to reclaim the kingdom.
[YELLS]
Interestingly, his father, Thrain, went on the same quest 100 years ago...
...and hasn't returned. And the translation of Thrain is "Yearner."
So Thrain is the one that yearned for it, but wouldn't achieve it.
But Thorin is the one that would dare to do it.
Richard's devotion to the job is very, very deep and very impressive.
So he takes it all very seriously.
MAN: We're not rolling yet.
But he also has a very kooky sense of humor.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
JACKSON: "Thorin leads Bilbo onto a ledge above the canopy."
ARMITAGE: Is this post-coital or pref?
[ALL LAUGHING]
ARMITAGE: We'll just take a crap and then go.
[GIGGLING]
That was it. I nailed it.
[WOMAN AND ARMITAGE LAUGH]
HAMBLETON: Richard is amazing. It's genius casting.
And I think it's pretty clear when you see him on-screen, he's delivering the goods beautifully.
Do we sit back and let others take what is rightfully ours?
Or do we seize this chance...
...to take back Erebor?
[ALL SHOUTING]
WOMAN: And action.
- Fili. - And Kili.
[IN UNISON] At your service.
ARMITAGE: There's a direct descent from the royal line...
...which is myself, Thorin, to Fili and Kili...
...who are nephews by my sister.
He's my mother's brother. My uncle.
ARMITAGE: In one of the earliest drafts, he was a great uncle...
...and Tolkien decided to bring them a generation closer.
So he was absolutely certain that he wanted that close relationship.
And so they would be in line to the throne.
Fili and Kili have heard a lot of stories of heroic fighters...
...and triumphant leaders and such, and I guess Thorin sort of fits into that mold.
So Thorin is someone that they aspire to be like and somebody they want to impress.
ARMITAGE: Their father died on the battlefield...
...probably fighting next to Thorin.
So he's kind of taking the place of a father figure.
No.
On one level, there's the respect for Thorin because of his status...
...but there's also that fatherly type relationship.
[ALL YELL]
Fili and Kili are the youngest and the fittest and his best fighters.
[GRUNTS]
ARMITAGE: Thorin is passing on...
...all of his skill and all of his knowledge...
...to them, so they're like the new hope.
[ALL GRUNTING]
The funny thing is that, like, everybody gets our names wrong.
Everybody gets Fili and Kili wrong.
- And Kili. - Fili.
WOMAN: Fili. - Fil-- Fili.
Even Peter would go, "Kili-- Fili."
You actually made a note to someone the other day which is, uh...
-...Fili is to have a bow. Was that a mistake? - No, Kili.
Kili.
Fili.
And-- Oh, shit, sorry.
- Kili. - Yeah.
MAN: Who are you?
O'GORMAN: We were doing a scene and had to be mumbling in the back of shot.
And Aidan turned to me and went, "I don't know, Kili."
And I was like, "I'm Fili." He was like, "Oh, yeah."
I was like, "You're Kili." He's like, "Oh, yeah.“
ARMITAGE: Fili is the older of the two.
So Fili really is being groomed by Thorin...
...to be the next in line. The warrior.
I think Fili especially, he feels that weight of responsibility...
...about potentially what he may become.
FILI: Grab my hand!
TURNER: Kili is the cheeky...
...the more audacious kind of guy. He's kind of up for anything.
He's just excited to be there, really.
[KILI AND FILI LAUGHING]
ARMITAGE: Thorin has...
...a slightly more relaxed approach to Kili.
[GROWLING]
He's got a bit of a soft spot for him. He'll let him be his own man...
...and there isn't quite the pressure on the second prince.
TURNER: I'm looking at some Elven girls.
Are you looking at them too?
We think maybe Kili has a little bit of Elvish blood in him somewhere.
Maybe his mother was messing around with an Elf. There's something up.
He looks a bit like an Elf, and he's attracted to them, to everyone else's amazement.
That one there's not bad.
DWALIN: That's not an Elf maid.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Aidan and Dean try to always make smart comments about everyone else.
So they're the young troubles of the group.
Q-- Ow!
Oh.
MAN: Please, boys.
It's rock 'n' roll. That's what we're about.
- Rock 'n' roll Dwarves. - Can't you see?
Aidan Turner, fantastic guy, really good chap.
And you can definitely know why he is the hunk Dwarf.
With his billowing hair and very, very short beard.
TURNER: My hair! Not the hair.
HADLOW: Aidan Turner...
...I mean, he's just a dish, isn't he?
And why does the camera lens like him? I hate him, he's so beautiful.
[PEOPLE CHATTERING]
Makes me feel like I have a fat chin.
It's my one weakness. Oh! I mean, no, it's not. I'm perfectly comfortable with my chin.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Balin...
...at your service.
Balin is brother of Dwalin, elder brother of Dwalin.
And they're cousins of Thorin.
Welcome, Master Baggins...
...to the company of Thorin Oakenshield.
Balin is the consigliere. He's the advisor.
You're sort of telling it as it is. You're the voice of wisdom.
We number only 13.
And not 13 of our best.
He's a man who is somewhat reluctant to be involved on this journey.
You don't...
...have to do this.
You have a choice.
To go and fight for these trinkets, he doesn't know whether it's a noble idea.
Because, I mean, he's had the experience of fighting, of war.
He's been tested in battle.
BOYENS: Balin was really important to us.
He's someone we meet in The Fellowship of the Ring...
...in a very tragic way.
When Gimli says, "Let's go into Moria"...
My cousin Balin would give us a royal welcome.
And then instead of a fine welcome...
Ohm...
No.
...we find his grave.
GANDALF: “Here lies Balin...
...son of Fundin...
...Lord of Moria."
He is dead, then.
And I think, given Ken Stott's portrayal...
...and how much the audience is going to care about Balin...
...that if anyone sits down and watches...
...starting with The Hobbit, going through to Fellowship...
...it'll mean something.
HUNTER: Ken Stott is such an accomplished actor, he just stands out.
He's one of those guys that he'll just line up, rolling, bang.
And he'll just absolutely nail it.
There is one I could follow.
There is one...
...I could call king.
McTAVISH: Dwalin and Balin are very close.
They fought alongside each other in the battle at the gates of Moria.
They've been through a lot. But in the way that somebody...
...who knows somebody very well behaves, they just take the piss.
You're shorter and wider than last we met.
Wider, but not shorter.
And not-- And twice as sharp as you are tall.
God, I imagine what it was like growing up in their house.
[BOTH GRUNTING]
[ALL LAUGHING]
Dwalin, at your service.
McTAVISH: Dwalin is Thorin's lieutenant.
Where's Gandalf?
He's abandoned us.
Dwalin would never question his leader.
We appear to be one Dwarf short.
He is late, is all. He traveled north to a meeting of our kin. He will come.
McTAVISH: it is as if we are brothers.
I imagine that they'd kind of grown up together riding and fighting.
And sort of sparred with each other.
You know, when a prince has a confidant that he talks to about everything.
McTAVISH: We protect each other.
[GROANS]
And my fierce, unbending loyalty to him...
...is something that I really wanted to get across in the movies.
[GRUNTING]
[SHOUTS]
Very early on, I just decided that Dwalin was an absolute kick-ass warrior.
He's a professional soldier and so he has a different approach.
Right!
He's kind of like a Hells Angel in the Dwarf world.
You can just imagine him on a massive, great, big hog.
That style of him being this really rough bruiser...
...was something I was very enthusiastic about.
And I was in the PortaCom, which is where we sort of sit between takes...
...in our enormous chairs.
And they're great, but they were just a little bit dull.
So I mentioned to Richard Taylor:
"If you've got anything lying around in the workshop...
...that I could use just to make my chair scary, that would be great."
The next day, I come in and it has been turned basically into Conan's throne.
It's incredible.
People come to me to rule on minor disputes.
Inevitably ends up with me having them killed.
You immediately adopt this style when you sit in it:
"Kill them all."
Put him to death.
Kill her. Kill him.
None shall live. Ha, ha, ha.
You immediately feel like saying that when you sit in this chair.
That chair really helped me to get into the character.
"Cool, but fair." That's what they call Dwalin.
NESBITT: Dwalin's a real warrior. Very rarely raises a smile.
When he parties, he goes completely mad, like so many Scottish people.
No, no, no. Not for you.
McTAVISH: The thing about Dwalin, he has a lot of responsibilities...
...and a lot on his mind and he needs to let loose sometimes.
And he has a couple of drinks and perhaps gets a bit raucous.
You know, he is very good at making cocktails.
It's the forearms. Lots of that:
- Well, that's shaking cocktails, by the way. - Ha, ha, ha.
Immediately goes to the thing.
And I don't know what you're talking about. What's this?
Oh, for God's sake.
Graham McTavish has got a wicked sense of humor.
What does that say, Dwalin?
-"Mind your own ****ing business." - Wow.
That's been good. That's kept us going.
Because sometimes there is quite a bit of waiting around...
...and we've been joking about all sorts of things.
FREEMAN: And that's the poster.
[ALL LAUGHING]
****ing hell.
It could have happened to anyone.
I just happened to be there.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
HUNTER: It's like being at school sometimes.
We're cracking jokes or making fun of someone else.
Oh, sorry.
We have really got to know each other so well.
It's like working with a child.
Mark Hadlow, he does this whole thing of standing incredibly close to me.
He's touching me with his body.
It looked a lot better when it was, you know, in a decent style. Please.
Not every time.
HADLOW: Graham McTavish makes me feel so secure, standing close to hm.
Watching him, admiring him.
You can literally tell Mark to **** off and he'll think you're joking.
How many different ways can you tell somebody...
...to stop rubbing themselves against your thighs?
He tried to get in the car with me again tonight. Forget it.
- Because he drops me off at-- Come on. - Get off me. Get off.
I'm particularly rude to Mark who is just such a good sport about it all.
One of the great things that Graham told me to do was:
"if I ever come on set, I need my chair warmed."
And as soon he's ready to sit in it, I shall vacate and you'll be able to sit in it.
When I've got this arm off, I'm gonna punch you in the face.
[CACKLING]
I play Gloin and my brother, Oin...
...who is played by the wonderful John Callen.
- We'll show them a thing or two, eh? - Aye, we will that.
We are related to Balin and Dwalin and Thorin. We're cousins.
So we see ourselves as quite high status in terms of proximity to the royal line.
And in the book, they are the firelighters.
Right, then. Let's get a fire started.
No. No fires. Not in this place.
What? How dare you?
Gloin is the father of Gimli, who we've already seen in The Lord of the Rings.
HAMBLETON: People will spot the similarities in terms of the red hair, the big bushy beard.
I just let my beard do the work, really.
And the weapon. The ax. The ax I have is in fact the same ax...
...that has been passed on from father to son.
[GRUNTS]
And of course, it was fantastic the day we had John Rhys-Davies...
...visit us on set and we made that little connection.
- That was lovely. RHYS-DAVIES: Daddy! Daddy!
HAMBLETON: Hello, my boy.
[ALL LAUGHING]
MAN: Smile.
Just like coming home to family.
I'm like the banker of the group.
I sort of look after the finances and I've been involved...
...in putting the funding for the mission together.
You might say he's like middle management in the Dwarf realm.
There's some fairly annoying things about him. He's feisty and aggressive...
...and he's quite an angry guy.
****-
Mostly it all comes from his enormous passion for the mission they're on.
Now, you keep your trousers on, all right?
Oin is very much the medicine man, sage, seer, wise man of the group.
Give us a kiss. Mwah.
CALLEN: Oin is something of an apothecary...
...who might put together potions and lotions and things like that.
My medicine, right. Well, it's a cross between a liniment and a cream.
The idea of Oin being our medic came from, um-- You won't believe this.
--A joke Fran made that he invented ointment.
An "Oin-ment." Aye, I like the sound of that.
HAMBLETON: He has healing powers. He knows a lot about nature.
He's a visionary. He's kind of connected to all sorts of spooky things.
OIN: Ravens have been seen...
...flying back to the mountain, as it was foretold.
CALLEN: He can read signs that foretell events.
HAMBLETON: So Gloin sees it as his responsibility to protect his older brother...
...because he has very valuable skills in terms of the mission that we're on.
- Are you all right there, brother? - I am, but I've gone deaf.
- Pardon? - No, we're moving to number one.
Who's numb?
CALLEN: I'm a little bit hard of hearing...
...so if we are being attacked, I may not be the first to know.
So an elbow in the ribs from my brother is very useful.
There's a lot of affection and respect, but they give each other a hard time.
Because we're quite similar and we irritate each other.
When there's 13 of you, you gotta be different.
Which we all are, aren't we? We're all a bit different.
I'm not.
We are brothers, so we're friends without benefits.
I wouldn't say friends.
HAMBLETON: But in battle, we're always looking to make sure that the other one is okay.
If you go into battle with Dwarves...
...the best fighters on the battlefield will be the oldest of the Dwarves.
They get tougher with age.
Oin is not necessarily the first one to get into a fight...
...but my goodness, he's not gonna walk away from it.
He is an older citizen in the troupe, there's no doubt about it...
...but that doesn't mean that he's gonna sit back...
...while everybody else does the work around him, bringing him cups of tea...
...which he wouldn't want anyway. He'd rather have wine.
Wine? No, thanks.
- I've had eight glasses. MAN: Twelve, more like, but who's counting?
Get out!
John and Peter, they've got...
...the heaviest prosthetic, heaviest costume, and the other guys go:
"We shouldn't complain that much when we see what these guys do."
And it's cold.
Cold? I don't know the meaning of the word "cold."
- John never complains about anything. HAMON: John is 67 years old.
And he goes just as hard as the younger guys...
[GRUNTS]
...and is very inspirational in that fact.
I'm meant to be an inspirational Dwarf. I certainly can't be unattractive.
See, the diva stuffs coming out.
Smile. Smile.
BROWN: I play Ori.
Ori is brother to Nori and Dori, who are played by Jed and Mark.
Ori, Dori, Nori are of the line of Durin, but we haven't been close to each other.
-It's no wonder I left home. - You didn't leave home, you were pushed out.
We concocted an idea that we had three different fathers.
BROWN: The idea of the Dwarves having the same mother but different fathers...
...was a great scope for us to kind of look at different angles of characteristics.
I just have to look after me brothers. I love them.
HADLOW: Dori is extremely family orientated.
He worries constantly about Nori because Nori's the black sheep of the family.
Nori pushes the outside of the envelope. In fact, I'd like to smack the crap out of him.
DORI: Nori, behave yourself.
HADLOW: And he totally mothers Ori.
Come here. You've got a smudge on your face.
Because he's this younger Dwarf in the clan...
...who needs a bit of direction, needs a bit of brotherly sternness.
- Leave him alone. - Be quiet and shut up.
Would you just leave him alone? He's all right.
- He's fine. He's gonna be fine. - He'll be all right, just shut up.
Dori is a fussy old git.
Where's my sword? Where's my sword?
TURNER: Dori, he's Mother Goose, isn't he?
He will be the shop steward of the group. He's the safety officer, if you like. Heh.
[SINGING] Let me call you sweetheart
But you get him in a fight, and you're in trouble.
Oh, look at you, you big bastard.
In the book, Dori is actually the strongest Dwarf.
Come on then. I'm ready for you. Come on.
HADLOW: So I've been working hard at that.
MAN: Oh, God, Mark Hadlow.
Am I allowed to hug you, Gandalf? Ooh.
Ooh, I could go at you, right now.
Give us a...give us a kiss.
[CACKLES]
What--? "Shut up." Right, I know.
Sparkly-
My character is a thief.
Might get a toy out of that.
BROPHY: Peter said he's like a poacher.
He's like he's been out there stealing the king's deer and living on his own wits.
- I came in through the bathroom window. - Then popped out through the front door.
With all the stuff, all the gear.
TURNER: He has one eye on you and one eye on what he wants to rob...
...which I respect in a weird way. He'd rob from his own mother.
I'm actually gonna see how much stuff I can knick off the set.
BROPHY: Every set we were in, I would have a look at something I could put in my pocket.
And Mark Hadlow was always watching and he would come up and say:
"You can't do that. Put that back." Ha, ha.
I think of the journey as a reformation for you, as a renaissance.
BROPHY: Right. - But it's obviously not worked.
Because you're just a ******* thief.
Sadly misguided if he thinks that's what's going on.
A reformation of Nori.
- He's a ******* thief. - I am a thief.
Even without the effing.
I managed to collect about 48, 49 pieces of gold while we were filming.
This here, it's going in my boot.
WOMAN: Do you know what, Jed? Actually...
Have you got that?
You should save that because at Comic-Con that's actually legal tender.
- Is it really? - Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I left home as soon as I could. Probably to find my father.
He's been living rough out in the wild.
Living in old Troll caves, living with the goblins.
Which is amazing that he has this great hairdo.
Can't get my hands together because of the hair.
BROPHY: I think he just does that when he goes to town.
- The ladies like it, don't they? - Yeah.
- The ladies love your hair, don't they? They do. -It's for the ladies. Not that he's ever met one.
[MEN LAUGHING]
The brief for Ori came from my audition that I did for Bilbo...
...and they absolutely loved that.
Boring? Elves aren't boring.
They're the greatest tellers of tales of all of Middle-earth.
And they kind of wrote Ori around my audition...
...which was a really, really good thing.
BOYENS: Ori is all about Adam, and is based completely on Adam...
...and that performance that he gave for Bilbo.
Which was a shy, uh, gentle Bilbo.
Completely unlike anything anybody else did.
I hate to interrupt, but what should I do with my plate?
He's kind of the soft Dwarf.
I think he's gonna be the toy in the toy box that all the girls play with.
[BROWN LAUGHING]
BROWN: Nori is always up to mischief. And part of Ori wants to be a lot like Nori.
Lucky Dori's not here.
BROWN: But he kind of can't because he's got Dori pecking at him.
Oh, God, he's starting already.
I just have to mother him. Just continually like that all my life.
But that's my job.
This is Ori's, um, journal.
Ori is known as the scholar and the transcriber.
He will always be documenting what's happening on the journey.
This is what we find in The Lord of the Rings in the Mines of Moria.
- I actually appear in Lord of the Rings. - Really?
Although I didn't get paid.
In the Mines of Moria, the skeleton is Ori...
...who has kind of told the tale of how they got to that point in his book.
"Drums in the deep.
We cannot get out.
They are coming."
I lost a lot of weight for that role.
I regard Ori as, like, super intelligent...
...but at times, has got no idea what's going on.
Dragon or no dragon, I'm not afraid.
I'll give him a taste of Dwarfish iron right up his jacksie!
DORI: You'll do no such thing.
HADLOW: Ori is like the biggest virgin in the world.
That's his character, Ori: "Uh..."
And I don't know how he loses his virginity.
MAN: Toying with yourself.
Hopefully not to an Ore. I don't wanna get into the specifics of it.
But I feel that we're leading him out of the crises of being a virgin.
My ex.
I like Ori because he's a little boy lost in this big movie, heh.
Like me, aah!
I got closest with Adam because we get made up next to each other.
This is some special unguent for your-- Your thighs or something.
He fuels my need for gossip.
He's got the good stuff.
How's the methamphetamine addiction going?
Graham knows all the gossip on set.
McTAVISH: Brian was very well-dressed, wasn't he?
I mean, he was wearing a tweed coat.
The amount of times I've sat in that chair, and he's going:
"I've got some great gossip for you. Have you heard? You haven't heard?" Terrible.
You corrupted me utterly.
You're making our family look stupid.
I'm just saying.
BROWN: Jed's one of the most kindest men.
He's always smiling.
He's been brilliant to work with.
He's infuriating because...
-...he's good at everything. - He's kind of Superman.
HAMBLETON: He's so fit.
He's so experienced, he's so good-looking.
And he's quite a good stuntman.
And he can also ride a horse really well.
Well, howdy, cowboy. You know the way to Albuquerque?
But Jed has this habit of being in character quite a bit.
If someone can bring me something? I'm not sure what.
MAN: An ax. - Aye.
Once he starts, you can't stop him.
And after a while, that can get quite irritating.
He's always on. He's always in front of the camera, don't even look at him.
Can you not talk to him at all, please?
He's always joking.
Jed, you know. "Hey, what's up, mates? What's going on? Eh, eh?"
Jedly. Jedly.
[SINGING] Hands on Baby, hands on
Give me my hands, baby, baby My hands
Woohoo!
That's not embarrassing at all.
BROPHY: Yeah, it's a song.
[SINGING] Down, down, down in Goblin-town
Going round and round
Adam Brown
Getting down
Jed has a need to talk.
Like, a lot.
I've got very big sweat glands.
So what she's doing is closing up the sweat glands surgically.
WOMAN: Guys, if you're gonna stay here, you're gonna have to be quiet.
So when Jed starts talking, someone will say, “Where's this going, Jed?"
-"Where you going with this?" -"Where's this going?"
MAN: There is the offending boot.
That is actual Dwalin milk.
That's what he calls it? Okay.
- But we know, the other Dwarves, that that is-- BROWN: See, he starts talking...
...and he doesn't know what he's gonna say. BROPHY: No, that's right. I'm a good starter...
-...not bad at middles-- - So when we talk to Jed, we go:
"Jed, where's this going?" We're waiting for a punch line...
-...and it never happens. -It never happens.
He's like the village idiot, really.
And it's wonderful. And he'd just say, "Yeah, sorry about that."
You know, in Jed's way, you know, "Sorry, okay. Yeah."
Adam, come and sit down.
- Sit close so Carol doesn't yell at you. - Come and join us.
So Carol won't yell at you.
BROWN: Mark Hadlow is like my mother.
I'm always getting phone calls and text messages, "Are you okay?"
He's practically seeing if I've eaten my greens.
Try it. Just a mouthful.
I don't like green food.
He did become his character and I would just give him such a hard time.
[HUMMING]
Shut up.
HADLOW: Dori is quite a loner...
...and that was through many of the cast helping me to come to that decision.
People like Graham McTavish...
...um, who was very good at keeping me at arm's length.
- Please go. HADLOW: Jump out, boys. Come, let's go.
They've been extremely mean to me, all of them. They've ganged up on me.
WOMAN: How is the experience so far? - Having met dozens, hundreds of people...
...on this job, I've yet to come across one tosser.
Apart from Mark Hadlow.
[MOUTHS] Yeah.
Um, have you met Mark Hadlow? **** me. No, come on.
We can either tiptoe around it...
[LAUGHS]
...or we can hit it head-on, okay?
That 100 years ago, all I'm saying is he would've been making a different living...
...in show business, and it would have been in a tent as a carny.
I'm joking. I love Mark.
HADLOW: They've ganged up on me, man.
The uniform was a prime example of that.
One of the things that quite early on we discovered...
was Mark Hadlow likes to dress up in costumes...
...sort of military-type things.
And the really weird thing about his sailor outfits...
...is that, uh, below the waist, nothing.
[ALL LAUGHING]
HADLOW: I had my uniform on because I'm a naval officer.
I was plucked from Defence House, defense headquarters...
...to come and do the last EPK.
I look stunning. I actually look-- I should be in centerfold.
And I couldn't change. I had no time to change.
Oh, this was merriment for everybody, wasn't it?
Especially Graham McTavish.
[IMITATING McTAVISH] "Look at him. He likes dressing up in uniform, ra, ra, ra"
[IN NORMAL VOICE] Well, excuse me.
Sometimes he can get a bit sensitive, Mark.
It is a joke.
I'm not gonna say any more about it because I'm still hurting...
...from his, you know, cutting remarks about me.
Yep, just a second. Just give me a second.
McTAVISH: I love Mark. I would adopt him if he was younger.
He's even got a Dwarf BMW with his name on the number plate.
Oh, don't tell me there's a license plate. Really?
I've heard a rumor that his license plate is "Dori."
I think that's a vicious rumor. I think-- It can't be real.
It can't be. It can't be real.
HADLOW: I went to try and get Dori and it had already been taken.
Dori 1 was available. So I thought, "I'm gonna get that."
TURNER: When did this happen?
This is the uncoolest thing that could possibly happen to that man.
I personally don't like personalized number plates.
I just think, “Why would you wanna have one?"
But I quite like the idea of Dori 1.
It's like I'm the head of the family, I just got it.
He has another one with **** on it.
That's definitely not gonna make the out.
[LAUGHING]
MAN: Coming forward. Getting ready for the family portrait.
- All right, stop that. MAN: And portrait.
[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]
NESBITT: Bofur is the brother of Bombur, the very large Dwarf...
...played by the fairly large Stephen Hunter...
...and the cousin of Bifur, the mentally-challenged Dwarf...
...played by the emotionally-challenged William Kircher.
Oh, sorry.
KIRCHER: We're from the west.
We're like the working-class Dwarves. We're the blacksmiths and the ironmongers.
And we're a lot more rough and ready.
We're not from the line of Durin. We're not royalty.
We're the outsiders a little bit.
I don't think they're necessarily as interested in the noble pursuit...
...of reclaiming their lost land.
They'll be interested in getting the treasure, but I think they're much more simple.
[SINGING] There they brew a beer so brown The Man in the Moon
Himself came down One night
To drink his fill
HUNTER: Bofur's always out for an adventure.
He always wants to get out and do stuff. He's a real outgoing sort of a guy.
NESBITT: The other Dwarves can be quite stern, dire.
But Bofur, I think, actually was a bit different from that, you know.
I think we find something with Bofur that I hope they recognized in me.
I don't know. I just think he is much more open...
...much more optimistic and kind of funny.
Well, that could have been worse.
[SCREAMS]
Bofur is a bit of a clown.
Oh, ****. Ha, ha, ha.
He is always the one with a quick-witted comment.
My wife's a redhead. No hair, just a red head.
[CHUCKLING]
- Bofur? Alcoholic. - Saint Patrick's Day, uh-uh, was yesterday.
First day in 29 years Bofur hasn't had a drink.
MAN: It's like 2:00. Typical Irish.
Typical Irish.
I hate to disturb you, Mr. Wizard Gandalf, but, uh, ahem, what time's dinner?
Bombur is a fat Dwarf, basically. Let's, you know, not beat about the bush.
Inside every man, there's a small child. In my case, probably three or four.
When Bombur gets moving, nothing stands in his way.
He has momentum.
[MAN GIGGLING]
And if he comes at you with a soup ladle, you're history.
[GRUNTING]
NESBITT: Bombur just eats all the time, which for an actor is a dream.
You never know where the next job's coming from.
- Never know where the next meal's coming from. - Open.
[ALL CHEERING]
He does a lot of the cooking.
I made some pork stew, but there's no salt.
And he's a real foodie. He's got everything he needs. It's a bit of a passion.
I just love the fact that he's a massive unit...
...and he's just completely comfortable with who he is.
Before Bombur diet, after Bombur diet.
In Dwarf land, there's quite a bit of status being that size.
[MAN LAUGHING]
Bombur's the ladies' man back in our place, even though he's the size of a small Irish town.
[WOLF WHISTLE]
WOMAN: Marvelous, marvelous.
Is it true that you're a Dwarf chick magnet?
Well, I'm... Yes.
He is the man about town. And the rest of us are jealous, the other Dwarves.
I changed my name to Born Chicka Bow.
MAN: How many kids have you got? - Fourteen.
[LAUGHING]
Don't really know where all them are...
...but, you know, that's just the way it works in Dwarﬂand.
[MAN LAUGHING]
HUNTER: There's not a lot of women around...
...so I guess you have to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak.
Bifur is my cousin. He had a bit of a knock to the head.
It was after this that ax-catching was actually taken out of the Dwarf Olympics.
He's slightly deranged.
[CACKLING]
You really do wonder whether he's on the same planet with the rest of us.
[GROANS]
Right from the start when they showed us what our Dwarves looked like, I was thrilled.
Because as an actor, that particular wound...
...gives me a whole raft of things to explore...
...that's different from the other Dwarf characters.
Straightaway, I actually went and looked into it...
...and there are documented accounts of people living...
...with things embedded in their head.
If anybody ever says that that's not real, that could never happen...
...well, here it is, it actually--
I found a whole lot ones with knives, but no one with an ax. Perfect.
[ALL LAUGHING]
There they go.
People with severe head trauma, things can happen to them.
One is foreign accent syndrome, and it's kind of a bit what Bifur has.
- Oh, he's talking Dwarf probably, guys. BIFUR: Uh, uh, uh...
Because Bifur can only speak in Dwarvish.
[SPEAKING IN DWARVISH]
And Bifur is sort of insane, which is quite handy in a fight.
[GRUNTING]
When he fights, he doesn't know how to stop.
You just get:
[GRUNTING]
[SCREAMS]
KIRCHER: His injury was caused by an Orc.
This is not actually in the film, but this is my personal journey...
...as I'm looking for the Orc that did it and I wanna give it back to it.
He once was more of a gentleman.
But unfortunately, nowadays, he's not what he used to be.
He's kind of like a Keith Richards, crossed with a Rasputin...
...crossed with Rip van Winkle and Animal from the Muppets.
Hello.
But then they added a thing onto the character to make him also a toymaker.
So you've got somebody that can be, you know, incredibly violent and berserk...
...but he also has this very, very, very gentle side.
Bill really did a great job at not having lines to say only those things.
That's very difficult for an actor and he did a great job.
Don't try this at home.
- Oh, well, he could be working for a living. MAN: Yeah.
Jimmy Nesbitt stands out because he's always on the case.
I am a classically-trained actor. Classically-trained actor.
I went to drama school for three years to be able to do this.
CALLEN: And he's always got a cheeky glint in his eye...
...and his comedic abilities are fantastic.
There's only one Dwarf. Jimbo.
So, Peter Jackson, I'd just like to thank you...
...for including me and my entire family in your movie.
Bofur: A Short-Arse's Tale.
[IMITATING GUITAR SOLO]
Stephen Hunter, who plays Bombur, my brother, has become--
You know, I never had a brother, and he's become very important to me.
I mean, I feel very close to him.
Having said that, and how much I loved him, it was very hard not to laugh at him.
What could they say? He's a Bombur's ass.
Oh, Stephen.
How nice to meet you.
Eighteen months on, every day, we were still laughing just looking at him.
Just give me a quick glimpse of his arse.
- You can see his ass now, Jimmy? - I'm ready to work now.
- So I'm just the sexual "token" now? -It was always gonna be you.
Oh, I love it. I think I give as good as I take, so, heh, heh...
And, you know, at the end of the day...
...I'm taking up twice as much screen space as all the rest of them, so, heh, heh...
MAN: Are you hungry? - Very hungry.
Like Bombur, he's fond of food himself.
I shouldn't have had that last bit of pork last night.
Mind you, I shouldn't have had the first three bits of pork.
O'GORMAN: Stephen and Bombur became quite closely linked, I think.
I'm not comparing their physicalities, but in terms of their love of food...
...they definitely share that. Stephen loves his food.
Sexy.
I find, personally, eating very important. I love food. Heh, heh.
The weird thing is, when Stephen started, urn, in costume...
-...very slim. - Really slim.
McTAVISH: Quite overly developed musculature.
Almost like Aidan. It was really a toss-up between him and Aidan...
...as who was gonna be the sort of sexy one, and then he just ate everything.
My God, it was just uncontrollable. I mean, it's a disorder.
- The Thinker. MAN". Yes.
Thinking about where the next pie is coming from.
O'GORMAN: I remember one day, they served party pies...
...and Stephen Hunter heard that there was party pies.
And I remember him standing up in his full suit and, like, literally running...
...to get these party pies, and stuffing his face with them.
And because he's got so much prosthetics on his face...
...he can't feel when he has food on his face.
And I just remember this huge gob of mince pie sitting on his chin.
I could talk for hours about pies. Heh, heh.
Crikey, he likes his food.
[BURPS]
Excuse me.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Throughout the shoot, Peter had a pet name for us.
You Dwarves are officially called the Little Bastards.
Ah. The Little Bastards.
- The Little Bastards. - The Little Bastards.
That's what he calls us, isn't it? The Little Bastards.
We're tough little bastards. It's a great description.
And it's such a term of endearment.
Little Bastards.
HUNTER: When we were in Rivendell shooting there, he started to call us his Little Bastards.
- And he just thought it was hilarious. JACKSON: Little Bastards walk in the courtyard.
It's fantastic. I just love it.
And Peter saying it, you know, “The Little Bastards."
The Little Bastards at the Little B table.
I needed a collective description of the Dwarves.
You know, what do you call them? A gaggle? A pride? A--?
You know, they're just little bastards. Bring them on set, stick them over there.
This is a special limited edition that will only be going to Dwarves.
- It's got "Dwarves" on the back. - Oh, yeah.
[ALL CHEERING]
And on the front, it's got...
“I'm a Little Bastard."
[ALL LAUGHING]
- Thank you. Thank you. Lovely. - Very good. Very good.
Wear them with pride.
The irony in all of this is that the most major part of my reluctance...
...to get involved in The Hobbit for many years was the idea of an ensemble of 13 Dwarves.
But that's actually become, strangely enough, one of the joys.
Although, don't tell the Little Bastards that.
But it's become one of the joys of this project.
They're interesting characters, they're fun.
I love all the actors. I love being on set with them.
I'm so sorry.
JACKSON: And we love writing for them.
Always look on the bright side of life.
I mean, it's kind of what we dreaded...
...has become one of the pleasures of this project.
Funny wee thing, aren't you?
The casting of Bilbo was absolutely essential...
...because, you know, if that character didn't work, the film wasn't gonna work.
FREEMAN: He is...
...for want of a much better term, because it's used about my work an awful lot...
...but that everyman character, you know.
JACKSON: Bilbo really is the closest character to the audience.
I mean, never seen monsters before, never been in a battle.
Much like us.
And so we get to experience the movie, really, through Bilbo's eyes.
BOYENS: Bilbo is a hard character to play.
You need an actor with a great range...
...who can play not just comedy...
...but drama, in a very real way.
But you also needed someone who is immediately likable.
I am exceptionally likable.
- I'm a very likable person. WOMAN: Ha-ha-ha.
What?
****king laughing.
BOYENS: We went to a BAFTA party during The Two Towers...
...and I looked across and I saw the young guy from The Office.
Fran and Peter had never seen The Office.
And I remember saying to them:
"I know this is crazy, but if we ever did The Hobbit...
...he'd be a fantastic Bilbo."
JACKSON: Martin Freeman was the only actor that we ever had in mind for Bilbo Baggins.
That goes back to the days that Guillermo was directing the film.
Really, it's fantastic.
We have to use this guy.
JACKSON: He was very enthusiastic about Martin...
...we as the producers were enthusiastic about Martin.
Then Guillermo left and then Peter was the director.
Guillermo said, “This isn't gonna change anything.
You are still our favorite." I said, "That's very nice."
JACKSON: But the problem was that Martin got involved in the Sherlock television series...
...and he was gonna have three months of shooting on Sherlock.
That was gonna fall slam-bang in the middle of our Hobbit shoot.
FREEMAN: And it became clear that I wasn't gonna be able to do The Hobbit.
I remember thinking that's a real shame.
That's a real shame.
JACKSON: We had a real problem...
...because we couldn't imagine anybody else that could do it as well as Martin Freeman.
But nonetheless, we had to find another Bilbo.
We did a huge casting sweep all around the world...
...hoping that somebody as good as Martin was gonna step in that door and surprise us.
And it never happened.
I mean, we saw, you know, wonderful actors. But for Bilbo Baggins, not really.
I was unable to sleep because I was so stressed...
...and now we were about six weeks out from the beginning of the shoot.
And I thought, “I can't just sit here. I'm gonna explode."
So I called Martin's agent personally and I said, “Would Martin be prepared to do The Hobbit...
...if we allowed him to go and do his three months of shooting...
...in the middle of The Hobbit for Sherlock and then come back to us?"
FREEMAN: I was very impressed that they had done that.
That was kind of not at all what I or anyone else was expecting.
So I was really, really thrilled and amazed.
I mean, that's the biggest kind of vote of confidence you could possibly have.
The key thing with Hobbits is that they like their comfort, they like their food.
FREEMAN: Bilbo has got a very, very full pantry.
He's got quite a full wardrobe. He's got his routine and he likes it.
JACKSON: And there's a lot about Martin that is very Bilbo-like.
He's not necessarily a hugely adventurous sort of person...
...and yet he has the values that Hobbits have.
Martin's a real family man and he's...
You know, he's got a serious side and he likes his food.
It's fantastic that Bilbo finds a toasty sandwich shop in the treasure chamber.
Well, it truly is a treasure trove.
And he likes especially-- He's a well-dressed sort of a man.
I think he's very English. There's something very English about him.
There's a sort of stoicism and decency that's innate in him.
How are you, man?
- I'm good. How are you? - Yeah, good.
And he's also slightly eccentric, I think.
[MOCK LAUGHS]
JACKSON: He's probably one of the nearest people to a Hobbit that I've ever actually met.
I don't know whether he'll be happy hearing that or not.
When I started thinking about playing Bilbo, frankly, Ian Holm had already set the bar...
...for what Bilbo was. So I watched him as Bilbo a lot.
Today is my 111th birthday!
Eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among...
...such excellent and admirable Hobbits.
[APPLAUSE]
OLD BILBO: I don't know half of you half as well as I should like...
...and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
You have to respect what the audience already know of the older Bilbo.
What's this?
That is private.
Give me that. It's not ready.
MAN: Not ready for what? - Reading.
But what I don't need to do and what the audience doesn't need to do...
...is be hamstrung by my impressions of Ian Holm.
Because in the intervening decades between my Bilbo and Ian's Bilbo...
...he's changed. When a man is 70, he's the same man...
...but he's also different to when he was, you know, 25...
...which I am, you know. WOMAN: Ha-ha-ha!
Shut up. Stop laughing.
BOYENS: I think we had a strong sense very early on...
...that we had an older Bilbo and a younger Thorin in mind.
My name is Bilbo Baggins.
FREEMAN: When we got here, all I've been told was:
"You're right for it. You just gotta come in and be Bilbo."
Now, that's, from an actor's point of view, not very helpful. Do you know what I mean?
So that's all that anyone said to me.
Until, like, the first week of shooting.
JACKSON:
Pete was giving me the odd direction that was like, "What are you talking about?"
JACKSON: It's the relationship between an actor and a director where you're--
Both of you want the same goal, which is to create the best character for the movie.
And how do you talk about that? I mean, what language do you use?
JACKSON:
Captain Mainwaring? What--? What are you ta--? What?
JACKSON: One of my all-time favorite TV series is a British series called Dad's Army.
And Captain Mainwaring is a character played by Arthur Lowe in that series.
He's a fussy bank manager. Fusspot.
And if I did look for salutes, I did them properly.
That salute you just gave me was rotten.
FREEMAN: And so this kind of confused me.
And so I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the bloody-- Bloody, like--
Rather English sort of professor, but, you know--"
I was like, "What?"
FREEMAN: if this is some clot-head's idea of a joke...
...I can only say it is in very poor taste.
It was the self-importance of Captain Mainwaring...
...that was always so endearing.
And it's an unpleasant trait if it's done badly.
But if it's done really well by a gifted actor...
...it's incredibly endearing...
...how self-important someone can be and how funny they can be...
...but also how affectionate you can feel towards them.
And I thought that would work for Bilbo.
Everything he said was right. But at the time, it was just a shock.
No, absolutely. I think that's absolutely right, yeah.
Everything between a director and an actor is a negotiation as far as:
"When you say that, what do you mean and what do you want me to get from it?"
He's mildly, mildly put out that someone's-- As we said, like...
JACKSON: The thing that Martin had to do was create a character...
...who doesn't really share the traits like, you know, you and I would share.
I mean, he's Bilbo Baggins. And so Bilbo reacts to things in a certain way.
And I had an image of Bilbo in my head...
...and I had an image of Martin playing Bilbo in my head...
...but I can't somehow press a button...
...and have Martin, you know, duplicate that for me perfectly.
I want to play. I can see...
...you are very good at this.
JACKSON: In the very early days, it somehow felt too contemporary.
And I was trying to say to Martin:
"We've gotta somehow make this feel like it's a period movie."
I was thinking about it last night...
...that the things that worked really well in Gollum's cave, and we've got--
Everything's great because we've got so many choices.
The stuff that we think works really best is when it does feel slightly old-fashioned.
And the stuff that doesn't work so well is if it's too modern, you know.
There's a sort of a modern sense...
...and a slightly old-fashioned sense sort of way.
And I think if you can just have a think about that.
BALIN: Am I late?
Late for what?
BALIN: Ahh. Ha-ha!
JACKSON: Most of this Bag End stuff is really a classic British comedy of manners, really...
...of somebody trying to be desperately polite...
...when the slobs are arriving in his house.
Excuse me? Sorry, I hate to interrupt.
But the thing is, I'm not entirely sure you're in the right house.
JACKSON: You know, he's always gonna be incredibly polite.
He isn't really comfortable getting angry.
I mean, my dad was such a gentle soul.
And whenever he got angry, he did it really badly.
Some people can just turn the anger on and it's kind of--
It's convincing and you go, "This guy's scary."
But when Dad did it, it was, like, a little bit laughable.
They've all but destroyed the plumbing. I don't understand why they're in my house!
Excuse me.
JACKSON: And I think there's a sense of like--
Bilbo would always put politeness and desperately attempt to be polite...
...before he's gonna let any anger or frustration come through.
So I think that-- And that's an old-fashioned trait.
So I have to translate what I think that means for this performance of Bilbo, you know.
And like with any other relationship, you sort of come towards each other...
...and meet in the middle sort of thing.
Because you're just sussing out each other's taste, actually, you know.
And where you want to go.
JACKSON: Getting Martin to find that place...
...where he felt right in the context of Middle-earth...
...and the character that Tolkien wrote...
...you know, was something that Martin and I worked on for, you know, a while.
It felt like both of us feeling each other out about where we're actually going.
And in a way kind of making it up as we went along in the best possible sort of way.
What's your weapon of choice?
Well, I do have some skill at conkers, if you must know...
...but I fail to see why that's relevant.
FREEMAN: The thing that's so incredible about Martin is that he's always exploring.
He's trying to figure out where Bilbo's truth is.
What's stopping me from climbing the trees is actually Dwarves being in the way.
JACKSON: Well, that would be-- - Because in the script, it's like--
I'm too small, but Dwarves aren't that much taller than me.
Because my feeling, as well, it's not just the Ring.
I'm in the process of relinquishing my grip over my own house.
I'm just trying to find what it is that makes me say that.
- Well, I think I'm just shocked. JACKSON: Yeah.
It might be helpful for Richard to say “the misty mountains" as he had done before.
And then my "misty mountains" would be an echo.
Shall I walk before I then go back to the mountain?
Or should I clock back and then look there and then walk?
- I'll never ask you anything that specific again. - Ha-ha-ha.
The one thing I don't really know about Bilbo is sexually.
I don't know, like, has he--? I don't know if he's had sex, I don't--
[WOMAN LAUGHS]
Why are you laughing? Sex is a human need.
And a Hobbitian need as well.
This is my Bilbo juice.
MAN: Bilbo juice. -Don't take that the wrong way.
I sometimes worry about Bilbo's sex life. What's he doing?
Lovely. He's exactly where I want him to be.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- This is where we both wanna be. - This is where the fun starts.
Because he's not married, and he's not got a--
He has got a Ring, but not on that finger.
What have I got in my pocket?
JACKSON: Martin is a dream actor for a director...
...because, you know, I might shoot seven, eight, nine takes of Martin...
...for a particular scene or shot, and every single one is completely different.
But they're all great.
GANDALF: I shall inform the others.
Inform the who? What? No. No. No-- Wait.
We don't want any adventures here.
Inform the who? What? No. No. No-- Wait.
We don't want any adventures here.
We don't want any adventures here, thank you.
You might wanna try Over the Hill or Across the Water.
I suggest you try Over the Hill or Across the Water.
Good morning.
Uh...
Good morning.
JACKSON: Sometimes I just sit there scratching my head, thinking:
"God, these four or five takes are just all fantastic, they're all different.
Which one do I use in the movie?"
It's a shame because I wish people could see the other takes...
...because they're equally entertaining and equally truthful.
BILBO: Sorry. Do we know each other?
No.
McTAVISH: Martin is great.
He's one of those guys that is able to be completely professional.
Does that cost a lot of money?
McTAVISH: But when the camera's not on him...
...very, very naught)'-
Everyone's exhausted with this. "Where are the stairs?"
FREEMAN: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. - Go up and do it.
JACKSON: All right, cool. - All right, mate.
No.
No. He does not know what he's talking about.
We have a lot of natural comedians in the cast, but he is, by far, the funniest.
- He's a beauty. See his coat? See the gray bit? FREEMAN: Yeah, it is a beauty.
- But then, the Nazis had very nice costumes. - Ha-ha-ha.
Now, they go on fairly painlessly...
...but when George takes them off, as she peels them back...
...they look very much like vaginae.
[GRUNTING]
I've always thought fun's overrated. I'm not in this job for fun.
I'm in this job to help end apartheid.
He's also quite blunt.
WOMAN: What do you think of Hobbiton?
Shit.
Shititon is what I say.
CALLEN: He can be charming...
...he can be incredibly rude.
And I like that about him.
[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]
I mean, does that look right to you, Mike?
There's a whole portion of the DVD extras that is me--
- Just Bilbo just doing this...all the way through. - That's all I've been doing.
They will make it, won't they?
You know it's gotta be there.
MAN: We'll do a bit of the counting...
McKELLEN: Martin Freeman's got lots of wonderful quirks and talents.
Many of which are on display in the film.
You'll have a tale or two to tell of your own when you come back.
Can you promise that I will come back?
McKELLEN: But his most remarkable quality as an actor...
...is to be able, with absolute clarity, to convey...
...that he's thinking two things at the same time.
That's what I thought.
And you know as an audience what they are.
Sorry, Gandalf, I can't sign this.
You've got the wrong Hobbit.
McKELLEN: And I wasn't the only one on the set to say to himself later:
"I wish I could act like that."
I know you doubt me. I know you always have.
And, yes, you're right, I often think of Bag End.
McKELLEN: Martin Freeman has a palette of subtlety.
See, that's where I belong.
That's home.
And that's why I came back. Because...
...you don't have one. A home.
McKELLEN: And I thought, this is a new sort of acting that I've never seen before.
But I will help you take it back if I can.
The design process for any culture is never random.
We start the whole process by trying to find the central graphic motif...
...the design signature that speaks across a whole race of people.
In the case of the Dwarves...
...it's about thinking of their cultural reference and architecture...
...how they mine the granite below their feet...
...how they're empowered by the riches of the world...
...and their need to hoard those riches...
...and how that brings a signature to the way they may dress...
...the way they may adorn their hair.
All of these things start to build a rounded design...
...that hopefully gels them as a culture...
...and makes them significant in the eyes of the audience.
This is the first time that we'll have the opportunity...
...to actually get to know a Dwarvish race.
And I honestly believe that Peter is going to do for Dwarves...
...what Tolkien did for Elves.
Removing what nursery rhyme and folktale have done, which is to diminish them.
If you talk to the man in the street...
...and said the word "Elf" before Lord of the Rings...
...an Elf would be similar to a fairy, something quite small...
...lives underground, perhaps in the garden.
And after The Lord of the Rings...
...the whole nature of Elves has changed in people's imaginations...
...and they've reacquired a certain grandeur that they lost.
And I think honestly that Peter's going to pull it off...
...with Dwarves.
So the fictional race of Dwarves as told by Tolkien...
...a very unique group of characters in their physiology, their stature...
...they almost see eye to eye with a Hobbit.
But they couldn't be further from a Hobbit.
They have a very short stature.
But at the same time, we wanna reflect that they're little armored tanks, they're very--
You know, not someone to be trifled with.
They're warmongers at some level.
They've been hardened in the mines...
...and therefore they're these wonderful, tough, nuggety, stout characters.
JACKSON: They are people of the earth. A tough race.
But they're also a very insular race.
In other words, they don't mix with people.
They're not a social type of people.
They're one of the most intriguing races because they're so secretive.
Secretive with their language, secretive with where they came from.
They're also an incredibly noble race, and proud race.
They're a powerful, resolute folk...
...who will fight you as intensely as possible on the things that they disagree with you on...
...and be your most loyal companion on the things of which you agree upon.
TAYLOR: Very early on, Jamie did an early Dwarf sculpture...
...that humanized and gave a quality to the level of design...
...that we were pursuing.
It was just a quick maquette. Just, you know, a hooded Dwarf.
I mean, I-- You know, it obviously goes back...
...to a lot of the Scandinavian and Norse, Teutonic kind of myths.
So it's a very European-based concept of what these individuals were seen as.
We know that that's what Tolkien had drawn on.
Developing the characters of the Dwarves came mostly maybe 10 percent from Tolkien...
...because that's really just about all there is for most of them in the book.
It came from, you know, 50 percent, 60 percent...
...of choosing the actors to play the characters.
But then the other 30, 40 percent came from WETA Workshop.
There was, as always, a lot of speculation in the Workshop...
...as to what a Dwarf was going to be.
Now, the only character reference we actually had, I guess...
...from Peter's interpretation was Gimli from Lord of the Rings.
We realized really early on...
...that if you have 13 Dwarves that all look like Gimli on screen...
...it's just, you know--
It's gonna be, one, visually uninteresting, and two, confusing.
Your thoughts wander to...
...some of the Dwarves that are sitting next to Gimli...
...in the Council of Elrond...
...who were basically hairy squares and frowny, big square foreheads.
So they're the Dwarves you've only ever seen.
As a concept designer...
...who has been briefed and watched Fellowship of the Ring and everything...
...that's your starting point.
We took an original cue from some of that stuff in Moria...
...the quite geometric forms and sort of indicative of them as craftsmen.
All the straight edges and angles as reflective of their mastery of their art form.
Whenever Tolkien offers anything, we'll hang so much on it...
...and that's never more the case with Tolkien's development of his alphabets.
The Dwarven alphabet has got an amazing architectural quality of it...
...as if hewn from the rock.
And those elements, those graphic motifs, play a huge part in developing the graphics...
...and everything from the simple embroidered band...
...on the edge of a piece of clothing...
...right through to how the pillars of a mountain may be held up.
There is such wealth in those original ideas.
That one, the angles are pleasing. They kind of follow--
They follow the logic of what's already there and then geo--
The geometric lines.
He's gonna be a terrific soldier.
TAYLOR: Often we start design many, many months before an actor is hired.
But you've got to get going.
So you utilize any means available to you.
We were doing a lot of drawings and stuff...
...and then Alan and John, they took a photograph of each other and then they--
In Photoshop, they changed how they looked and turned themselves into Dwarves.
LEE: John and I took photographs of each other...
...and then just Photoshopped large noses, beards...
...and ears and mustaches.
TOBIN: Peter saw that and loved it.
He saw-- I think he saw how you could take an actor...
...or a designer, in this case...
...and very quickly, and in Photoshop...
...come up with a very realistic exploration of what a Dwarf might look like.
It's not in the contract, but it's almost a byline of working at the Workshop...
...that you are gonna be put into something at some stage in your career there.
So very early on, we were testing the male Dwarven characters...
...on a couple of the Workshop guys.
Of course, it makes for great entertainment...
...when we finally get to the first makeup test...
...and we get to glue a Dwarf prosthetic on to the mold maker.
- Bigtime. MAN: That looks fantastic.
Thanks. I haven't even got the makeup on yet.
In our first test, we had Dwarves with huge ears...
...massive faces, noses that overhung their mouths.
We definitely tried the extreme first.
Really trying to try every trick in the book...
...to make these guys feel really squat and powerful.
Made a huge difference when we actually had the actor...
...who was gonna be cast in each role confirmed to us...
...and we started seeing pictures of them.
Because we're all imagining what these characters might be.
We gave WETA Workshop a photo of that actor...
...and they Photoshopped different designs over the top of those photos...
...and looked at them on the wall...
...and they were the actors' faces, photographs...
...with this wonderful Photoshop artwork.
We went through an extensive, very fast period of design...
...interacting with Peter almost daily.
You might wanna try some--
Not so much big, pointy noses like this but something with a noble line to it.
I mean, that's almost there, actually.
Just maybe a little bit too curved on top.
In the very early stages, you get to do your version of it.
So, you know, you're getting paid to do the character that you read in the books.
And they would come back to us with maybe six or seven different designs for Bombur...
...or six or seven different designs for Balin.
You know, they'd just try different things.
JACKSON: Ori, for the most part, Ori is a total mess.
This guy is a comedy Dwarf, okay.
- You know, this guy is a mommy's boy. MAN: Yeah. Yeah.
So he's got to appear pretty dorky.
So, you know, putting that haircut on this guy here...
...could be quite funny.
In turn, what you're doing is you're funneling from the widest possible spectrum of ideas...
...down and down and down until you get to the thing that's built.
And we got to a point where we chose one look...
...which was then sculpted in clay, full size.
A sculpture can be rotated 360 degrees...
...so a director can look at it straight on, just like the image...
...but then can move around it, can stand above it...
...look underneath it, and understand it as a form.
When you see where his eyeballs are...
...it feels like you could afford to have a little bit more meat in there...
...underneath his hair.
You know, I remember endless meetings at WETA Workshop...
...in trying to get points of difference with the Dwarves.
And we always would explore battle injuries and scars.
And somewhere in the middle of all those conversations...
...I just thought it would be cool to have a broken Orc ax...
...embedded in one of their heads.
And Bifur was the one who got the gold ticket.
TAYLOR: The ax in the head is just pure Peter.
We were rolling our eyes as he's explaining it to us...
...and we're like, "Really, Pete?"
JACKSON: It's ridiculous, but part of that appealed to me.
I mean, I-- You know, to me, there is a--
You know, a childish charm about the Dwarves, particularly in The Hobbit.
I mean, that's kind of where it came from. It was just something that's rather silly.
We like this Dori.
Dori, he's very fussing.
He fusses about a lot.
A very fussy Dwarf. He's all like this and he's a bit finicky.
KING: And so we thought giving him a very fussy hairdo...
...would suit his character quite well.
FRASER-ALLEN: These are two of quite a few different head patterns because they--
Peter liked the beard enough and it's ornate and it's plaited...
...but it's also functional because it's keeping his beard out of the way...
...because they're gonna be going through forests and thorn bushes.
All sorts of stuff like that.
We did a round of designs, Photoshop work, with John Callen...
...giving him the long, skewed up nose and a huge, great big mustache...
...and a long, very droopy beard that then flicked up at the end.
It was all going very, very well.
Meanwhile, Frank Victoria and Lindsey Crummett...
...were doing some amazing stuff for Balin...
...with a very intricate beard that had these curls...
...and a little stinger thing on the back and-- Very woolly.
And then at some point, Peter and Fran and Philippa looked at them, went:
"You know, these are gonna work better if we switched them."
So they literally switched the two designs and that Balin design became Oin.
And at looking at them, it's like, “Yeah, actually. That works really, really well."
Bombur. He is the fattest of them all.
And therefore he needs to be portrayed as that.
One of the ideas that we had-- That I had for Bombur was the idea that--
Because he's fairly food-orientated...
...that his beard and hair could actually be small containers...
...that he secrets away particular tidbits that he'll nibble on later.
So the food influence for Bombur was quite big.
Almost as a bit of a lark...
...I designed Bombur with this beard which was just this big doughnut, this big circle...
...because it's just one more circle that emphasizes his character.
And in the meeting, Peter was like, "Yep, yep. That one there."
WOMAN: Bombur looks amazing.
MAN: Yeah, we think Bombur's great.
By this stage, Peter had seen a lot of designs...
...and he really wanted to see something different for Nori.
Something that's crazy, that hasn't been seen yet.
And so I came up with the kind of-- What's called the starfish now.
And yeah, Pete really liked it.
BESWARICK: They did a very good job of pushing the variation.
And that's, I think, where Peter was quite clever in that respect...
...that he would allow these huge, diverse differences.
And then when you see them as a group, they work.
There was a great moment, I remember, when we were in the meeting room...
...and the actors had arrived in New Zealand a few weeks before we were to start shooting...
...and they had no idea what they were gonna look like.
All right. So I will welcome you all here.
Thank you. It's nice of you to travel all this way, and those that haven't--
It's fantastic. This is the Dwarves and Bilbo.
So we tried to make everyone iconic.
Everyone has a very distinctive look...
...that's still keeping in the essence of what a Dwarf should be.
Nori.
ALL: Ah!
MAN 1: Yes.
[ALL CHEERING AND LAUGHING]
MAN 2: Mark. MAN 3: Amazing.
They all clapped and cheered as each photo came up...
...to see what basically they were gonna be looking like for the next two and a half years.
Ori, being the youngest of the troop.
MAN 1: Whoa.
MAN 2: Lovely.
And after you'd seen one, like you'd seen your one, and you said:
"Well, how can it get better than that? Or how can they equal that?
How can anybody be--?"
And they managed it.
- They really did. BROWN: Yeah.
[ALL CHATTERING AND LAUGHING]
Rusty remains of an Orc ax stuck in his head that can't be pulled out...
...without doing worse damage than what's already been done.
Surviving the ax in his head.
I'm epic.
[ALL LAUGHING AND APPLAUDING]
One of the things we found in the Lord of the Rings days...
...is if you take a regular-sized actor and you reduce them to the height...
...of, you know, one of Tolkien's Dwarves...
...they do just look like a person shrunk.
I mean, they don't actually have the status and the gravity...
...and the nuggety kind of quality...
...that you imagine one of these fantastical Dwarves to have.
What we had to do, and it was a real trick...
...and we spent a long time trying to figure this out, is we bulk them out.
So that when they were reduced, they didn't feel like a little human being.
You have to give the illusion that their limbs are thicker.
Their groin is lower, their knees are lower...
...so therefore their legs are shorter, their feet are larger.
Their hands are larger.
And in turn, the head is larger.
Head-to-body ratio was one of the big things.
A Dwarf has a 5401 head-to-body ratio...
...as in their head will fit inside their body five times.
A human is usually around seven or eight for a fully grown man.
So increasing the size of their head, increasing the size of their hands...
...all came into our initial prototyping.
Peter did something really interesting. Very early on, he said...
...he wanted to be able to pick each Dwarf...
...out of a silhouette in a group.
You could tell who you were looking at just literally by their silhouette.
How do you get an audience to watch a shot...
...where silhouetted actors are walking across the top of a mountain...
...and you go, "There's him and there's him, and I know him and I remember him."
Because without that, it just becomes a mush.
We did several drawings between myself and WETA Workshop.
We literally just drew around the photographs of the actors and got a basic silhouette shape.
I mean, there were about eight or nine rows of 13 Dwarves...
...with just silhouettes.
You know, some with round shoulders, big shoulders.
All guided by what Peter had said about certain characters.
Some had to be more specifically heroic...
...and some had to be extremely rotund and sort of more comedic.
That sort of shape is quite funny for Bifur.
You know, it's quite a comical--
Slightly comical shape because his head looks quite large and he--
But he look-- He's got this little tummy and--
I think that's quite funny, you know, quite humorous.
At that point, we started making the fat suits and getting that silhouette...
...to the point that Peter had chosen.
We had a rough sort of outline, a silhouette...
...that we were trying to achieve for each of the Dwarves. Um...
And basically piece by piece, body part by body part...
...we had to trial-and-error to create those shapes.
So these basically became components.
And so you'd have a thigh component, a calf component...
...a chest, a belly, a shoulder, you know.
It's almost like replicating the anatomy.
How fiendishly clever how they're able to articulate with your body so that no--
There's no part of you that doesn't look as if it's that actual size.
We have many different sizes of fat suits.
- Makes us look wider and therefore shorter. WOMAN: Tell you what, why don't you put...?
So as soon as you make everything bigger...
...just makes you look shorter. MAN: Yeah.
All of them have the same basic principal body suit.
So they all have a chest piece, and they all have thigh and calves.
And they all have their own individual body type.
We had heroic characters, you know, Thorin and Fili and Kili.
So, you know, it's keeping a heroic form but also getting it Dwarven as well.
Thorin's physique is very much based around his experience on the battlefield...
...so he has very wide, broad shoulders and sort of strong arms...
...and a strong butt as well, which is quite useful.
Some of us have fat suits.
I, of course, refer to mine as a muscle suit because...
It's not a fat suit.
Uh, Bombur's is a fat suit.
This is the pièce de résistance.
He has quite a round belly that's about 2 meters in circumference...
...and his moobs.
The moobs as we call them, the man boobs.
They kind of rest on his belly in some way...
...so they sort of have this really organic feel to them.
We did it looking at a lot of fat naked men pictures, to be perfectly blunt...
...in order to get to the point of knowing what he should look like.
When he first put it on and sort of ran around the room...
...everyone was in fits of laughter.
He loved it. And it was like, you know--
He can't see his feet or anything like that.
But it just moved. He'd be like that and it just did its thing...
...and it was just-- It was fantastic.
WOMAN: Well, at least we got the size right, gang.
Yeah, yeah. I think that's very good.
- That's very good. MAN: Sweet.
It's like building anything, a house or whatever, you have to set your foundations.
And our foundations were the body shapes and the silhouettes.
And then from there, we started bringing in details...
...and we can actually start making the costumes.
Costume design is really helping the director tell the story...
...in the way that he wants to tell it.
When you think of The Hobbit, it's kind of very easy...
...to think of almost 13, you know, clones.
Like, even the way Tolkien describes them. I mean, they've got different colored hoods.
Their individuality is because one's got a red hood...
...one's got a green hood, a yellow hood and so on.
And it was important to me that audiences get to know them individually.
I may have various shades...
...and textures in browns, and the next person's got reds...
...and there's someone over here who's greenish and grayish.
Those kind of things...
...help identify who these people are.
MASKREY: Bifur, Bofur and Bombur are the plebs.
Tolkien says they're not part of a royal line.
And so you were having to make sure that they looked scruffier in their appearance.
You sort of drop down quite a few pegs in the world standing...
...or the Dwarven world standing.
Um... And, you know, the fabrics are a lot more textural, the--
I'm using Hessians and really rough silks.
Many layers of gorgeous beautiful details...
...kind of heavy, braided cotton and wool and da-da-da.
And then, finally, I've got a hat. Uh, a very funny hat.
MASKREY: And when we first put it on him...
...it did have this sort of wonky shape that Fran really liked.
It just sticks up by itself and it does this thing.
And, suddenly, you've just got this attitude, this fabulous sort of wackiness.
Of course, it's just another layer on top of your head...
...and we all know that hats keep your head warm.
So he's got, you know, that Dwarven head, the wig...
...and a fur-lined hat.
Poor Jimmy, sorry about that.
BUCK: And then we get into Dori, Nori, Ori.
The mauves and the sort of lilacs and purples.
And they're sort of quite hard colors to work with, really.
WALSH: I would send Adam Brown, Ori, into a kind of lavender.
Because, you know, the sort of softer, more girly purple.
- So I think that might work for him. MAN: Sure.
WALSH: I think he can be less of a bloke.
BUCK: The lilac-y sort of thing...
...did lend itself quite well to Ori in the end.
It all sort of came together...
...and then mixing that in with the gray and with the knitting. He's a mommy's boy.
MASKREY: He looks very cozy and cuddly, you want to mother him.
You've just got-- He's not got to look like a warrior.
I think Ori has the best costume.
It may not be the most macho of costumes...
...but it's very practical when it's cold. Ha-ha-ha.
There's two Dwarves with that blood red color, really.
Gloin's has it and so does Balin.
And the difficulty with Balin was the fact...
...that they very definitely wanted him to have a gray beard.
And so it immediately steers you towards Santa.
But he still had to be red, that was the key color mentioned by Tolkien.
FALCONER: So Balin had that very distinctive, sort of ski ramp, I call it, shape to his beard...
...and it rolled off his nose.
Everything zoomed down and then had a little flick on the end.
And I was really pleased to see...
...the Costume Department also integrated that into his costumes.
That became a signature of his character and he had the same things going on.
The flicks in his toes, of his shoes.
Just a little wee accent in his collars.
The cut of his cloth, all had that same shape.
BUCK: Balin and Dwalin, family members...
...but, you know, they are quite different fellows, you know.
Balin's more the philosopher, sort of educator...
...as opposed to Dwalin, who's a big battleship sort of thing of a Dwarf.
MASKREY: And he has a fur collar which we've shaved into to create a pattern.
So it looks sort of sharper and strong.
Um, he has very distinctive boots, very furry.
He's a bit wolf-like, really.
We've all got different styles of boots.
I've got the ones with the little furry tops, which I'm obviously very partial to.
MAN: You know what that is? - Tahr.
It's a kind of goat.
It's a mountain goat, basically.
And all the Dwarven boots are completely unique.
BUCK: Really well-grounded, solid, chunky boots...
...with straps and things like that for the more warrior types.
And then sort of Bombur's got a bit more of a sort of a shoe...
...which is sort of very round and rotund and sort of girded up.
A bit like he is, sort of all squashed in and sausaged sort of thing.
And it's just taking ideas...
...and making them sort of a metaphor for what that character is.
You've got to make somebody look short and squat when they're 6-foot tall.
And they've got to have a heavy, solid-looking Dwarven boot.
So you have to exaggerate their foot size.
Otherwise, they'll look like they've got dainty little feet.
Well, the boots are brilliantly constructed. Um--
They-- We're wearing a boot that fits us...
...as a human actor for support and everything...
...which is then built around to make the actual boots.
So that's your inner boot and that is the boot which is actually fitted to the actor...
...and that gets screwed--
Put the sole over there.
With packing around the toe, around the heel...
...so it actually feels like a natural pair of boots.
For me, the footwear is the foundation of any character.
It makes an actor stand differently, that makes them walk differently.
It helps them get into the character.
ARMITAGE: I actually can't play the character without the boots now...
...because sometimes they'll just do, like an upper body shot...
...and they'll say, “You can take the boots off."
I can't do it.
I can't play the character in ﬂip-flops. It just doesn't work.
TAYLOR: The tips of noses are very challenging...
...because if they look too droopy, they change the character...
...of the person dramatically. MAN: Yeah.
Probably, the largest single daily challenge is that of prosthetics.
It's immense, you know, because on any given day...
...not only do you have the main cast, you have their stunt double...
...which is also put in the full makeup.
This requires in our company to do an unprecedented...
...manufacturing of prosthetics every day.
Hi, I'm Kim Docherty and you're at WETA Workshop.
You're off in the encapsulated silicone prosthetics room...
...where we've been making all the hero Dwarves.
We have been making around 30 to 40 prosthetics a day.
ARMITAGE: For daily Dwarfing, it starts with the head piece...
...which is like a cowl on the back of the head to widen the ears...
...which was like having two cups over your ears so you can't really hear.
It's like having headphones on.
Some of the ears come way out to here.
BROPHY: Yeah. LANE: It's really like living in a fishbowl for them.
[BOTH MUMBLING INDISTINCTLY]
So I probably don't need one of those little trumpet things...
-...that Richard's got there. - Yeah, Richard's got. Yeah.
I found some baby comforters that are made of silicone...
...so I chopped the ends off and stuck that inside the ear...
...and glued it to my own ears so it creates like a little ear trumpet.
Yes, Richard-- Richard, it's a baby nipple that he's cut up...
...and he puts in his ears so he can hear better.
Um, so before the wig goes on, I look ridiculous.
Everyone looked so weird.
[BUZZING]
[WOMAN CHUCKLING]
- Hello, man baby. - What?
- Put yourself in the fetus position. - Just stop it.
WOMAN: He spends half this job in the fetal position.
Spread your feet up in fetal-- Look.
Fetal man baby. Ha-ha-ha.
This is the kind of abuse that I get.
[BLOWS RASPBERRY AND MAKES SQUISHING NOISES]
Just like a big piece of steak.
WOMAN: it won't kill you.
Peter was very vocal about the fact that he didn't want to have prosthetics...
...glued on to the actors' lower faces.
LANE: He didn't want anything under the eyes...
...to create any type of irritation or puffiness or anything.
Because I know they had huge problems with Gimli...
...back in the days of doing Lord of the Rings.
And John Rhys-Davies, I know, was really uncomfortable.
And they've come a long way now with prosthetics.
It was only Bombur who ultimately ended up with a full lower facial prosthetic.
Stephen's head's so large we have to have two makeup artists.
Yeah.
Bombur's the monster, and he has, uh--
What goes on is he has a foam cowl with ears.
This is part one of five.
MAN: Part one of five pieces. There goes another one.
Bombur's chin. Oh, neck really.
That goes underneath all his other prosthetics just to fill him out a bit.
Piece number two.
O'GORMAN: He's got such a huge double chin, on the first day...
...I saw him he actually kept his BlackBerry tucked into his chin.
And he was talking to me, he went, "Sorry, I got to--"
He reached in and he pulled out his cell phone.
Make sure I got my phone on me all the time.
MAN 1: You're the one without any pants on. MAN 2: God.
- Well, I don't know. It's hard to tell. - I was in the change tent.
His facial piece goes all the way, like a Gimli style.
I call it a Batman piece. It just goes around the nose to the cheeks.
Piece number three.
LANE: And then he has another chin bit...
...that goes on over top of the foam, that's silicone...
...and then he has a top of head.
He has that kind of Friar Tuck haircut.
There's piece four and five going on.
The only part that's me that you can see is just--
Just below my eyes and my lips, and the rest is stuck-on Bombur.
Ta-da!
Ginger-head man.
Not you, mate.
We only use a prosthetic once.
It's all about the edge.
Once you blend in the edge into the skin, virtually, you can't use it again.
So each piece is one use only...
...then it goes in the bin.
One of my assistants started counting up all the pieces that we've used...
...according to call sheets.
She didn't complete the count yet, but she was up to 4200 pieces.
And that's not including Hobbits or other characters.
It was just for the Dwarves.
- Eyes feel good today. WOMAN: That's good.
We were coming up with the tattoo idea.
What they were...
...and one of the thoughts was that...
...it's a sort of pictorial history of what's happened to the Dwarf race over...
A memorial almost...
...to our suffering.
ALLEN: He's my favorite part of this job...
...is coming to work and being able to put this on him...
...and hear his stories and laugh with him.
- And put up with the abuse. - Mm.
Abuse.
BROPHY: How many freckles do you have?
Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10,1112,13,14.
- Fourteen. - Fourteen.
I think you should start adding one a day till the end.
As well as all the makeup on the face, we've got these hands...
...that we put on like a rubber glove, really...
...but made out of thick, thick rubber.
And they mold with our joints and our fingers.
They make our hands look incredibly real in proportion to the rest of the Dwarf body.
It's a brand-new hand, especially for you.
I mean, Bombur's hands are, you know, really, really, sausage fingers.
We need someone to put hands on.
WOMAN: Should I put his hands on?
First day they put it on, I found myself just staring at them.
Because they look so lifelike, but they're bigger.
- Oh, there we go. That's it. WOMAN: Yes.
And they allow us to do whatever we need to do...
...in terms of fine work, in terms of fingers and holding things...
...holding weapons and fighting. Um--
But they're also quite hard work.
You know, the tiredness, the heat.
[WHIMPERING]
This is the worst part.
If I can delay putting these hands on, I will.
WOMAN: Come on, you can do it.
My face and my beard is really not a problem.
But when your hands, you can't feel the air on your hands, it's, um--
That's the thing where I, “Take them off. Take my hands off."
Blowing on them and then put them back on. That's the thing...
...that is the least enjoyable of it.
Torture.
If there was a way of seeing more of Dwalin's arms.
Graham, we sort of bring your skin up--
We hide the elbows so we haven't got the issue with the creases.
That from there onwards, where we give you nice, bulgy Dwarfula biceps...
...with tattoos and scars and--
Because it just feels like you're too covered and too sort of protected.
Everybody else has prosthetic hands. Um--
And I have to pull on this really enormous gloves, I guess...
...that go to just above the elbow.
WOMAN: One, two, three...
LANE: So on top of everything else...
...I think each arm weighs 8 pounds or 7. Seven to 8 pounds.
Those forearms are huge.
- How does that feel? You okay? - Yup. Cool.
McTAVISH: The forearms...
...they're pretty good.
I love my forearms.
I know this is coming for a little bit of stick...
...from Mark Hadlow, who's just a bitter, small man...
...with a limited imagination.
For a Scotsman who's got big muscles...
...he's got the worst, you know, from here down.
They're like little string beans.
It's amazing, his real arms. They're terrible.
I mean, it's like he's got witch's little arms.
[IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE] "Oh, look at me, got little arms."
[IN NORMAL VOICE] He puts these big arms just to make himself look tough, which are tattooed.
[IN DEEP VOICE] “Look, I've got tattoos.
I'm Graham McTavish and I've got tattoos."
[IN NORMAL VOICE] Take that off, he's got nothing. He's a weed.
Yeah. But it does make him look a lot cooler. He does have pretty decent forearms with them.
I don't really need them, girls tell me...
...the forearms are one of my strengths I do have.
We're talking about a diameter of at least 7 or 8 inches there...
...which is a lot more than anyone else would have.
A lot more than Mark Hadlow, for instance.
He wouldn't have forearms like this. Are you kidding me?
WALSH: Yeah-- I think his fingers may be a little too fat, you know?
- Is it just me? WOMAN: Yeah. No.
JACKSON: ls there--? Have you got a smaller set of hands?
No, but we could sculpt some small ones if they're a problem.
WALSH: I feel because he's younger...
...that you could probably get away with slightly finer fingers.
Very early on, Pete said to us:
"I want to be more bold. I want the Dwarves...
...to look like a race of Dwarves from Middle-earth...
...as Tolkien would have imagined them."
So when we first presented the Dwarves, in the case of some of them...
...Fran and Phil were concerned that maybe we'd gone too far.
We'd lost these amazing characters that have been hired to play the Dwarves.
You know, a lot of these actors have been cast because of who they are, you know.
James Nesbitt had been cast because he's a particular kind of actor...
...and he's got his Irish humor, and so on and so forth.
So the first show-and-tell we did with him, we didn't recognize him at all.
We had lost James completely.
So much of what's critical of Jimmy's face...
...is this beautiful sparkle that he has in his eyes...
...and this cheeky grin that makes him who he is.
KING: So we did about four different prosthetics on him in the end...
...to get the proportion right.
So he still has a little bit but only a little bit.
Oh, my God.
[ALL CHUCKLING]
WOMAN: Oh, darling.
I did a few show-and-tells when I came out in all my costume and makeup...
...and, instantly, Fran and Philippa and Pete were like, "Yes! But the nose is too big."
BOYENS: Yes, the nose is too large. WALSH: The nose is too large.
JACKSON: Yeah.
BROWN: And that happened, actually, three times.
My nose was too big three times.
It went from being like this to kind of the size of my nose...
...which is still fairly big.
The big design challenge for us was giving the sternness, the weight...
...and the thickness in the forehead...
...without causing it to overshadow the eyes.
TURNER: Kili started off with quite a lot of prosthetics. There was a lot of latex going on...
...and different dimensions and much bigger nose...
...and a bigger forehead and different shaping on the eyebrows.
What became apparent, I guess, to Fran and Phil...
...is that Aidan's face had to all but a hundred percent...
...speak through the makeup.
For his handsome demeanor and twinkle that is in Aidan's eye...
...and then the way he presents this character...
...we had little ability to encumber that with prosthetics.
And ultimately, Aidan is wearing a cowl...
...that slightly increases his head size with the extension ears out on them...
...and then just a tiny little prosthetic on the tip of his nose.
Have you seen this?
WOMAN: Yeah.
Aidan Turner, Adam Brown.
If you were to draw the long straw, he drew it. Ha-ha-ha.
He has changed quite a lot, but I think a lot of people have.
I mean, Thorin has too.
On this character, you do need to be able to read...
...a huge amount of information from his face.
I think up to now, Thorin's had five faces.
KING: We started off, he had quite a heavy forehead...
...and he had a much larger nose than he has now.
WOMAN 1: All right, I think the foreheads a little bit too big.
WOMAN 2: Bring it down, yeah.
It wasn't sexy. That was the issue.
We were still testing while we were shooting...
...so we've had to go back...
...and reshoot certain close-ups.
We also decided that too long a beard on Richard was too distracting.
Tolkien described Thorin having a forked beard that he tucked into his belt.
We have had to depart from that.
I know this is controversial because the king of the Longbeards...
...people feel he should have a long beard.
But there was something I found to sort of ease my conscience a bit.
It's in The Hobbit that when the Dwarves emerge from Erebor...
...they had singed beards, so the reason Thorin wears his beard short...
...is in reverence to those Dwarves that have died in the mountain, you know.
When he becomes king, he'll grow that beard back.
- The beards, they're all real. - Yeah.
- All of them were real. - Yeah. They--
No, they're yak hair. Most of them are yak hair.
You like totally gave it away there.
- Oh, sorry. - God.
A lot of things were done to make these people, who-- In all size...
...to make them look like they're short, 4-foot, 4-foot-6 people.
We used yak hair, which is coarse and thick...
...and we can very easily get a lot of volume to help us with the proportion.
This lot is about a kilo of hair.
So we've used a hundred lots of this to make wigs and beards.
- You find you have a little itch going on here? - Yeah, every day.
- The netting comes away a little bit. My gosh. - Yep. Yeah.
HADLOW: Jamie Leigh puts up with the shit that I give her from the perspective--
"Do I need the facial yet?
Please, leave the mo off just until we're ready to go."
Because I hate facial hair on me.
I just-- I'm just like:
[SQUEALING]
- Thank you so much. - We'll do this after.
Yeah, okay.
Can we leave it off for five minutes?
Then she'll come up to me and be hovering, “Can we leave it off for another five minutes?"
Drive you both crazy, but you're saying:
"Can we leave the facial hair off for another five minutes?"
The makeup, I haven't found a problem at all.
I like the makeup.
Sticking on facial hair, though...
It's never good.
I did grow an enormous beard before I came here that I was very proud of.
But then they told me I had to shave it off.
I was really, really pissed off.
Really pissed off.
And now of course, Richard Armitage...
...Aidan Turner...
...Dean O'Gorman, they've all got their own beards.
We had a 10-week break and I thought...
...well, here's a good opportunity to grow something real.
There's so much of the head and the face that's, uh--
Doesn't belong to me, I thought it'd be good to mix it up.
I had a few months off before the shoot, I went, "I bet I can grow a wicked beard." And I could.
And when I got over here, and Peter looks at me and went:
"No. We're gonna shave that. We want you with some stubble."
They had a stick-on one of these.
You know, and sometimes they're a bit troublesome because they can--
With the heat and stuff, they can peel off, so I grew my own, you know.
Not realizing quite how ridiculous outside of costume I would look.
In the costume it's great. I have a mustache that goes over it...
...and this here is fantastic.
And it saves me some time in the morning as well, but in real life:
[IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE] "Oh, look at our beards."
[IN NORMAL VOICE] Then I've got to stick one on.
Anyway, it's fine.
[GRUNTING]
Another opportunity to define each character...
...is define them by the weapon they carry and how they carry it.
I mean, the axes of the Dwarves are just kind of a cliche-..
...that that is their signature weapon, and indeed it is.
But if you read The Lord of the Rings, Gimli has axes.
You go back and read The Hobbit, they talk about swords.
So there was the opportunity there...
...to design what does a Dwarven sword look like.
You couldn't just have all the characters carrying exactly the same weapon.
So with the weapons, it kind of goes hand in hand...
...with designing the silhouettes and their different appearances.
We wanted to make singular statements about each of those characters.
FALCONER: Some have axes, some have hammers, some have boar spears...
...some have slingshots, as it turns out.
Some have bows, some have swords, all different shapes.
So the idea then became, "Let's develop something...
...very distinctive for each individual Dwarf."
The weapons particularly, we had a huge involvement...
...in how they would come out.
If any of you have been thinking about ideas for potential weapons that you want to use...
...through the movie...
...now would be a good time to have an initial check.
We were asked to come up with ideas, not just axes and swords...
...but what other weapons we thought that our characters might come up with.
And those weapon choices were informed by our back-story of where we'd come from.
They kind of threw their ideas out to us to say, you know, like, "Well, maybe--
You know, my character could have this sort of weapon."
At that point, it was sort of a two-way street of throwing ideas around, so it was quite neat.
Balin wanted a weapon that was a cross between an ax and a sword.
What you are talking about in terms of like kind of a combination weapon...
...is a weapon that kind of looks more like that:
Yup. Yeah, yeah.
And so out came this rather weird-looking effect with a bit--
With tenderizing bits on it.
VICTORIA: You have no idea where it comes from.
It's a weird weapon that is really not of our world...
...and that really belongs into this world, but it's still plausible as a weapon.
I have to be honest, I think it's one of the most standout bits of design in the whole film...
...in terms of just a totally unique piece of weaponry.
So there's a lot of strange, weird and wonderful ways to kill people. Ha, ha.
McTAVISH: I just thought that Dwalin would have names for his axes.
Because he's that kind of guy, you know. Uh...
And I remember that Emily Bronte had two dogs...
...called Grasper and Keeper. And I always remembered it.
I just thought, what an extraordinary pair of names.
Not Fluffy and Fifi.
Just-- These are dogs that are gonna do stuff to you. Um--
And I mentioned, as you do in passing, to Peter...
...that Grasper and Keeper would be good names for my axes.
Just for me. Just as a character thing for me.
And Peter was like, "Yeah. That's great.
Yeah, we can have them inscribed on the blades of your axes."
Heh, heh. Okay.
And practically the next day, there they were.
Grasper, Keeper.
That's one of the great things about this job is the--
Well, A, the attention to detail...
...and the speed with which they're able to accomplish something.
This one grasps your soul...
...this one keeps it.
Nothing's just thrown together.
It's just over and over and over again the amount of show-and-tells you have.
Showing your costume and makeup and weaponry...
...and seeing what works and what doesn't.
JACKSON: If Graham is gonna end up wearing large hands...
...rather than put Graham into...
...fingerless gloves like that, which will hide a lot of the skin...
...why don't we think about turning it into weaponry?
- Like he's got knuckle-dusters. MAN 1: Knuckle-dusters.
- Knuckle-dusters woven into his knuckles. WOMAN: Right.
Why don't we design something that's not a leather...
...fingerless glove like that?
That it's more like a chain metal thing...
...and it could have knuckle-duster type points on it...
...so it almost becomes a weapon component. McTAVISH: Nice.
But it does a little-- It could be bits of nail, it could be seeing skin in between, you know?
-It's like strings of mail-- MAN 2: Yep.
- Could it come back to a wrist strap? - Yeah, yeah.
- Because that would be fantastic. - Probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That would be great to be able to, you know--
Yeah, I don't need my ax because I've got this:
MAN 3: You have a good weapon... - Bang.
And before you know it, we actually have these whole leather strappings...
...that go right down his forearms...
...and on to his hands that carry these heavy steel blades.
Asymmetrical, both are different.
Richard, being the genius that he is...
...just came up with these knuckle-dusters that I wear.
That are amazing.
I can't wait to use them...
...do some serious Orc damage with a pair of knuckle-dusters.
Insult, Injury.
That's how I view my hands, as one is called Insult, one is called Injury.
I think everybody's got amazing weapons.
I mean, even Ori, who essentially has a slingshot.
[CHUCKLES]
But it's really deadly.
I was fortunate enough to start drawing some of those ideas up.
And then I said to Richard, “Well, I've got a slingshot at home."
It actually was my father's. He made it when he was a boy.
Um, carved it himself. And I said, "Should we just show it to Peter?"
And so we popped it in a bag, sent it down to Peter...
...and it came back with a Post-it note on it.
"Fantastic. This is great. Just make it Dwarven size."
BROWN: It might look nothing in comparison to the big swords of Fili and Kili, but, um--
No, it's deadly.
I designed quite a few of the weapons for Fili.
Twin swords and twin daggers stashed down his sleeves...
...and twin throwing axes.
The throwing axes for Fili...
...we played with a lot of different arrangements as to how they'd work.
We had them strung in a series, like a bandolier across his chest.
Uh, and they ultimately ended up being in his boots.
He's like a hedgehog.
He's just like bristling with all these armaments.
He's got his weapons at the ready, so to speak.
There's always a single prop that causes some trepidation...
...and everyone wants to have a go at it.
And ultimately probably everyone did have a go...
...and of course, that's Orcrist...
...the quintessential defining weapon of The Hobbit.
There were certainly some quite strong thoughts right from the start...
...as to what we could pursue with this.
It's the mate of Glamdring. And that basically is as much as we knew about it.
So the first thing that myself and Paul did was start drawing swords...
...that looked a lot like Glamdring.
We also looked at trying to include some of the shapes that were in Sting...
...because that's also a sword that's came from the same vintage as Glamdring and Orcrist.
My feeling was that it could have the same profile as the edge of Glamdring...
...but then a straight edge on the other side.
Which would also give it quite an unusual-shaped blade.
And potentially a strong and broad blade which would look good in the hands of a Dwarf.
That was exactly the route I took.
I love Sting, I love Daniel's design...
...and I based most of my designs off that wider blade.
JACKSON: I like the blade. It's a good shape. TAYLOR: Lovely.
It's an unusual shape and it's just got the right balance to it.
Peter was really adamant that he was wanting to see something different.
Like a lot of our designs were falling into the category of:
"I've seen it with Glamdring, I've seen it with Sting."
JACKSON: Well, it's quite interesting.
- And we're saying it's Elven-made. TAYLOR: Yeah.
JACKSON: Why don't we do something different with the handle...
...so it doesn't look like a wound-up Sting?
So that's when I kind of went down a kind of slightly crazy road again...
...and, you know, Biter is the sword.
And so I thought, "Well, what about a tooth for the hilt?"
So I offered that up, and Peter went for it.
I wouldn't like to say that it's a dragon's tooth...
...because, you know, when we were researching the lore...
...certainly there's no indication that that's the case.
But given that there's a dragon in the film...
...again, there's a nice theme running through there, so maybe it is.
So Orcrist, of course is the Goblin-cleaver, and it says that on the sword.
But then also on the blade it says "the serpent's tooth."
Which is really cool because that's in reference to the fact...
...that it has a dragon's tooth on the handle.
And then on the scabbard, it says:
"Born from the maws of dragons" and "I am always hungry and thirsty."
How cool is that? That's awesome.
And then, of course, that design has to be made...
...and that falls firmly on the shoulders of Peter Lyon, our swordsmith.
I tend to do the finishing on all the heroes' swords.
Because basically I've been doing it for 25 years...
...so I've gotten very good at knowing just by feel what's going on with the grinders.
That blade was an unbelievably challenging thing to make.
Because you're hand grinding, by eye, a blade...
...that has to have immensely accurate tolerances...
...so that as the light glances off it, it has no wave pattern through it.
It has to look absolutely pure in its linear form...
...while still capturing the subtlety of the design.
ARMITAGE: That's terrific. - This will have an aluminum armature in it.
- And that will be in polyfoam. - And it will be lightweight.
Very, yeah.
ARMITAGE: There was an idea that I came with at the very, very beginning...
...which I didn't think would go anywhere...
...but it was something that Peter quite liked the idea of...
...which was that at the battle of Moria Gate where this branch of the tree saved his life.
I thought that maybe he'd kept the branch.
Richard did a little illustration, conceptualized the idea...
...that if this branch had had such a significance in his survival...
...surely he, therefore, would give it mythology, would heirloom it...
...would hew it into a usable weapon, a usable form of defense.
ARMITAGE: He's kind of created a gauntlet from it...
...which goes from the fist to the arm and it's got two metal hooks on the back and--
It's a kind of multipurpose weapon so it can punch and it can be a shield.
So that's something that's evolved.
Got rid of the knobbly fescue.
- It had those splits that look like fingers. JACKSON: Yeah. Yeah.
- Popped that in and that in. Put the curve in. JACKSON: Yep. Yep.
Well, I think it's good.
I mean, it looks more like a tree trunk.
It's almost like the personification of a Dwarf that rather than getting old with age...
...they kind of harden with age...
...and they become more fierce warriors with age.
I think you can do what you want. I've obviously killed him, so he's dead already.
MAN 1: No, he's not. TURNER: He's dead. He's dead.
- I got him right between the eyes. MAN 2: I know.
I remember.
We've got a ridiculous array of weapons. After a while, they can get very heavy.
Very heavy with the fighting. They can get very heavy.
Props, weapons, costumes, bags.
Dean O has a spade. If anyone--?
- If anybody needs a spade, I've got it. - He's got a spade.
CALLEN: Put all those things together...
...and you're looking at 25, 28 kgs in my case.
If I've got absolutely everything going.
And that's quite a lot of weight to be carrying around for any length of time.
This is the patented Oin cooling system.
With your hands shoved down these tubes...
...you'll never ever become overheated...
...either in the delivery of your performance or the rubbish you speak to the camera.
We're the most useless race.
We cannot do anything.
When the camera's off. I mean, the state of us.
I mean, we're all just half baked and dead by the side of the set and would--
You know, fans in everyone's faces and--
You know, makeup artists coming over, "Okay. My back, my back.
Just keep the cooling stuff on."
And Peter raring to get going again with another take. It's hilarious.
McTAVISH: Sweat literally pools in my arms.
And what happens is that the combination of the talcum powder and the sweat produces...
...this really disgusting milky consistency...
...that starts to just leak from your fingers.
Dwalin milk.
Fresh Dwalin milk.
There we go. Ready for the milk.
MAN: Just me-- Oh, your own--
WOMAN: Thanks. That's really--
McTAVISH: They don't like taking them off.
Because the poor person that has to take my arms off...
...they have to get ahold of the top and they yank it.
And in the yanking, well, the milk just goes everywhere-.
Mainly on the face of the poor makeup girl who's taking my arms off.
Do I deliver or what?
There you go. Enjoy.
WOMAN: You got a towel?
I don't normally spray it quite that much.
You do get extremely hot.
So we have this cooling suit that racing car drivers wear.
The cool vest has a hose, the hose plugs into a cool pack...
...which is then filled with ice and cold water.
So within about 10 seconds of plugging in...
...this little puppy will start pumping water all around their body...
...underneath all of their layers of fat suit and costume.
So as soon as we finish a take, when they call "cut"...
...we plug in to the little chilly bin that's got the iced water in it.
And then we're like astronauts carrying around our little pumps...
...that is pumping cold water around our bodies.
People would shout, “Could you plug me in?" Ha, ha.
And it's pumped through and it is wonderful.
BROPHY: Oh, yeah. WOMAN: Can you feel that already?
MAN: Do you feel that? -It feels like I am pissing myself.
[ALL LAUGH]
It's great.
TURNER: I think in the second day, we all kind of-- We're all complaining about something.
About how hot it was and we thought--
We just need a big place for us to hang out. A big tent.
We'd just stick in loads of air conditioning.
Put in loads of it and pump it in. We can wait in there. It was done the next day.
- Here we are in the quarantine tent. - Yeah.
NESBITT: At the end of the night, you're looked after by an incredible crew.
They've had 18 months of sweaty, grumpy Dwarves...
...coming into them at the end of the night, and they have to take off all their layers.
I stink.
JACKSON". When we went 'mm The Hobbit...
...we had this notion...
...that this was gonna be a somewhat smaller, easier film to make than The Lord of the Rings.
And we came to realize very quickly that that is just absolutely not the case.
Each Dwarf has to travel with a crew of five dedicated people.
When you think about the number of people there are...
...who have to dress us, who have to find all our props...
...and then we all have stunt doubles, a scale double...
...suddenly the number of people in the cast has trebled.
TAYLOR: There's sometimes a picture double...
...there's sometimes a stunt double for the scale double.
Uh, and it makes for an amazing array of different performers...
...required to deliver a single role.
- Hi. - Ha, ha. Hi.
One day, we made up all the Dwarves and all their scale doubles.
That was the day that we realized what we were doing.
That was when you realize it was going to be absolutely mammoth.
And it was gonna be much larger than Lord of the Rings ever was.
Yeah, it was quite surreal.
Really quite surreal.
Especially with the-- When the scales walked in.
It was just like, “My God. Ha, ha. Have we really done this?
Look what we created."
- Are we all done? ALL: Yes.
- What? MAN 1: Yep.
MAN 2: Are there any women here?
WOMAN: No! I'm not a woman! ALL: No.
[CREW LAUGHING]
When we all put our gear on and we all stood together...
...to look at the guys that were going on the quest...
...yeah, I got a real tingle up my spine.
That was actually quite genuinely moving.
Seeing all of you together and looking into each other's eyes.
All of these characters give you your own character as well.
So when I met Balin and when I met Dwalin, it was a--
it really feels like you're stepping into Middle-earth...
...and I don't feel like myself at all.
It was just an amazing experience to see them realized in their true form...
...watching the actors express through the makeup that you sculpted...
...is just so rewarding.
It's just a wonderful experience.
And all of it, you know, very worthwhile process to get it exactly right.
So that they're-- I guess their overall presence there...
...their personality, their prosthetics, their hair.
Everything is sympathetic towards the character that they're playing.
And all the Tolkien fans, they can rest assured that there's a team here...
...that have their heart and soul into creating something very, very special.
JACKSON: The world of Tolkien is so rich, and we always approach it like history.
So The Lord of the Rings was an amazing experience...
...going into that world, designing creatures and characters--
Murderer.
- We're Hobbits. TREEBEARD: Hobbits.
--That were described in the book.
[ROARING]
And one of the joys of The Hobbit was that we got to go to new places...
...and see new creatures.
People fall in love with the world that Professor Tolkien created...
...because you get to imagine things like Goblins living in the town underground...
...and Trolls having roast mutton.
These ain't sheep. These is fresh nags.
Oh!
JACKSON: If you read The Hobbit once in your life...
...you know that Bilbo's encounter with the three Trolls: William, Bert and Tom...
...is one of the most iconic passages from the book...
...and it was something we were looking forward to bringing to the screen.
How come he's a cook? Everything tastes the same.
- Everything tastes like chicken. - Except a chicken.
What tastes like fish? Ha, ha, ha.
I'm just saying, a little appreciation would be nice.
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
Let's just sit on them and squash them into jelly.
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
We have actually seen these Trolls before. They are in The Lord of the Rings.
But they're stone, covered in ivy.
Look, Frodo. It's Mr. Bilbo's Trolls.
I'm standing in front of the Trolls from Trollshaw forest.
These Trolls are the same Trolls that captured Bilbo in The Hobbit.
When it came time to redesign Bert, William and Tom...
...which was inevitable to bring the depth of character that was required...
...I just about fell over myself.
I was so keen to make these iconic characters.
So we're discussing the Trolls at the moment.
And Andrew here is devising a composition.
BAKER: We'd already seen them in their rock formation.
So we had some idea what they would look like.
But when they're alive and they're talking, we wanted to humanize them a lot more.
FRASER-ALLEN: The best part about designing is that in the very early stages...
...you get to do your version of it. You're like:
"I'm gonna start off with how I saw the Trolls as a 14-year-old or a 10-year-old."
JACKSON: That was the idea. - Yeah.
I want some of that stuff.
TAYLOR: It's great to work with a director...
...that's willing to have the design team feel comfortable...
...just throwing radical and crazy thoughts into the pool.
They don't see their art as a piece of final illustration.
They see it as a conceptual tool to instigate and agitate ideas.
JACKSON: There was a series of Troll designs done.
And as I do with Weta Workshop, I see bits and pieces in designs that I like.
That one's quite good.
Pete wanted us to find designs...
...that would give the depth of human complexity in the Trolls' faces.
They're Hill Trolls as opposed to Cave Trolls...
...so they're not just grunting monsters anymore.
[TROLL GRUNTING]
I got to play around with noses and more intricate expressive mouths...
...and more thought-provoking eyes that registered a lot more emotion.
BAKER: We were trying to get an idea for the skin and the texture quality of them.
And there was a very small round where we did some rhino skins...
...really hard-surface-looking creatures...
...but Peter thought that those were relating too closely to the Cave Troll.
So we added some more flesh tones that made them feel a little bit softer...
...so they were a little bit more relatable as characters rather than as creatures.
TAYLOR: And, of course, each of the Trolls had to be separate from the other so...
...it was important that we found their body forms first of all.
Their unique silhouette so that, at a glance, you would realize one from the other.
I started on William, he was the leader, the more aggressive one out of the three.
Just making him feel like a real hulky-bulky sort of guy.
Bert's got softer, sort of more roundish shapes because he's the cook.
Torn needed to be something different from those two so I thought a skinnier...
...more goofy-looking Troll would complement the three of them.
Bert, Tom and William, they're quite a crazy bunch.
It's been a lot of fun taking the designs from Workshop...
...and then bringing them to life over here.
CLAYTON: The Troll sequence was the first sequence...
...that really came through at Weta Digital.
And that was a really good introductory scene for us...
...to just get things going on The Hobbit.
LETTERI: Back on Lord of the Rings, when we did Gollum first time around...
...we were really just getting our feet wet in understanding things...
...like how facial expressions convey emotion, how muscles work.
In the 10 years since then, we've had time to really understand...
...what makes a character feel real in performance.
And so we actually now physically build the anatomy.
CLUTTERBUCK: The Creature Department at Weta...
...is responsible for putting all the underlying anatomy...
...into our creature rigs. We are responsible for making the skin move...
...and the muscles move and the fat jiggle, to make things look as realistic as possible.
As compelling as possible.
MAN: Okay, should we start at the beginning?
Workshop had given us initial designs and from there...
...the shading guys and the texture guys...
...went in to try to come up with what you see on the screen.
Here's a creature that I've worked on personally.
This is William. He's the leader of the Trolls.
Once we have the model, we can then add the texture onto the model.
So then we start to look at it in a lit and shaded mode.
So his skin starts to feel like a leathery skin.
Then we start to look at him with a bit more lighting...
...typical of what shots we'll be using, the orange firelight.
And so he's starting to come together here.
ACEVEDO: Some of the other finer details that we did put into the Trolls...
...were on their hands and their feet.
A lot of times we're never sure how close the characters are gonna come to camera.
Everyone's fighting the three different Trolls.
Bofur can manage to go from one toe to the next toe to the next toe.
[TROLL SCREAMS]
ACEVEDO: I really wanted their nails to feel really, really rough and cracked.
We knew they're gonna be talking, we're gonna be seeing the inside of their mouths.
So we had to get a lot of that really fine detail in there.
You almost wanted to feel like you could smell their breath.
Hold his toes over the fire.
When it came time to cast the Trolls...
...we thought about who we could get to play these characters.
And after a lot of auditioning different actors...
...we actually thought we got three great actors in our group.
RIVERS: So Mark Hadlow and Peter Hambleton and William Kircher...
...were very lucky to be asked to play the roles of Tom, Bert and William, our Trolls.
I thought it was gonna be just the voice...
...because I'd heard they are going to be digital characters, but no.
It was a complete mocap situation.
NOTARY: It's cool. It's cool.
WILDERMOTH: For motion capture, we have human performers...
...and we translate their motion into a virtual character moving around.
KIRCHER: To have motion capture forming the basis of all the movement in that shot...
...instantly plugs into your brain as real.
First we set out working with Andy Serkis and Terry Notary...
...and we had a day of working on the characters and how they moved.
NOTARY: The thing about the Trolls was the weight, so it's slowing it down.
[GRUNTS]
You know, and breathing.
Can you do that same thing but add mass to it?
[GRUNTING]
If the arms are like wrecking balls, that would affect the forward motion.
- Yeah. - You know.
KIRCHER: Andy, of course, has that immense experience playing Gollum.
He said a really interesting thing which I immediately clocked on to.
Have you thought about kind of injuries?
What kind of injuries and wounds do they have?
So I put a weight on my arm and a weight on my leg...
...and I acted like I had a dead leg and dead arm.
[GRUNTING]
Who's the sharpest tool in the box, you know, would you say, out of all?
- I'm the chef. So I don't know whether that-- SERKIS: Yeah. Right.
He's the one who always cooks and gets pissed off they never say thank you.
HADLOW: I really enjoyed Bert.
[GROANS]
And I had a very open-leg stance as a Troll.
[BURPS]
And big dangly bits. We won't go into that too much. Okay.
Then we spent three magical days working with Peter in the studio.
WOMAN: And he came on to the mocap stage...
...where he could concentrate on the Trolls' performance...
...which was hilarious.
[GRUNTING]
They are like a really dysfunctional group of three flat mates.
[LAUGHS]
HADLOW: Have you got any more of that bogey juice? Adds a nice crunch.
No, it's gone all runny.
JACKSON: Yeah, yeah. It's good.
[ALL LAUGHING]
We had a tremendous time there, just being in our gray suits.
[IMITATES SNEEZE]
You sneeze and then, "Whoa."
Floater. Then, "Whew."
[SNEEZES]
[GRUNTING]
Well, that's lovely, that is. A ﬂoater.
WILLIAM: Might improve the flavor.
JACKSON: The whole thing with the technology is to do with taking...
...as much of what the actor does...
...and trying to use every subtlety and nuance.
Directing was the same, really, apart from the fact the actors looked rather silly.
Who would wanna walk around all day with a camera pointed right at their nose?
[ALL GASP]
So motion capture is a really good first step.
Using that data we can bring it all into the animation system...
...and animators can work on each shot individually...
...and just add all the detail and finesse.
It was always a goal to make these guys look big and heavy...
...and have weight to them.
Dave and his animation guys, they did an excellent job of slowing it down.
You know, if there was three hops, we just made it two.
[SCREAMING]
MAN: I think these ones work pretty well. - Yeah, that looks good.
It is really fantastic. Yeah.
And this one we reviewed with Peter yesterday...
...and he wanted the right hand to be gesturing.
"Tom, get me filleting knife."
As if he's sort of... Like maybe he's doing like a gesture like that.
Torn, get me filleting knife.
The next big challenge was getting the facial animation to look convincing.
That's a good idea. Unh.
[SCREAMING]
CLAYTON: You transfer that facial capture onto the Troll as a one-to-one first pass.
And the animators sort of pepper in bits of emotion...
...and extra expressions here and there to give them character.
It's all those little finishing touches that just gives us that convincing performance.
That brings it all together at the end.
[TOM WHIMPERING]
Sit down!
The dawn will take you all.
CLAYTON: To match the Trolls into...
...the positions that we saw them in Lord of the Rings...
it was done all those years ago, so everyone was having a look at that...
...and making sure that our three Troll actors were matching that.
MAN: And action.
[ALL GROANING]
[GRUNTING AND SCREAMING]
And from there we had a really, really smart shader guy, Chris George.
He spent three weeks, maybe even longer, working out a transition...
...that would blend between skin and stone.
In this scenario, what we decided to do, we actually painted maps...
...of where we'd like the rock to appear on certain frames during the sequence.
So that as that skin was rubbed out, the particles would fall off.
MAN: And in addition to that, effects would give us a bunch of crusty skin...
...that would just ﬂake off. Just to go on the leading edge of the transition.
[GROANS]
The Troll designs had come a long way and so the proportions of their bodies...
...was quite different to what was sculpted on Fellowship.
But I think the fans will appreciate that we tried to match the two movies together as best we could.
[ALL CHEERING]
TAYLOR: There is a very soft spot in so many Tolkien fans' hearts...
...for these three wonderful characters.
And it was a thrill to get a chance to bring them back to the world.
- Who's that? - No idea.
Can we eat him too?
BOYENS: We loved the notion of the wizard...
...who was absolutely nothing like Gandalf the Grey or Saruman the White.
RADAGAST: Thieves! Fire! Murder!
Ahh... Radagast. Heh.
It's my friend Radagast the Brown.
JACKSON: One of the joys of adapting The Hobbit...
...was we were able to introduce...
...the character of Radagast the Brown.
He's referenced very, very briefly in Tolkien's writing.
We know that he was one of five lstari or wizards...
...who spread to different parts of Middle-earth.
The lstari are just slightly below the gods, the Valar.
They are sent to put an end to the menace and the danger of Sauron.
They decide to give the wizards mortal appearances.
And to give the lstari, who are very powerful creatures...
...the guise of old men is not only a form of camouflage...
...it's also the reminder...
...that real power is not something to be used for its own sake.
There were five. The White, the Grey, the Blue Wizards.
And nobody knows what happened to them.
And Radagast the Brown was the one who lives in the forest.
NARRATOR". "Radagast is of course a worthy Wizard."
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
BOYENS: Radagast as a character...
...is not so interested in the affairs of the peoples of Middle-earth.
He is much more concerned with the welfare of the animals and the natural world.
A little bit like those monks back in historical times.
They isolate themselves into the middle of quite extreme nature.
Because he's so focused on the natural world, he doesn't care what he should look like.
ALAN LEE: We had pretty much an open brief with him.
Peter wanted to play up his absentminded and slightly kind of chaotic look.
Our idea was to go slightly in the hippie realm.
A character that could almost have staggered out of Woodstock in the '60s.
He's a little bit eccentric, if you like.
Hello?
My agent.
And then Sylvester was cast.
I've gone bananas.
We all know Sylvester from his famous roles including Doctor Who.
Sylvester is a wonderful man and extraordinary performer. And he's a Time Lord!
[MCPHERSON LAUGHS]
Nerd.
From the very, very first moment of meeting Sylvester, I mean...
...who couldn't fall in love with him? He's such a wonderful guy. So eccentric.
He was constantly trying to work playing spoons into Radagast's character.
"Listen, Andy, can I get the spoons in?"
And then he says, "Yeah, maybe now or maybe not, but maybe later."
So that's my ambition, to get the spoons in.
And then if the woodpecker went:
[IMITATING WOODPECKER]
And then flew away.
SERKIS: Because he wanted to be able to say...
...that every single character he has ever played plays the spoons.
Oh, ow! it's kind of fun-.
Throw money.
[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]
We got these photos of Sylvester McCoy. He had come in and done a photo shoot.
This whole range of wacky faces and energy coming straight through the camera.
He's the best canvas you can get to create a wacky character.
I love wizards and I love the idea of Treebeard being a shepherd of the forest.
And when you make a wizard version of that, this forest-dwelling hermit wizard...
...I can't think of anything more exciting.
Peter really wanted to push Radagast's character further...
...than maybe we all had realized.
[ALL LAUGHING]
- He regurgitates birdseed. Bleh, bleh. WOMAN: Very charming.
TAYLOR: We tried some crazy ideas.
Clothes made out of hanging fern or willows.
Clothes made out of hair.
JACKSON: Like basically attached to his wrists.
So his beard...
MAN: Like that, then it opens. - Yes.
TAYLOR: And if he would open his arms...
...he'd have these huge shrouds of beard-like clothing coming off his chin.
Peter will actually doodle a quick sketch for us to convey an idea that he's got.
The idea that Peter was conveying on this one is that he's got an asymmetrical beard.
JACKSON: I wanted to do everything with Radagast...
...to make him slightly crooked in a way.
Like it's a piece of clay that hasn't quite been sculpted properly.
JACKSON: I love the idea of one--
When you had one where the one eyebrow was looped up.
And the other one was down.
TAYLOR: Most of the beautiful work on, uh...
...Sylvester's face is done by Peter King and his team.
The incredible wig and the beard and the mustache work.
If you look closely, everything's asymmetric...
...because one eyebrow goes twirls up when the other one comes down.
One side of his beard is really short, the other side is really long.
He's completely crazy.
It needs more stuff in it.
- Straw? - Exactly.
Peter came up with the idea that actually he's got a bird's nest in his hair.
I kind of love the idea of his hair being woven into a nest.
He didn't realize it was happening.
He probably spent some time in the garden.
Had no idea that the birds were actually building a nest in his hair.
But then he comes to realize he's got to look after these birds.
Doesn't think to get rid of the nest.
Again your bird talk.
[IMITATING BIRD SINGING]
MCCOY: I can bird-whistle.
My little boys, when they were young, I used to go down the street...
...and birds would whistle, and I'd talk to them and go:
[IMITATING BIRD SINGING]
You hear him from the other end of the workshop.
There is a little birdie under there doing that.
And lo and behold. It's in the film.
[WHISTLING]
And he's rather untidy.
And so the birds stick their bottom out the nest and poo down my face.
We should have a whole splodge of dried guano.
Yeah. No, that would be great.
We call it shit where I come from.
[LAUGHING]
And we're like, “Okay."
We're thinking maybe a little bit of bird poop...
...that Radagast would in turn maybe wipe away with a hankychief...
...and Peter's like, “No, he's too absentminded to wipe it away.
There'd be a huge amount of poop."
- It's like lava, actually. JACKSON: Like lava, yes, exactly.
He's the first person I've ever had to apply bird poo to.
Thank you for making me so handsome.
And the Costuming Department began to throw their amazing ideas in.
- Yeah. - Want to see more?
No, no, I think that's good for now.
Most of his costume has got creature references...
...because he comes from the woods.
Snails, butterflies, birds.
And, of course, this is very, very broken down...
...because he's been wearing it for thousands of years.
We want the sense that he came from a sophisticated...
...highly cultured background.
And the materiality of his costume was once quite lavish...
...but had been completely let go.
Pete wanted him to have this extraordinary hat.
MASKREY: And his hat is a little bit indicative of mice.
Alan Lee had come up with a slight ear-like quality on an early concept drawing.
So he's got almost mouse-like ears and sort of mouse-like tails to the hat.
Definitely shouldn't be conical or resemble Gandalf's in any way.
MASKREY: Sylvester McCoy imbued this whole thing...
...in the most eccentric, wonderful way possible.
Sylvester and Ian had worked together closely before, and I think you see that rapport.
Oh, Gandalf.
Oh, Radagast.
McKELLEN: I have known of Sylvester McCoy for years and years...
...but didn't actually meet him until we came to work together...
...for the Royal Shakespeare Company in King Lear.
McCOY: He played King Lear and I played his fool.
That's a very close relationship and they're very dependent on each other.
So I suppose we developed it. It's really great working with Ian.
I'll draw them off. Go!
JACKSON: Oh, dear. Dear. - Royal Shakespeare background.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Radagast has got his own powers and his own life...
...and very particular and magical it is.
JACKSON: Do it again. Go to the spell.
[IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
One of the first things he needed to do was learn a Quenyan spell...
...which is the formal Elvish.
They told me when I first arrived, I misheard them, I thought it was Elvis.
And I was thinking, “You're gonna learn some Elvis."
I said, "Oh, that would be good." Huh, huh, huh.
[IMITATING ELVIS PRESLEY] Hi, I'm... Nice to be here.
[IN NORMAL VOICE] But they didn't mean that. It was Elvish.
[IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
-[IN ENGLISH] Could mean anything. -[IN ENGLISH] Free the animal, you said.
Free the animal. Yes, coffee. That'll free the animal. This animal anyway. I mean, sláinte.
[IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
[PEOPLE CHEERING]
You are one of those people who's actually--
Makes you smile when you come to work every day.
-It's fantastic. - Thank you.
You are so sweet and so polite. And an absolute joy to work with.
And not to mention quite good...
...if you are a Doctor Who fan like myself, an added bonus.
Thank you, everybody. You've been great to work with.
MAN: Yay, Sylvester.
Ooh, hoo, hoo!
Magical.
Radagast is a favorite in all of our hearts.
He's just such a nature-loving, warm-hearted...
...beautiful, bumbling character...
...that at first impression, you can never imagine...
...could have the power and magic to sway a world.
HOWE: But by the time we get to The Lord of the Rings...
...Radagast is forgetting his initial mission in Middle-earth.
I think his memory diminishes.
He'll simply one day forget that he's an lstari who was sent to Middle-earth...
...and become a sort of shaman in the forest, if you like.
A nature spirit.
[GOBLINS GROWLING]
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
HOWE: The difference between Goblins and Orcs in Tolkien's Middle-earth...
...is not necessarily a difference of species.
It's really a reminder that The Hobbit started as a children's book.
And Goblins are a little less terrifying than Orcs.
FALCONER: Goblins are just Orcs as presented to a child.
For the movies, we chose to take that distinction...
...and use it to imply that there are lots of different types of Orcs...
...and Goblins are just one particular type.
LETTERI: Peter wanted the Goblins to be these underground-dwelling wretched creatures...
...that have no respect for life above the surface.
BESWARICK: They are this sort of hillbilly race.
And the mere fact that they all kind of do look related is quite disturbing.
JACKSON: They interbreed. They're unhealthy.
And we wanted just to make them as scary as possible.
So when we knew we were gonna get to work on The Hobbit...
...I think all of us naturally thought that the Goblins would follow similar lines...
...to the Goblins that we saw in Moria in film one of The Lord of the Rings...
...but that wasn't to be the case at all because as we started to design, Pete said:
"No, I want something different. I need more. I want to see something new and fresh."
He liked the idea that they were smaller creatures.
These guys will definitely be their own little breed...
...that have left to their devices for hundreds of years under those caves.
We took our lead from the idea of subterranean creatures.
Strange mutated creatures that live in caves and they don't see sunlight...
...and they kind of evolve in a slightly different way.
Based off that we came up with an idea...
...that potentially these characters probably had some form of skin disease.
And therefore they're putrid, translucent, smelly, horrible characters.
We went through a lot of different looks. We tried axolotl, salamander-y...
...newt-looking, unborn, really horrific things.
We had stuff like with the teeth, and really piranhay-looking Goblins...
...and more ferocious things.
I think we did more illustrations for the Goblins than anything else in the movie.
JACKSON: Elements of them are great.
Like, that guy in the middle there is pretty scary.
I just wanna find out what it is that's making it look like a dog...
...especially from the side.
It is something to do with the squareness of the snout, isn't it'?
TAYLOR: Yeah, it's the length versus height. JACKSON: It's the length and the squareness.
I mean, why don't you try a version...
...where you're keeping a lot of the essence of what we've done...
...but you're just taking the snout away and making it look like a flat face?
Just like more of a regular-- Sort of a monkey face sort of thing.
BESWARICK: Well, there was a reference to Goblins...
...as having sort of a similar physiology to the apes of the south.
BAKER: A little bit simian-like.
We were trying to play it with the longer sort of arms.
They definitely felt more like some sort of monkey.
TAYLOR: We preferred this guy.
- No, I do too. I prefer that guy. - Oh, good. Yeah.
The Goblins were always a problem for us to try to figure out.
And it's not how things look and it's not how well things are designed...
...the primary problem is just the physicality of it.
That if we were gonna put Goblins on screen...
...we were gonna have to have either performers in costumes...
...or do it, you know, some other way.
Peter Jackson wanted the anatomy to be outside of what is humanly possible.
He wanted it larger, greater, more grotesque.
One of the questions that I first asked Pete at the very beginning of the design process:
Will it be physical or will it be digital?
Because if it is digital, it doesn't have to comply...
...to the very strict number of movement points that the human body has.
And Pete felt it was still worthy to have a go building them.
Watch out for your back.
JACKSON: So we brought in Terry Notary...
...and he trained a group of 20 or 30 performers in Goblin movement.
NOTARY: When we had our first meeting Pete said:
"Rats in a sewer. That's what you gotta think about, okay?"
So that's like, great, okay? Boom. There's so much there.
Goblins have no foundation in their legs.
And they live from point to point. They live in a fear-based society...
...so they're like these little electromagnetic balls of energy.
So they have no foundation, so their legs are:
What I'll do is I'll come up with a technique, and before I get too far...
...I'll go and move around as that character for Pete.
And they're opportunists, so they:
[GRUNTING AND SNORTING]
I spent, you know, a long, long time with Terry...
...talking about the way they'd move and the sort of pack mentality they'd have.
They work like rats, you know? And then:
[GROWLING]
We were literally only a few weeks out from the first day the Goblins were going to shoot...
...and we didn't have a design yet that was locked down.
So I went and saw Pete and I had a chat with him about this challenge.
We've done a round of maquettes.
JACKSON: A lot of these are just kind of wingy, devil type things.
They're not a mutant underground race.
It would be great to see a bunch of maquettes like this...
...that were ratty, flea-ridden, diseased.
TAYLOR: Okay. JACKSON: Make them more freakish.
What I did at that point is I rushed back to the workshop...
...and gathered all the sculptors around me...
...and we did 13 third-scale busts over a two-day period...
...of just insane ideas around mutations, growths...
...horn-like things coming out of the head...
...asymmetry, disease, leprosy, bloating, elephantiasis...
...and ran them down to Pete.
Yeah. Okay.
- That looks right. - Doesn't it?
- Yeah, yeah. Great model. - Thank you.
And that started the process of building the Goblins.
It's a great tribute to the team at the workshop...
...that built this cast of crazy Goblin characters in seven weeks.
Such an unbelievable short length of time.
So back on Lord of the Rings...
...the Goblins were done, for the most part, as physical creations.
And I think there was an intent to try to hold on to that aesthetic for The Hobbit.
And shooting started on set.
WOMAN: And action.
JACKSON: Look with puzzlement. Just nice and still.
But the heaviness of the suits is limiting their movement.
So everything Terry was working out with them, that's not coming through anymore.
[GROWLS]
MAN: And cut.
So Peter made the decision that for the Goblins, in a lot of cases...
...we would go completely digital.
NOTARY: Pete wanted to see what the Goblin would look like in the mocap.
And showed him some different movements.
Went through a whole range of runs and walks...
...and little character moments.
So that Pete sees a nice range of movement.
And then of course when we needed to do more of a pack...
And action.
[GROWLING]
CLAYTON: It's better if you can capture them as a group because then any interactions--
And they have to kind of move around each other and stuff.
Then we've got a series of motions that works together.
- And we could use that little thing in this hut. NOTARY: Right.
- Or in... - Yeah.
CLAYTON: We could have them being much more violent and aggressive towards the Dwarves.
Which was something Pete would always say. He's like, "Okay, let's make them move faster.
Let's make them jumping. Let's make them kind of climbing over each other...
...like this crazy mosh pit of Goblins."
[GROWLING]
So we're basically creating a library of Goblins and different personalities.
Different hero Goblins. Different fights, different ways of being killed.
[SCREAMS]
Different ways of chasing, different ways of striking, pursuits.
Little gestures, little group moments.
CLAYTON: And then specific hero motions...
...or things that are too hard to animate in a realistic fashion.
[MAN SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY]
I just hope we don't break the Goblins.
[GRUNTING]
[CLAYTON LAUGHING]
MAN: Cut.
CLAYTON: So all the capture that we did last week is on the system.
So the fact that we have this library of motions means that later on...
...when we gotta get these shots out real quick, we've got the motion to draw from.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
[GOBLINS GROWLING]
You were talking about the timing on these guys, which I've had a play around with.
CLAYTON: These guys seem about right.
You might wanna make the Goblins that are jostling these guys bigger.
- Like, especially him. MAN: Yeah. Yeah.
Peter wanted to make sure that all the Goblins were very unique...
...and that they looked very different from one another.
What was great is that because you had this physical suit that had been made...
...we had almost immediate approval of what these creatures were to look like.
We would scan the mold and then use that as a target to make the digital versions.
ACEVEDO: PJ has asked us to get more of disgusting kind of look to the bodies.
He really wanted their lips to look like they've been chewed away.
They have a lot of herpes sores and, really, a lot of disgusting things like that.
Because they are vitamin-deprived, they have bad skin...
...they're breaking out in rashes and sores.
I mean, that was all part of making them feel like these creatures never see sunlight.
The disease aspect, unfortunately, did take some research, yes.
It's actually pretty horrible what you can find on the Internet.
ACEVEDO: Herpes sores and scabs and open sores.
Sometimes you love Google, sometimes you don't. Heh, heh, heh.
ACEVEDO: We used all that kind of reference and got that into the characters.
WHITE: We also had some software we were working on...
...that allowed us to take the faces from one Goblin...
...and blend it with faces of other Goblins.
So with the blending of faces and the different body types...
...we could do hundreds or thousands, trying to make them as unique as possible.
The idea behind the Goblins was to really have this feeling of nastiness.
[BILBO GRUNTING]
But of course every time the Goblin king shows up--
MAN: Action.
[GROWLING]
And the king is stepping on you now.
Yeah.
LETTERI: --they're completely cowed by him.
Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom?
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
BESWARICK: This conjecture on what the Goblin king actually is...
...you know, that he is actually some incarnate spirit of evil...
...in the same way like a Balrog maybe.
He's known as the Great Goblin because he is actually a different creature altogether...
...from the Goblins.
HUMPHRIES: A gigantic and repulsive figure.
And yet a figure of great charm.
The Great Goblin is yet another one of those amazing Tolkien characters...
...that you lift out of the book and try and realize.
And it was in fact an Alan Lee drawing that Peter brought in...
...to spur on the first ideas.
JACKSON: I was looking at this as I was writing the script.
I just think the Great Goblin should be like a really grotesque fat guy.
- He's like a sort of sultan of Goblins. MAN: Yeah.
He's just some big, bloody, fat twit who needs to get his head chopped off.
Peter's brief was to make him as disgusting as possible, as sort of vile as possible.
Abominations, mutations, deviations...
But still, like all great characters, find an entry into why he behaves the way he does.
[CHUCKLING]
TAYLOR: Peter and Andrew really worked together for quite an intense period of time...
...working up this character.
Initially we wanted to start off with one of those bedridden, obese cases...
...that he just wouldn't look like he'd moved ever.
He's just a part of the furniture, as it were. Just this giant, grotesque blob.
But one of the things that Peter was absolutely adamant about...
...is that he couldn't be like Jabba the Hutt.
He couldn't just be this big heavy character that can't move out of his chair.
So we bulked him up a little bit, got some big shoulders.
And we tried to keep that very simian, ape-like quality to him.
He could stand on his knuckles if he wanted to and move with his hands.
So he's this huge, blubbery heavyweight.
Walks with this staff.
BAKER: One of the earlier maquettes.
His crown that looked like he had made and that he was very proud of...
...and it was a little spiky, bony sort of crown.
And he has this weird staff that he lords over his Goblins with.
I imagine these two little heads that he dangled off the staff to have been old conquests...
...that he had kept as a bit of a reminder that he was bad once.
[CHUCKLES]
TAYLOR: With every character that we design for Peter...
...he is always trying to seek a defining trait...
...the iconic signature of that character.
And in the case of the Great Goblin, it is the goiter.
I do like the idea of a neck sack.
Like a sort of a goiter type thing.
Because I like the idea that it can puff and swell when he talks.
I looked at it as metaphor for a beard.
Kind of made him feel kingly in a sort of very grotesque way.
We decided to have part of his wattle be this really grotesque tumor in there...
...that was kind of pushing up towards the surface of the skin.
Just like on your knuckles where the skin kind of goes pale there.
You could see the veins pushing up towards the surface of it.
There was one time when we got a little bit too gross with them...
...and we had to pull back just a bit. It's PG-13 rating. PG-13 rating-.
This is a practical silicone version of the Goblin king's wattle.
And the reason we made this is to give...
...the Creatures and Animation Department some inspiration...
...so they can get an idea of how the flesh would actually move in reality.
CLAYTON: That goiter looks pretty good.
Mike's been experimenting with the idea that it has a bulbous tumor within it.
And we were thinking it would be cool if that slid around underneath the surface of the skin.
Heh-heh-heh. Just to make it really gross.
JACKSON: You look at that character and you start to think:
"What would his voice sound like?"
And then trying to think of an actor who can bring that to life.
And we'd always been fans of Barry Humphries.
I think one of most inspired pieces of casting was Barry Humphries as the Great Goblin...
...which was Fran's idea.
The Great Goblin, if there's a Barry Humphries character we were thinking of...
...but wasn't Dame Edna Everage, it was Les Patterson.
We wanted Barry to channel the Les Patterson side of himself.
HUMPHRIES: I said to Jackson, "What does my character look like?"
And they showed me a little plastic figurine of such ugliness...
...that I, who am used to horrible sights since I'm now...
...in the November of my life...
...thought, “This is something for Dan Aykroyd...
...heh-heh, or for Danny DeVito perhaps. In a fat suit."
BOYENS: Barry was in his 70s when he did this role.
And I can tell you, he's a lot fitter than I am.
And launched himself into motion capture with great abandon.
I came to this project with two serious disadvantages.
First, I'd never read a word of Tolkien.
Oh, yes. I know all about you.
Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror...
...King Under the Mountain.
Second, I'd never done this kind of acting.
You get covered with these dots. I don't know why.
MAN: Now the close-up kiss. A lip pucker.
JACKSON: Lip pucker? Oh, you've--
- That's not the first time you've done that, is it? - No.
MAN: And we've got it.
And lips stretched. And now this is--
If I were a 12 year old, I would understand all the technology of this movie.
I always thought motion capture...
...was something you did when you were taking a specimen to the doctor.
Which of these tasty tiddlers thinks he is the leader?
NESBITT: I mean, I did my scenes with Barry Humphries.
We did the mocap stuff. I mean, what a privilege it was.
I mean, he's sort of, I suppose, a legend because he is so funny.
For breakfast, I always enjoy the contents of my navel.
If it's more information you're wanting, I'm the one you should speak to.
It's like this. We were on the road. Well, it wasn't so much a road, as a path.
Actually, it wasn't even that, come to think of it.
- It was more of a track. - Shut up!
That was fantastic. Let's try a couple more of those.
I hadn't really allowed for the genius of our director Peter Jackson.
What's this? A map.
It's like, you know, ooh, ha-ha-ha.
Oh, yes.
What's this?
A map.
I smell a quest.
A quest for the mountain in the east.
Now let's just do a couple of reactions to your arm being chopped off.
- Oh. - Here we go.
And action.
Oh!
Ha-ha-ha. Very good.
I've just been astounded by his ability...
...particularly to put me at my ease playing this grotesque character.
WOMAN: That's a wrap on Barry Humphries. Thank you, Barry.
[PEOPLE CLAPPING]
Oh, for-- Thank you.
Thank you all for your support.
[JACKSON CHUCKLES]
- That's terrific. Heh-heh-heh. - Something to tell your grandchildren about.
HUMPHRIES: Now that I'm embedded in the Middle-earth...
...I'm looking forward, really, to reading every single thing...
...that this long-deceased academic wrote.
However, the more I have read in recent days...
...the more I realize that this extraordinary range of characters confected by Tolkien...
...have come to life in a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand.
I don't know if he necessarily need to look back at Thorin there.
- It seems a bit too obvious. - Okay.
CLAYTON: Our job as animators was to preserve that performance...
...and have it come through on the king.
You need to sort of see that spark of performance...
...that was there when Barry performed it.
Nobody, really.
Just try to make it really clear. "Nobody, really," you know?
- Just bigger? - Unh. Yeah.
Nobody, really.
So Barry's sort of the driving force.
And as animators, we're the guardians of that performance...
...and making sure it's transposed effectively onto the king.
It's never a one-to-one match. In fact it's always an artful kind of:
"Okay, I'm looking at Barry. I'm looking at the king.
Are we getting enough of his eye movement?
Or maybe we need to open his lids even wider to make him look intense.
Or maybe we need more quiver in his face to get his cheeks moving...
...or to get the most out of him."
I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head.
- Just your head. CLAYTON". Boom.
MAN: Yeah. CLAYTON: See if you can soften that for me.
You definitely see that moment where it goes from being stuff moving around the screen...
...to stuff that's a living, breathing thing now and is gonna engage with the audience.
Just a head.
Nothing attached.
BOYENS: Barry Humphries made the most perfect Goblin.
And he played it with wonderful relish.
What are you going to do now, Wizard?
[GROANING]
I've never been disemboweled before...
...but it's a pretty nasty death.
And I think one that will be greeted by audiences with joy.
But dismay...
...to think that they won't see the character again.
[GROANS]
That'll do it.
I've tried, as a matter of fact, to bring out the lovable side of my character.
I don't remember eating this.
And this attempt has been a total failure.
[GRUNTING]
BOYENS: One of my favorite parts of what are called the Appendices, which you find...
mat the end of The Return of the King...
...is where you learn about one of our central villains in this story, Azog the Defiler.
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
ARMITAGE: Azog is Thorin's nemesis.
His grandfather Thror was slain by him at the gates of Moria...
...in the battle of Azanulbizar...
...which was part of the war between the Dwarves and the Orcs.
Azog cuts off Thror's head, carves his name into it and then throws it out the door of Moria.
The problem is in the Appendices Azog is killed.
And so the simplest way to solve that...
[AZOG SCREAMING]
...was to keep him alive.
So we're sort of playing with the audience there a little bit.
When we first started, Azog, he was definitely discussed as a prosthetic character.
And Jamie Beswarick immediately did this amazing, beautiful maquette.
The idea I had for Azog was that he'd be albino...
...because I was trying to think of the social aspects of growing up in an Orc culture...
...and either you're gonna live through that or not...
...and, you know, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
You know, I do like the feel of that one.
It's an Azog-y thought, but with a slightly more aggressive mouth, though.
Azog was a tricky character because he's the principal villain.
But you can't just have an actor come in off the street to play a villain...
...as you would in a James Bond film.
You know, you're literally designing what this creature looks like.
We don't know Azog's exact origins, but as designers...
...it was sort of bandied about that perhaps he was one of the ancient Orcs.
Azog's this older, more intelligent-- The purest of the Orcs as it were.
Maybe they were closer to Elves than any of the other Orcs...
...where their bloodline has been watered down.
The design for this character had to be utterly striking...
...and instantly recognizable of who he is and what he represents...
...the nemesis to the Dwarves, the iconic arch villain within these movies.
[BOTH GRUNTING]
At some point the actor was chosen...
...who was this amazingly big guy called Conan, of all names.
And we started developing prosthetic makeup ideas.
Oh, yeah.
MAN: And how's this going?
TAYLOR: This is the ongoing design for Azog.
And Peter himself is gonna sculpt to this cage on the top of the head out of Plasticine.
Referencing a line in the book, that Azog is crowned in metal...
...Peter wanted to play with the idea of having this metal actually embedded in his head...
...and potentially stitching up wounds that were quite horrendous.
And this collection of steel plates...
...as self-administered by this Orc with no mirror, ha, ha...
...had to look completely random but still take on a powerful design aesthetic.
So we've been doing dozens of ideas.
So tricky stuff.
Swap places with me if you like.
TAYLOR: Meanwhile, we're designing the armor.
MAN 1: Oh, sweet Christ. MAN 2: Ha, ha, ha.
TAYLOR: Presenting a series of iterations to Peter and Fran.
JACKSON: Do we need all those weapons?
This is nothing at the moment.
WOMAN: His head is a little too small for his shoulders.
TAYLOR: Only for it not to quite work in their mind.
When you do complex metal cages and heavy wounds and hair and blood...
...and multiple components, it becomes a challenge to find the right balance.
SAINDON: The first version of Azog looked pretty cool...
...but he wasn't coming across as this really scary guy.
So then Azog became something else. Something completely different.
- Okay, bye. - Thanks, Kara.
There was an idea that I had where it would be really scary...
...to see an Orc who looks like a wrinkled little old man...
...but he's actually, you know, powerful and evil.
BESWARICK: It gave us the opportunity to show that Orcs do age.
And also to get across the idea...
...that the main reason why he's a leader is because of his intelligence.
He's a cunning, evil, you know, manipulative character, as opposed to being brute force.
Literally just bite down on it.
A new actor was hired to play this character, an actor called John Rawls...
...and we went back at it again. Ha, ha.
Nick Keller came up with the most beautiful idea...
...for this almost ripsaw-like armor...
...that created this profile of sharp spikes that went right down the arms.
That's good as well if I braid it into my sideburns.
John Harding did an amazing job of bringing that to life...
...and making it a full-functioning, working set of armor.
- This just need a bit of glue, yeah? MAN: Yeah.
And also I incorporated the idea of flayed faces of the Dwarves he's killed...
...that he's actually sewn together and made elements of his clothing out of.
Meanwhile, the Prosthetics Department were manufacturing full silicone prosthetics.
So Brian's pouring the silicone at the moment...
...which is all tinted up in the right colors for Azog's chest.
LANE: The idea was that this character was thousands of years old...
...so the makeup that was created had a lot of character wrinkles...
...and he's quite grotesque, actually.
Action.
We shot some scenes...
...and it was certainly no fault of the actor...
...that the concept that I came up with didn't work.
I realized that pretty soon after we'd started.
That the idea of your principal villain being a little wrinkled old man...
...you know, might work on some level, but in this movie it just wasn't feeling right.
And so we were a little bit worried about what to do...
...and couldn't do much about it because we were in the middle of shooting the movie.
And so we waited till we got the film shot.
And decided at that point to replace him with a digital creature.
Argh!
There was a uniqueness to Azog that Peter was after...
...a screen presence that we could only get by doing a digital version of him.
And we had Weta Workshop work on designs for a completely reconceived Azog.
The brief was a stand-out, pale Orc.
I developed some concepts, trying to make it more intelligent, a bit more human.
He ended up being quite the handsome Orc in a good way, I think.
So often characters have to go through an evolutionary design process.
But at the end of the day, Azog in the movie looked like that original maquette...
...that was done on the very, very first day.
I think it's a really strong, wonderful, powerful piece of design.
And so about six weeks before we were supposed to deliver the film...
...we got this drawing that said, "Here's Azog.
Can you guys do it? And, by the way, here's the shots." Heh, heh.
Basically, it's another Gollum.
And, you know, with Gollum we had, you know, so many years of experience...
...and plus a lot of time to get even the new Gollum to look really good...
...and here we only had a few weeks to do this.
SAINDON: We've got this artwork for Azog. JACKSON: Yeah.
Do you have any notes on anything you--?
- We should just match this? JACKSON: Yeah.
SAINDON: Azog's supposed to be this badass Orc.
He's got these scars all over his body.
The ones on the mouth look like he's been attacked a little bit more.
There's something about them that don't look quite as self-inflicted.
You know, he'd sit at home at night, bored...
...and he'd kind of carve himself. Almost like tattooing.
These were deep, deep, deep cuts in there, you know, that's one thing that Peter really wanted.
He really wanted these things to feel almost down to the bone kind of thing.
When we got Azog, it was a big push. We had just over a month left.
We use a gen man, a generic human, as a starting point.
Azog may never look like that gen man again...
...but we still start with a physiology that works.
So because of this we were able to make him come together pretty quickly.
This is the space suit.
They brought in Manu Bennett...
...and I think part of the success of Azog was that Manu just did such a great job.
This is where it gets interesting.
Azog was such a menacing character. He's so strong physically.
And Manu is renowned for his physicality and his work on roles like Spartacus.
And he brought a very strong presence to Azog.
My body now belongs over there.
It's Tron. Totally Tron. Amazing. Heh, heh.
I didn't have the luxury of having a script...
...and I didn't have the luxury of really knowing what Azog even looked like.
This is the weirdest thing I've ever done.
The first time I saw Azog was when I walked out and I was, like--
Everybody's dressed normally and I've got this little tiny suit on...
...and I kind of looked like a meerkat...
...but all of a sudden they said, "That's not what you look like, that's what you look like."
And I looked up on a big screen and here's this 9-foot, Arnold Schwarzenegger-ish Orc.
And I was like, "Okay, that's me."
- Roll sound. Roll mocap. MAN 1: Marker.
MAN 2: And action.
[in BLACK SPEECH]
Right, good. A bit more urgency, like you're impatient to get these Dwarves.
BENNETT: The necessary things that Peter wanted from Azog...
...was what we Maori call mana, I guess...
...you know, the size of the guy, the spiritual strength of the character.
JACKSON: So we're gonna do the fight routine first.
RANGI: Yeah, I will. JACKSON: All right, very good.
That's supposedly my Dwarf.
He's like 6 foot 5.
Shane Rangi, the unheard-of star of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
He had to go on his knees.
And they put a mouth guard in him.
He had his helmet on and he had these big pads.
And I came round and I smacked him so hard.
Argh!
The thing is that Peter was only going to be convinced with this mace being heavy...
...if it looked heavy.
So he made me tie sandbags around the end of it.
You could put a sandbag so there's a bit of weight.
Unh. Better warm my shoulder up.
Argh!
Shog agradol is "drink their blood."
- Shog Ag-- Ag is a different word? McPHERSON: A-G-R-A-D-O-L.
SAINDON: He had to learn Black Speech as he went.
I mean, heh, heh, heh, it's not something you just learn.
You know, it was like having to learn German in 10 minutes.
- Two words. - That's right, shog, S-H-O-G, agradol.
[in BLACK SPEECH]
There are two different kinds of Black Speech, really.
There's the language of Mordor, which is more complex and flowing.
[SAURON SPEAKING IN BLACK SPEECH]
And Orcish is spoken only by the Orcs.
[in BLACK SPEECH]
It's very simplistic and very short and sharp.
[SPEAKS IN BLACK SPEECH]
BENNETT: We would write my lines phonetically on pieces of paper...
...and have those pieces of paper distributed around the room.
McPHERSON: The Wargs claw at the trunk. The tree is about to fall over the cliff.
[in BLACK SPEECH]
JACKSON: Good. MAN: Let's cut there, please.
I think that's great.
Good. Yeah.
REYNOLDS: Manu was becoming a character that's believable.
I mean, he had a clear idea of how Azog was gonna be.
And we just took that and it just slotted into all the shots great.
It was comforting because we didn't have a lot of time.
MAN 1: Knock, knock. MAN 2: Oh, jeez.
MAN 1: Yeah. Tell me about it.
Could you get another into the background in the next 20 minutes?
- Probably, yes. Yeah. - Then do it now.
We're getting near the end. Just have a few weeks left in Animation.
It's a full-on battle.
I mean, it's not quite capturing the feeling that he's got when he's doing it.
He gets so much intensity out of his eyes, right...
...that we don't get with our guy. MAN: Yeah.
The other thing about Manu...
...was that he has this intense anger where his eyes are wide open...
...whereas usually we always end up wanting to squint and put the brow down for anger.
So we had to kind of go back and just try and capture that crazy anger.
[SNARLING]
It was a big push to get the design, the textures, the animation...
...into the character of Azog.
REYNOLDS: And you're like:
"Yep, he's becoming a character that's believable and is working...
...and has this huge menace to him."
It was actually pretty impressive that we were able to turn it around that fast.
[in BLACK SPEECH]
[GROWLING]
It's rare that a challenge will be so great...
...that myself or our team are sort of hitting our heads against the wall.
But in the case of Azog, I think we were close to it.
The journey that he went through as a character...
...all of those design iterations over the year...
...was definitely one of the more complex challenges that we've had.
It's just one of those examples of how, in a way, making these films is kind of a family affair.
We've all clone this for so long and work so well together...
...that once a decision was made that this is the way we were going with Azog...
...it all came together pretty quickly.
Argh!
The visual effects on The Hobbit have certainly advanced a lot...
...in the 10 years since we did The Lord of the Rings.
Now we have completely digital characters all over the place, Trolls, Goblins, Orcs.
And we realized that by only doing minimally what we needed physically on set...
...and adding in the digital effects later on...
...we could actually just bring a lot more richness to the film.
And I think it became one of the big sea changes that we saw...
...in the way that Hobbit was done from when we started shooting it to the time we finished.
Argh!
JACKSON: The challenge with The Hobbit, really...
...is that we wanted to be the same filmmakers going back into Middle-earth...
...shooting a movie in much the same style.
But of course, a lot of the events of The Hobbit are actually establishing the world...
...that is later developed in The Lord of the Rings.
HOWE: Tolkien was still exploring Middle-earth when he was writing The Hobbit...
...and I don't believe he had himself a very clear idea...
...of what Middle-earth was going to become...
...which provides an increased latitude on the filmmaker's part...
...to actually delve a little deeper than it was possible in Lord of the Rings.
That's quite interesting.
VINCENT: We could cross-reference Peter's descriptions...
...with Tolkien's original writing to create a unique vision...
...which became a sort of Art Department collective idea.
JACKSON: it was important, visually, with The Hobbit...
...that it feels like a slightly more idyllic time.
I mean, the darkness that descends on this world in The Lord of the Rings...
...it's brewing, but it hasn't yet expanded to the levels that it's going to.
So the world is a more innocent, simple place...
...and we wanted to reflect that in the photography and the design.
It should look like everyone's notion of what Sherwood Forest would be like...
...on a sunny day.
Peter felt that the whimsy and the delight of it should be apparent in everything we do.
And it just needs to be just that little bit of something extra.
LEE: Every new project is a challenge.
And The Hobbit hasn't really disappointed in that respect.
NARRATOR". Forty leagues...
...it stretched from the Far Downs to the Brandywine Bridge...
...and 50 from the northern moors to the marshes in the south.
The Hobbits named it the Shire.
HENNAH: Hobbiton is something that we've established pretty extensively...
...so you can't really mess with that too much...
...except it's 60 years earlier and it's midsummer.
This was a slightly more innocent time...
...so that, in turn, affected our color treatments.
HENNAH: Everything is lush, the grass is all green, the flowers are all blooming.
Ah. Smell that. It's beautiful.
VINCENT: Hobbiton's a pretty special place.
It has all of the elements of good design.
It had to be a working environment for a film crew...
...but it also needed to be fully immersive and believable.
Fortunately, this is the time where it just sort of--
Just starts to do its magical thing.
WOOD: It's just one of those sets that's the epitome of the magic...
...of the creation of Middle-earth.
Like, it exists.
And you can kind of walk around and forget you're in a movie set.
And the cool thing is is this time around they built it for real.
This is the second incarnation of Hobbiton.
We built this 10 years ago for Lord of the Rings...
...and at the end of that shoot, we removed the whole set.
We took away all their Hobbit holes, we took away the whole thing...
...and just left it as a pasture, farmland.
Because initially, as the story goes, the farmer actually didn't really want...
...the film production to leave anything here...
...so he was quite happy when the film production decided to, you know:
"Look, we're gonna build it, but we're gonna tear it down."
And over the years, as the Lord of the Rings films got released...
...this place became really popular.
People came here as a holiday destination, as a fan destination.
There wasn't an awful lot left.
We went to visit, I believe, in November 2008...
...and most of the Hobbit holes were gone.
Bag End was a facade in plywood, painted white with a round hole...
...and small, round windows.
Even that became popular with tourists, who just wanted to see where Hobbiton used to be.
And when The Hobbit came around and we needed Hobbiton again...
...obviously we went straight back to the Alexanders, to the owners of the farm...
...and said, "Listen, do you mind if we rebuild Hobbiton again?
We need to come back here again."
ALEXANDER: It was probably five years ago that Peter sent us a letter...
...and said he's interested in making The Hobbit again...
...and wanting to come back.
JACKSON: it was an idea I had of:
"Look, you know, why don't we build it out of permanent materials this time...
...not polystyrene?"
Because so many people had been to visit that farm, and I thought:
"Well, it's an opportunity to actually have Hobbiton there now."
Peter wanted to do Hobbiton properly...
...and so we were using real wood and real slate and real materials...
...that were gonna be there for years to come.
This is the remaining Hobbit hole, original Hobbit hole...
...and looking back.
So where we might take shortcuts...
...do a small retaining wall for the structure of these Hobbit holes...
...there was none of that.
We had to excavate these holes...
...fully retain them in accordance with the local requirements.
You can see the bracing into the hillside, 5 meters into the hill.
The tieback system.
We have these steel rods going into the hill.
- Good day, Dave. DAVE: Hey, mate. Good.
- How goes it? - Excellent.
BRIGHT: As far as the construction side of things, it was more complicated, no doubt...
...but where the trick really lay was in completing Hobbiton...
...in reasonable time before the shoot.
HENNAH: On Lord of the Rings, we set ourselves up...
...with a year for Hobbiton to grow in...
...and this time around, we weren't gonna be nearly so lucky.
BRIGHT: We were due to shoot Hobbiton in February...
...which is the end of New Zealand summer, so we had a limited amount of time to do it.
And we were a little concerned...
...because Hobbiton had only been in the ground...
...for six months at that stage.
VINCENT: And the grass wasn't quite long enough at that point...
...and we were thinking: "Ooh."
We were a little bit nervous that it just wasn't quite gonna be lush enough.
But then there was a slight delay.
We got wind that-- Of Peter's illness, and so Hobbiton went off the schedule.
VINCENT: We missed an opportunity to film during the summertime...
...and it wasn't going to be any good if we didn't have Hobbiton at its full bloom.
So they had to push this particular set a year on.
Really great.
- This is a great spot. YORKE: Yeah, it's fantastic.
It's probably the most stacked up. There's another one down by the lake.
JACKSON: There's another down by the lake, yeah.
HENNAH: There was nothing better for Hobbiton than to have been delayed.
I mean, much as Peter had to get sick to do it...
...and we all feel sorry for that...
...it certainly helped us in that we got a whole year of growth, regrowth.
There was an amazing difference between when we were ready to shoot the first time...
...and when we actually shot the second time.
VINCENT: What happened is we left all the objects on the set...
...and let nature just sort of grab them...
...and they incorporated them into this sort of really comfortable landscape.
BRIGHT: All these vines and creepers and grasses...
...they weren't just this big, they were this big.
This arrangement's been sitting here for a year.
It's just got all the grass and all the gorgeous stuff growing up through it.
It's almost melted into the landscape, which is really lovely.
Time gives you something that really good planning just can't give you.
A sort of authenticity that we couldn't have even hoped for.
Hi, welcome to Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins.
The flushest Hobbit hole in the Shire.
Just check his mail here.
Bit of junk mail.
Take that in for him.
This is Bilbo's garden.
Hobbits generally have to grow their own produce...
...because there aren't any supermarkets in Hobbiton.
And he does a pretty good job with help from Sam Gamgee...
...and the Greens Department.
So I've just been visiting Gaffer Gamgee.
This is 3 Bagshot Row...
...Sam Gamgee's house in about 60 years' time.
You know, one of the lovely things about Hobbiton...
...is that there are 44 homes that Hobbits live in...
...in the immediate Hobbiton area.
And like any society, there are rich people, there are poor people.
There's middle-class people. There's sort of all that in between.
So we tried to bring that to Hobbiton.
You have to look at each Hobbit hole as, "Who lives here? What do they do?"
This is a woodchopper Hobbit.
He supplies all of the wood for the fireplaces for the entire dell area...
...the neighborhood here.
You can also see up there, the washing station.
So all the Hobbits in this neighborhood get together and do their washing.
VINCENT: The work ethic of a Hobbit means...
...that their laundry probably stays out for a couple of weeks...
...before it gets changed around.
[CHICKEN CLUCKING]
WHALE: This is the chicken farmer's house here in Hobbiton.
We come in and just add a few details like the nest here...
...awning, all the little hand tools and things.
Bell.
[RINGING]
As you go further over towards the lakeside, they're much more fishermen's dwellings.
VINCENT: This is the fishing village lane.
There's a lot of eels in Green Dragon Lake.
There are, in fact, some quite big ones in there.
These are plastic ones, of course.
This is a Hobbit coracle, the most basic of vessels.
Doesn't get a lot of use because Hobbits don't like water, of course.
Although there was a time when we were first introduced to Sméagol...
...and he had a coracle that was quite similar.
And of course, he was into fishing.
MAN: ls everything here? Was it all the same? ls there more now, or--?
There's more, apparently.
Well, there's meant to be more up on the hill.
BRIGHT: if you're looking at the hillside where Bag End is...
...to the right of those, there's five extra holes that we built and put in there...
...that weren't there on Lord of the Rings.
This is the new subdivision.
It's just popped up in the last hundred years or so.
What we've got here is a potter.
VINCENT: From a distance, you wouldn't think that there was much going on there...
...except he's got this huge chimney attached to the front of the house.
And there's an opening in the front of the chimney...
...and it's just chockablock with fresh clay pots baking in the sun.
Originally, Guillermo wanted Bilbo to race out and run past those Hobbit holes...
...off down the side of the hill...
...but Peter has him turn a hard right and jump down the bank.
So this is Gandalf's cutting.
It's where Gandalf first came to Hobbiton...
...and it's also where the guys came back after Lord of the Rings...
...the four Hobbits on their ponies, and so it's a big reveal of Hobbiton.
So I think this is one of the nicest angles to look at Hobbiton from...
...coming up over the largest of the three veggie gardens here at Hobbiton.
All the produce is real.
Cabbages, lettuces, carrots, artichokes.
All sorts. And spread throughout with flowers.
And in Hobbiton, even overgrown dandelions are pretty.
There is one beautifully sculpted rubber tree with silk leaves...
...and it sits on top of Bag End.
BRIGHT: It's actually bigger than our first oak from Lord of the Rings up there...
...and far stronger.
So that needed some serious structure within it...
...because we have to cater for high winds...
...and the longevity of it being up there for 25 years.
So that's the only non-deciduous oak tree in the world, I bet. Ha-ha-ha.
VINCENT: There's a boundary around Hobbiton.
It's basically to the horizon in every direction.
WOOD: There's nothing to break the illusion.
Because if you look out over the hills...
...all you see is effectively what is the Shire.
VINCENT: There's no denying it.
It's beautiful from every angle and it also has the sound effects to boot.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
MAN: Good day. - Hey, how are you?
- Good, thanks. - Good.
- Good, thanks. Yeah. - Nice to meet you.
- Good to meet you. - Ha-ha.
How far away is the Green Dragon?
So here we are at the Green Dragon, the local pub here in Hobbiton.
This is where the Hobbits like to come and have a drink after a hard day's work.
HENNAH: This time around, we've had the opportunity...
...to rebuild it as a permanent structure...
...and we're looking at putting a little bar in there...
...so it really is the Green Dragon.
So we did that, and that's basically inside and outside is fully themed...
...and so now people go there and they have their pint in the Green Dragon pub.
But I've worked up a bit of a thirst, so I'm gonna help myself to a beer here.
Cheers.
VINCENT: Hobbiton, the location, has finally succumbed to its destiny, really...
...in that it has gone from film set...
...to actually kind of turned into Hobbiton for real now.
JACKSON: We've actually, you know, left something behind...
...that's permanent, that represents one of the settings of the movie...
...and I think it's really cool.
It's one of those places-- And I understand now...
...why people, you know, cross the world to make a pilgrimage to Hobbiton.
It's kind of like going home.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[BELL RINGS]
We completely rebuilt the Bag End sets on B-Stage...
...which is a very small low stage.
YORKE: B-Stage is the last remaining tin shed here at Stone Street...
...but it's where we shot Bag End on Lord of the Rings.
So it has historical-- A historical place.
- Gandalf. - Bilbo Baggins.
[BILBO LAUGHS]
Come on. Come in.
It is like walking into the universe of Middle-earth.
It's so incredible, the detail in that place.
I could spend hours and hours and hours looking through books...
...and going into all the rooms.
Our very first day on the job before we started filming...
...we went and we had a whole tour of Bag End.
MAN 1: All right. MAN 2: Make yourselves comfortable.
MAN 3: Oh, my God.
HUNTER: That was cool. That was the coolest day.
It's just so detailed, all the rooms.
BROWN: We've seen it all in The Fellowship of the Rings...
...but actually to walk on it and walk around the set...
...was just pretty mind-blowing.
The first impression was:
"Crikey, wouldn't it be lovely to live in this house?"
It created an atmosphere immediately, do you know what I mean?
You're not having to conjure up, “What sort of place was Bilbo living?
All I'm looking at is a green studio." You knew exactly where he was.
You can't underestimate the effect that something like that has on you.
It's quite emotional going in there.
Very easy to remember moments.
I was sitting by the fire and I said-- I took hold of the fire tongs...
...which are still there, and said:
"Look, there's the ring."
It's quite cool.
“It's quite cool." Ha-ha.
Being a fan, the fact that I was in Bag End at all...
...was a level of joy that I can't even, you know--
Every day, I just walk around and have a look at a little-- "Ooh, wow. Look."
And you're looking at April, the calendar that he had...
...and he's doing this on this particular day.
And everywhere you look, there is depth to the reality...
...that you had invested in.
I really used to enjoy to just go into Bag End...
...and just look around and just imagine.
It's such an odd place.
It's shaped like a womb anyway, isn't it?
It's all round and friendly...
...and it's got all the qualities that we can't have...
...with our quite rectangular environments.
HENNAH: On Lord of the Rings, Bilbo was older and so was Bag End.
VINCENT: Bilbo had obviously been on an adventure...
...because his hallways were piled high with books and scrolls and wonderful things...
...all falling out of drawers and sort of trinkets from other places.
HENNAH: There was an Orc helmet and a couple of old swords...
...hanging on the wall and-- You know, slightly more random.
VINCENT: Which was the older, wiser Bilbo Baggins.
HENNAH: But now Bilbo's a young man.
He still has a sort of semblance of tidiness.
Everything was a lot more organized. Everything had its place...
...and put back where it should go.
Plates were all stacked nicely in the kitchen, the books were all on the bookshelves.
You know, the floors were clean.
HENNAH: It's not quite as dusty and dirty.
But it's still very Hobbity.
The things we didn't do in Bag End in Lord of the Rings...
...is we didn't go into his bedroom, we didn't go into his dining room...
...and we didn't go into his pantry.
So those were new areas that we had some design license for.
I designed a pantry 10 years ago...
...but it wasn't needed for the movie.
So this was an opportunity to go back and do a little more work.
You know, the pantry is stacked full of food.
HENNAH: Very inviting sort of place.
You look in there and you just want to eat something immediately.
The walnuts are fresh.
From an art-direction point of view, the pantry was a huge challenge for us.
You wanted the food to have quite an extravagance to it.
HENNAH: Well, you know, the food is really important that you get it right.
You're not just feeding the mouth or the stomach, you're feeding the eye.
With Hobbit food, even more so than normal.
And we spent weeks poring over ideas for this sort of pie and that sort of roast.
It was an involved effort on our food stylist's part.
We're here in my Portacom. I've got this stationed as a temporary kitchen...
...next to B-Stage where we're shooting...
...so that I can deliver the food as fast as possible.
So all the ham hooks, black pudding, leg of mutton, that leg of ham...
All the food had to be real because you didn't know...
...when someone was going to pick something up...
...and bite it.
[CHATTERING]
And you have to be prepared for when Peter says:
"I like the look of that cheese up there. Let's use that."
One of the Dwarves picks it up and goes, "Mm. What's this smelly stuff?"
And throws it-- Oh. Sorry.
I didn't mean to do that.
He does throw it over his shoulder.
Yeah, that way.
We're in the pantry in Bag End, and we're redressing the entire pantry back...
...to how it was probably only two days ago.
Feels more like about two years ago. But Deborah has supplied all the food...
...and if you wanna hang around a little bit, you'll see it all be put into place.
[ELMS CHUCKLES]
This is the seventh time I've reset it.
MILSOM: Pretty phenomenal when you stand in the middle of it...
...and it's all these cured meats and cheeses, and not a piece of shelf space free.
You know, you could survive several nuclear winters and you'd be fine.
[CHUCKLES]
Smells like real beer.
[CHATTERING]
- Have you been giving them real beer? - Is it really Graham's one?
MAN 1: Yeah.
MAN 2: Now come out and be a director.
HENNAH: We did build a dining room for Bag End...
...in the early days of Lord of the Rings...
...but we never shot it.
-It's sort of-- You know, when you-- -it's good, I like--
Yeah, I like-- The height here is good, sort of with the Dwarves and stuff...
...with their big heads.
JACKSON: The dining room was very carefully constructed...
...because we wanted 13 Dwarves and a Hobbit and a Wizard...
...to feel very squished in there.
So we made the dimensions of the room fit around them.
I wouldn't make the table any smaller, though...
...because it's good that everyone's sort of-- The distance apart is good.
HOWE: We changed the size of the dining room umpteen times...
...to make it big enough for all the Dwarves, then small enough so they had to crowd in.
MAN 1: We'll be turning and you actually have more...
WOMAN: About to sit on-- MAN 2: Just got repetition.
VINCENT: We dressed the dining room with some really subtle materials.
We used gorgeous parchment paper for a lot of the artwork on the walls.
And the glass plates were all hand-painted.
Things that I think about and get excited about were all the crockery in there.
Our potter on this was just an absolute champion.
He produced so much work.
There was close to maybe 2000 items all up, so, yeah, it was intense.
GRAY: I think he got the award for the most tons of props...
...and Bag End would have been probably the place where he shined the most.
- I mean, he's got a pretty nice place. - He's got a damn fine place.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Yes. He's done well.
Bilbo's bedroom was always going to be a little more than just a hole in the ground.
The idea was that he would--
You know, he'd have a four-poster bed and he'd have a fireplace in there...
...and obviously a window that looked out over Hobbiton.
MILSOM: There was a little bit more of a feeling of opulence.
You know, there's a bit of wealth in the Baggins family...
...and the bedroom was the place where we had this bed...
...that had a real sense of royalty, sort of character to it.
You imagine not every Hobbit would have a bed like that.
It may have seemed crazy at the time to hand-stitch a lot of the fabric...
...but the moment we saw it next to Bilbo Baggins' face lying in the bed...
...that was kind of the payoff.
Ninety percent of the work that you do doesn't really get seen...
...but the 10 percent that does make it in made it all worthwhile.
Bag End was the greatest thing we could have done at the beginning...
...because, you know, as a set, it's iconic.
It's such a familiar place.
And once we walked in there and the lights were there...
...and the camera crew was squeezed in, it really didn't feel that we had been away.
HOWE: It's such a magical spot.
It really is very, very beautiful.
You could almost imagine living there.
I could imagine myself living in Bag End, honestly.
It is a great set. I think of all the sets that I've had the pleasure of walking through...
...in the films I've made, I think Bag End would be my absolute favorite.
Thank you.
NARRATOR". it was Radagast the Brown who had one time dwelt in Rhosgobel...
...near the borders of Mirkwood.
He is one of my order, but I had not seen him for many a year.
HOWE: Rhosgobel, which was Radagast's house...
...was the first original set that we built specifically for The Hobbit.
The sets that were built prior to that were the reconstructing of Rivendell...
...pieces of Rivendell, the reconstructing of Bag End.
There was something whimsical and something colorful and awed about it.
Radagast's house is only alluded to by Tolkien, so it was quite wide open, actually.
LEE: I was very much working with a clean slate...
...because there were no images of it or ideas of it.
And neither John nor myself had ever drawn it before.
JACKSON: I always imagine Rhosgobel to be that cozy little den in the middle of the woods.
I mean, I just had, you know, a very fairy-tale idea of what it would be like.
And then we talked about integrating sort of trees into the design...
...so that Radagast would build his house by a tree and the tree would be part of his house.
And that was where we started and a lot of sketches were done.
I believe we designed Radagast's house at least four or five times.
One design put him under the roots of a tree in kind of a house that he'd built underneath.
And Peter came up with the novel idea...
...that his house isn't built under a tree or next to a tree.
It's got a tree growing up through the middle of it.
JACKSON: And this is Radagast's house. This is your lovely little cottage.
See, the idea with the house is that you built the house--
You know, originally, it looked quite good.
And then a little acorn got dropped on the floor one day out of your pocket...
-...and it sprouted in a bit of dirt on the ﬂoor. - Yeah.
And it grew, and you didn't have the heart to tear it up because you don't destroy things.
So the acorn turned into an enormous tree...
-...which split your house in half. - Yes.
And it was just a silly little whimsical idea that kind of grew in the design.
BRIGHT: Radagast's house was a complicated build.
Structurally, it doesn't work, heh.
You know, visually, structurally, it doesn't work...
...so you had to do all these compensatory measures to make it work.
MASSEY: We actually used the tree, which had a central steel in it...
...to actually hold the house up.
And of course, because the tree was actually dictating how things looked...
...there wasn't a vertical straight line on it.
So that basically, it looked precarious, but it wasn't precarious.
That house is really as cluttered and as convoluted as Radagast's mind.
He experiments with things that give him more knowledge of the world around him.
He's like an astrologer.
There's definitely a touch of T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone...
wand The Book of Merlyn...
...which bore certain similarities to the interior of Radagast's.
Just an accumulation of curiosities.
Rhosgobel is so full of quirky, interesting props.
If you were to walk into his house...
...you would see a good, functioning, working environment.
But then there's this layer of chaos that sits over the top of it.
He had a writing place for writing spells...
...and scales for measuring different ground powders.
You can be fussy and frustrated-- You know, and eccentric and kind of--
Yes.
It was kind of like this crazy chemist's and scientist's.
And he hoarded things. He hoarded remedies and herbs...
...and would make these natural concoctions to cure sick animals.
HENNAH: You know, Radagast loves all things of nature.
And he wouldn't hurt a flea.
He certainly wouldn't hurt a tree.
We've tried to cut out a bit of worn wood which was designed for your hat...
...to sort of slide through that shape.
McCOY: Yes, I can see it. Yes. - Do you know what I mean?
On the interior, there's a branch at head height that he walks past...
...and over the eons of him walking backwards and forwards...
...he has worn a complete silhouette out through the branch where his hat...
...fits perfectly through this branch.
So this is a chair for Radagast.
Sometimes he's had to just repair it with bits of wood...
...or something that he's found around the place.
It all looks quite organic and quite natural, quite makeshift.
I mean, of course, we have our specialized prop makers...
...but we needed to make Radagast's house a little bit more spontaneous...
...so we had some art students and a couple of truck drivers...
...to do some wonderful little crazy weavings.
These people have never done any weaving before.
And they all wove the most outrageously bizarre baskets you'd ever seen.
Which was great, because it breathes life into environments like that.
It is definitely Radagast's house. There's no doubt about that.
HOWE: This lovely little house which looked exactly like the piece of concept art.
There it is. It's magical when that happens.
When an idea can come from Peter through us...
...and then be built by this amazing team of people.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
NARRATOR: The last homely house east of the sea.
That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported...
...a perfect house.
Whether you like food or sleep...
...or storytelling or singing.
Or just sitting and thinking best.
Or a pleasant mixture of them all.
Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.
Rivendell.
AITKEN: Peter had a very clear vision for what he wanted Rivendell to look like.
It had to look beautiful, seductive.
I mean, really, it has to be the place...
...that, ultimately, Bilbo is gonna want to come back to...
...and live in.
You are very welcome to stay here if that is your wish.
FRODO: Bilbo! - Hello, Frodo, my lad.
So it has to be beautiful, it has to be comfortable, sumptuous...
...ornate, attractive.
All those great things.
Because it's an Elven environment, it's beautiful and elegant and stylish.
All the things that Dwarves hate.
On Lord of the Rings, Rivendell was tired. It was really dying.
The Elves are leaving.
So in terms of the color...
...we tended to stay with a lot of silvers and grays underlying color...
...but very muted.
If you could put them side by side...
...The Lord of the Rings Rivendell and The Hobbit Rivendell...
...summer and autumn, you can immediately tell the difference.
In The Hobbit, Rivendell is in full swing.
So once again, more richness in the colors, more detail, more depth.
And more full of life.
VINCENT: it was bathed in golden light.
But the architecture was this sort of vividly light blue with gold highlights...
...which lifted the whole thing quite dramatically.
HENNAH: Elrond's chamber was one of the sets that Peter had decided to keep...
mat the end of Lord of the Rings.
So we were able to resurrect a lot of it.
A lot of the statuary was exactly the same.
All the architectural elements, balustrades, things like that.
We've brought some fabric into the designs...
...so that it felt just a little more homely, I guess.
BRIGHT: it was such a lovely feeling to walk through Elrond's chamber.
And it has some history because we were there 10 years ago.
HENNAH: Up on the balcony in Elrond's chamber...
...behind the statue of Narsil, with the broken Narsil sword...
...was the original Alan Lee painting of Sauron.
You couldn't really see the ring on his finger...
...and it became really important that you could see the ring on his finger.
When I painted this for The Fellowship of the Ring last time, 10 years ago...
...I didn't actually put the ring in.
And so in order to get that little, like, cue in the story now...
...I'm putting in the ring here and that will be used for the close-up.
Ha-ha-ha. Original art.
Well, they do it all the time, you know.
Put a smile on the Mona Lisa. Heh.
LEE: Well, we wanted Rivendell to kind of have a new life in this film...
...and there'll be certain areas that we'll be going to...
...that we didn't go to in The Fellowship.
We never saw the entrance to Rivendell in The Lord of the Rings...
...because the way we get to Rivendell, of course...
...is that Frodo loses consciousness at the banks of the river.
And then he wakes up and he's in a bed.
LEE: Our entry to Rivendell this time...
...is actually a little bit closer to the way that Tolkien described it.
NARRATOR: They saw a valley far below.
They could hear the voice of hurrying water...
...in a rocky bed at the bottom.
The scent of trees was in the air.
And there was a light on the valley-side across the water.
LEE: Looking down on the bridge, you'll see-- Go into this kind of courtyard area...
...which we don't see any of that in The Fellowship.
Rivendell is a classic environment to do a set with digital extensions.
You can't build vast sets that would fill three sound stages.
You have to judiciously choose and build small portions of them...
...but you're imagining the entire space.
SAINDON: We had a full map.
Everything about Rivendell was designed out by Alan Lee and John Howe.
HOWE: This time around, there was much more latitude...
...to make Rivendell a slightly grander place.
Add all of these wonderful vistas that were just impossible to do at the time.
You know, in the time of Lord of the Rings, which is only 10 years ago...
...Rivendell was created almost exclusively as a miniature...
...which was filmed on a miniature shooting stage...
...particularly for wide shots.
But we knew that in The Hobbit, we'd have to be moving through it a lot more.
So if you can go completely digital and still make it look real...
...it gives you a lot of flexibility in how you can design your shots.
What having a digital environment does is it frees me up as a filmmaker...
...to go anywhere and do anything I want with my camera.
AITKEN: By building this whole world...
...you can take footage of Martin as Bilbo on a green screen stage...
...where there's no set at all.
We were able to take that footage and place it wherever Peter likes.
So as Bilbo's exploring Rivendell...
...we can make the most of that by showing the best of the environment.
And I just love the fact that in many of those shots...
...there are detailed water simulations happening quite close to camera...
...that I think are just completely convincing.
The observatory is the one place where you can read moon runes.
The brief for the observatory is that it looks out over the valley.
It's this location that kind of amplifies the moonlight coming in.
The thing that was interesting about that sequence...
...was that we had to establish the mechanics of how the moonlight on this particular night...
...could enable these runes to manifest themselves.
Rather than having Elrond holding it in the light, which is a bit kind of awkward...
...if he places it on something and then, voom, these beams kind of--
What if the table was kind of like an extrusion of crystal coming up through the rock?
JACKSON: Yeah. Yep.
Peter decided that he wanted to use a crystal.
So we drew a crystal that was kind of embedded into this rock.
They built the basic structure on set.
This is the crystal that has moonlight coming up through it.
And-- But we had to wet the set down...
...because it's in amongst a whole lot of waterfalls.
So you'd always wanna feel as though there's moisture in the air...
...moisture on the floor. MAN: Yeah.
HENNAH: It'll all just be slightly reflective.
- So do you wanna see a bit of real magic? - Yes, please.
Can you see the Dwarf runes? The--
- The moon runes? Ah. JACKSON: The moon runes.
WEAVING: Well, I suspect the moon runes might be in here.
FREEMAN: Hang on a second. Hang on a second. WEAVING: Because it sort of--
ALL: Oh!
JACKSON: Look at that. FREEMAN: Wow-wee.
- Well, it's very clever, isn't it? McKELLEN: It is. I know, I like it.
LEE: One of the other places we go to is the White Council chamber.
The actual shape of that derives from something...
...that we built for the miniature in The Fellowship.
Once that you're gonna have the Council of Elrond...
...inside a specially constructed building.
We adapted that for the idea of the White Council chamber.
HENNAH: And that was always a piece that we wanted to build for Rings...
...but, of course, it was never written into the picture.
So suddenly here was a council chamber and an opportunity to use that design.
LEE: We have streams of water kind of flowing through this circular building.
It was surrounded by a series of arches, so you get views all the way around.
HENNAH: One of the thoughts was that the council would be surrounded...
...by these diaphanous beauties.
We want them to be as proportionally correct as possible...
...so our sculptor decided to sculpt the figures as nudes...
...and then apply the clothing in layers of clay over that.
LEE: And they had this elaborate kind of Elven design.
So it felt like a sacred space.
All right, so, what we were gonna do, Cate, this first shot...
...we're gonna have you standing up behind the camera there.
- They've built steps especially for your frock. - Yes, I know.
JACKSON: Have you heard about that? BLANCHETT: Heh-heh-heh.
Peter actually built the steps on which I'm standing for my first reveal...
...specifically to accommodate the frock that Ann designed.
The reveal of Galadriel would be that--
With her standing on this promontory.
We built it and painted it, and it was all looking pretty cool.
And they sent us over a photograph of the costume, which was stunning.
The photograph was taken in the wardrobe room.
There are these steps up to a stage where they present the costumes.
And then as she turns...
WOMAN 1: There it is. Just like that.
WOMAN 2: Yeah. WOMAN 1: That's amazing. It just does it.
WOMAN 2: Yeah. WOMAN 2: The fabric is fantastic.
MAN: It's great. WOMAN 3: It looks amazing.
MAN: It is beautiful, yeah? WOMAN 2: Yeah.
MASKREY: As you can see, this costume's got a really long train...
...which I've always been fond of, but not everyone can make it work.
Cate beautifully did the most perfect turn.
- Just don't ask me to walk anywhere. ALL: Ha-ha-ha.
And Fran and Philippa both said:
"This is it. This is it. This is fantastic.
We need these steps, you know."
it was a Ziegfeld moment, I think.
It was a-- And quite, quite hard.
I had to make sure that it worked because the steps had been built...
...and the frock was so extraordinary, not to wobble.
You can't wobble, you can't trip, and you can't blink if you're an Elf.
What can you do?
It just made sense...
...that we would build steps up to the promontory for the reveal...
...and so thank God we had enough height in our archways to achieve that.
What we were presented with in Rivendell as sets...
...they were brilliant.
Rivendell is a highlight. Always gonna be a highlight.
It's beautiful and it's clean and it's fresh and it's amazing.
A lot's happened to all of us in the last 12 years.
And you think, “Have I polished these memories?
Have I made them more special than they are?"
And when you walk on the set, you think, "No, it actually is special."
It actually is incredibly special.
NARRATOR". He saw that across the valley, the Stone-Giants were out...
...and hurling rocks at one another for a game...
...and catching them and tossing them down in the darkness.
[ROCKS RUMBLING]
THORIN [SINGING]: Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep
And caverns old
With the Misty Mountains, we're returning to a place...
...that we visited in Lord of the Rings.
It's actually the amazing mountain range of the Remarkables near Queenstown.
But this time, we're going to a very different part.
This is where the Stone-Giants live.
I think I was just always intrigued by that little episode in the book...
...in which the Stone-Giants are mentioned just in passing.
It's just a description that Tolkien writes of these battling, warring Stone-Giants...
...which are creating a thunderstorm.
And I just think, "Wow, that would look pretty amazing in a movie."
LEE: In the book, I guess they are a kind of almost a metaphorical idea...
...of a mountain storm, really...
...with avalanches and lightning.
But we weren't dealing with it as a metaphor.
We were actually, you know, creating something for real.
So, for me, it just started with this drawing of the company...
...kind of making their way along a mountain path and then sketching faces in the cliff...
...in quite a distorted and abstracted way.
You know, the image that I had in my mind was part of a mountain coming alive...
...in a vaguely humanoid shape.
But they are the bones of the mountain.
And there's probably many more of them.
The mountains are probably made up of many, many giants...
...and, at times, some of them come to life.
We sort of experimented between more humanoid-looking giants...
...versus more kind of just lumps of mountain.
Alan Lee had done some great artwork...
...showing them just sort of part of the mountainsides...
...and kind of emerging out of them.
I suppose it was the idea that they're kind of so compressed by time...
...and they've been sleeping in the same position for hundreds of years.
Their bodies were kind of distorted by their own weight essentially.
So if they raise their face, their face would actually be flat on one side...
...like when your mother tells you if you pull that face...
...you'll stay that way.
We wanted to get the sense of these characters...
...just ripping themselves out of the rock mountain.
And right off the bat, that spoke to us as being digital.
The Stone-Giants, I think they're 127 meters tall.
They're pretty big.
So of course, from an animation perspective, that meant not letting them move too fast.
There's one scene where the giant sort of emerges out of the rock and wakes up.
And we just had to make sure that, you know, each thing was moving successively.
You know, an arm, a shoulder, a head.
And then a look, just to kind of play out each of those beats one by one.
To help with the sense of scale...
...Chris White and his team would add effects, debris falling out of joints, like...
...you know, just say a joint moved, the rocks would tumble out...
...and they'd be falling quite slowly from a distance.
But then when you cut down to see what the Dwarves are doing...
...they're flying by. If they're on their knee, they're moving in incredible speed.
But when you cut wide, it just looks like these two giant mountains...
...interacting with each other.
So it was quite cool to have that kind of range within the one sequence.
MAN: The rocks...
The Stone-Giants sequence is complicated...
...because it required, you know, a real amalgam of live-action filming...
...with the actors on a mountain ledge, plus the giants and the storm and the CG.
So the best way to approach a scene like that is to previs it...
...and to plan it very carefully.
Yeah, you should just be pulling back and the impact, bang.
Peter just loved the idea of this big kind of brawl happening in the mountains-.
CLAYTON: So in order to come up with ideas for dynamic fight shots...
...we really just left it to the imaginations of the animators.
It started out with a big punch. Peter would go, “Are we really getting the most out of this shot?
Show me some options."
And Joe Letteri came up with a headbutt idea.
I said to Peter, "How about if we have them headbutt each other?"
And he said, "Sure, try it," so... Ha-ha-ha.
You know, just looking for something different for them to do.
It's like, "Well, these are giants, so if they're gonna get into a physical fight...
...they're gonna headbutt."
LEE: They also thought that maybe the rocks that they were kind of grabbing...
...weren't necessarily just boulders.
Maybe they turned out to be the head of another giant.
So if you look really carefully as the rock's flying through the air...
...there's just a tiny hint of a face that's carved into this rock.
The other thing we were looking to do in the sequence...
...was to keep the giants very shadowed and almost mysterious.
So they were just large forms...
...that kind of played against the brightness of the sky behind them.
CLAYTON: Because you've only got a limited range of motion within each shot...
...you have to pick good, clear, dynamic poses...
...that are readable.
Often, there'd be lightning striking in the background, casting them into silhouette.
WHITE: We treat the giants as if they're part of the landscape.
So instead of lighting them as a character or as a creature...
...they would pick up more the tones in the lighting of a mountain, say for instance.
So the light is very dappled.
It comes through in certain areas and it breaks up in other areas.
Some of the things we had to develop for these shots is elements like fog and rain...
...to make sure you had that sense of the Dwarves traveling through the storm.
And, you know, the scene that was shot ultimately was very, very similar...
...to the original animatic.
The Stone-Giants sequence doesn't really have any impact on the story, really.
I suppose you could argue it does force them to shelter in a cave...
...which actually does have ramifications.
So, you know, they do actually have a part to play, but nonetheless it's just cool.
I mean, if I was going to a Tolkien movie, I'd wanna see the Stone-Giants.
And I'm just lucky because I get to make the movie, so--
The Stone-Giants are there.
It's just that's the type of fantasy, the type of escapism I love.
NARRATOR: It was deep, deep dark...
...such as only Goblins that have taken to living in the heart of mountains can see through.
HOWE: Goblin-town in the book is sort of a dark, horrible place...
...with a very fat king sitting on a stone...
...and that's really all that Tolkien tells us.
I mean, they're in the mountains. What does Goblin-town look like?
How did they build it? Is it a stone city?
And we didn't really wanna do a stone city.
It's coming up with something that isn't-- That feels fresh and new...
...that we haven't seen before too, which is a bit tricky.
You know, you got the sense that Peter wanted something unique...
...and Alan and John were doing lots of sketches for it.
It's like cracking the code of what it is that makes it cool to look at.
This is interesting, isn't it?
With Peter, there'd be certain drawings that really work for him.
And there was one drawing of mine in particular...
...which showed this chasm just full of very temporary structures...
...all kind of balanced precariously along the side of this canyon of rotted rock.
It was this idea that you just kind of came in to Goblin-town...
...and you saw these Goblins sort of all around you...
...in this kind of almost shantytown built into the sides of the cavern.
These Goblins have colonized a little bit like lice in the seams of clothing.
Their purpose in life, what these Goblins do, is they scavenge and they take prisoners.
They're sort of the highwaymen of Middle-earth in a way.
So we came up with the idea that everything in there is scavenged from the outside world...
...that they go on raiding parties at night and they steal bits of architecture.
They steal stuff that's lying around farmhouses.
They probably kill the farmers and they bring the stuff back.
LETTERI: This is evil. This is what comes into your house at night...
...you know, when you don't want it to.
And this is where all of it goes.
LEE: And Peter had the idea that they would use this stuff...
...but they would use it in the wrong way.
They wouldn't really quite understand the purpose.
So you might get a piece of a cart that was built into a walkway.
And the wheels of the cart to roll a rope around so they could haul something up.
They were kind of imitating what they thought should be the good life. Heh.
So we're now starting to see other structures on the other side.
There's not really many bridges joining them.
There are kind of, like, more buildings over there.
Maybe we could just open it up slightly here.
LETTERI: We start constructing this world piece by piece.
And then it gets closer and closer to the time when we have to shoot something on set.
And the question becomes, "Okay, right, what do the actors have to work with?
How much of this can and should we build physically?"
Now, there's seven background pieces.
Often we built pretty meticulous models which then Peter could look at and say:
"Well, I won't be needing that bit, but I will need something over here."
You know, so he could get his head around how his action was gonna work inside that set.
All of this is a movable face, so we can go through it and back through it...
...and around and swoop this bit over here and put that as a bridge.
And they eventually get up onto this platform, which breaks.
- So how does it break? - Well, basically, the top pieces lift off.
This is one that drops down...
...so they could slide down. MAN: Yeah.
BRIGHT: We had to re-create all of these set pieces...
...that looked randomly strapped together on stilts and poles.
Jesus! Have you got it?
- Yeah, I've got the bottom. MAN: He's getting away.
WOMAN 1: I got him. I got him. WOMAN 2: He died.
MAN: That's fine.
HENNAH: We've made a lot of generic pieces...
...walkways, rock faces, that are all interchangeable.
So our little night fairies can come in and shift the whole set around.
Bring in a rock wall, another walkway around a corner.
And we keep changing this thing around night by night.
BRIGHT: The shooting crew would turn up the next day...
...and have a completely different set to work with.
[HUMMING]
I'm sitting here on part of the Goblin set.
This is the Goblins' cave and it is an incredible set.
It was almost like a medieval vision of hell.
Everything was misshapen and grotesque and felt dangerous.
It was, of course, constructed of rubbish.
Terrible skeletons.
It's a forensic paradise.
WOMAN: Slime.
No one's to leave home without at least five skulls.
MAN: Yep.
[LAUGHING]
There's a lot of gore, and Peter likes that stuff, you know.
He loves layers of dressing that tells a story.
WOMAN: Do you have nightmares?
I do have nightmares, and then I come to work and I dress them into the set.
BRIGHT: And introducing all the dressings...
...you definitely throw your mind into the way Goblins might think.
I'd have to describe the Goblin aesthetic as being drunken madmen, really.
You know, make it as rough and mental...
...with as few skills as you could and still make the thing work.
LEE: I kind of exemplified that with the Goblin king's throne...
...which was a bed essentially broken in half.
JACKSON: Yeah. Right, yeah. - And it'll all be made gilt.
- Double bed, you know. JACKSON: Yeah, right. Oh, I see.
MAN: Converted into-- Right. JACKSON: A throne, yeah.
JACKSON: Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's great.
LEE: We thought that might have belonged to some prince...
...that was being transported in some kind of marriage train or something.
We're also gonna decorate the bed...
...with gold leaf and little kind of rococo cupids...
...that will play to his kind of air of sophistication.
He thought of himself as being something of a connoisseur.
JACKSON: I'll tell you what would be really funny.
They have a hole in the bottom and a large pot underneath...
...which your imagination can only go to what's in the pot.
MAN 1: Yeah. MAN 2: Yeah. Ha, ha.
Yeah, so there's your throne and your toilet is just full below.
- You see him occasionally straining. - Ha, ha, yeah.
That's right.
- Yep. - Wonderful.
[JACKSON LAUGHING]
Somewhere in Pete's mind, he's decided that the Goblin sits on this huge commode...
...with this big pile of dump underneath it.
I never thought I'd be seeing this aspect of Kiwi life.
[WOMAN LAUGHING]
Oh! Barry Humphries sitting on a throne, underneath was a pile of shit.
You know, whoa.
This is a family film...
...but the Goblin king is, amongst other things...
...grossly incontinent.
So from time to time, a beautifully crafted urn beneath the throne...
...receives a complement of matter.
Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom?
SAINDON: The sets, a lot of them are very, very large.
But that said, we need to make everything, obviously, a lot bigger.
So when we film on these sets, we always have lots of artwork from John and Alan...
...to have a good idea of what might be back there.
SAINDON: They're not only designing what was filmed...
...but they're also designing what is built in the digital world.
After we stopped filming, we actually hired Alan and John into Weta...
...to really help lay out and design each sequence as we go.
The point of that was finishing off the job that we had started, essentially.
A concept artist's work is never done.
It's as if you can keep conceptualizing...
...as long as there's still a shot that has an empty spot.
So Alan and John were able to give us sketches on top of the plates...
...of what the environment would look like.
Is there a shantytown over here? ls there a drop over there?
WHITE: You never think about how important something as simple as rocks are.
But they're actually important for defining the environment.
A lot of the rocks in Goblin-town are actually based on photographs...
...taken on the beach out in front of Peter's place.
MAN: The reference I was gonna show you for rocks was actually--
JACKSON: Yeah, let me look at whatever you've got.
JACKSON: It is a bit like this, isn't it? MAN: Yeah.
It was basically, to a degree, the same rocks...
...that we used in Mordor for Lord of the Rings.
Somehow it felt perfectly natural to have this corrupted rock full of holes...
...almost as though it was being eaten away...
...by the corrosive nature, even, of the Goblins themselves.
It's finding stuff that looks aggressive, creepy and violent.
And I think this area's great.
Our Modeling team was able to recreate this look.
MAN: So, what we have to do is we have to make a real digital environment...
...that represents John and Alan's artwork as much as possible.
And the easiest way to do that is to look at the real thing.
Rather than completely create a Goblin-town set that works from A to B to C to D...
...you've gotta, you know, treat it like a whole lot of different sets...
...and have the ability to change and blow out wide when you need to and close in.
So we sort of create what we call, like, a Lego set of components...
...like bits of wall and lots of little gantries and ladders...
...and then you sort of build them to what you need the shot to be.
[GOBLINS SCREECHING]
I haven't abandoned sketchbooks entirely.
So this is where the Dwarves will come rushing up here...
...onto this structure, which they cut loose and it swings across this chasm.
So the Goblins are stuck on the other side.
They actually swing across and back and then across again.
[BRIDGE GROANS]
We kind of mapped out the path which the Dwarves would travel.
One thing that Peter asked for was that he wanted it to feel...
...like you're traveling through and seeing these different places.
SAINDON: It was all backwards-engineered from the throne.
We knew they had to get onto a bridge at some point...
...and fall down a cliff side and end up at the bottom of a ravine.
And then backwards-engineer everything between those two points...
...into this huge universe.
I think Goblin-town is perhaps the most collaborative...
...of the environments that we did. There's bits of everybody.
SAINDON: And we ended up with one big digital world.
You can essentially fly a camera all the way through Goblin-town...
...which allowed Peter to go in and put a camera anywhere he wanted...
...and see the world.
JACKSON: That allows me to be a little bit more adventurous...
...and have a bit more fun as the filmmaker.
And if the animation is done well and the lighting and compositing is done well...
...then it just opens up so many possibilities.
[ALL YELLING]
JACKSON: It was an absolute joy to come back to Middle-earth again.
It was almost like you're turning the page of the history book...
...going to a new chapter and going back in that world...
...but seeing new things, places you haven't been to before.
Middle-earth is so diverse and there's so many different environments.
You may be creating something beautiful one moment, something dangerous the next.
It's just a lot of complexity.
We had all these wonderful, wonderful people making things.
And they all gave it 100 percent in time and energy and creativity...
...to bring Tolkien's vision to the screen.
TURNER: The way these sets are constructed, it's quite amazing.
I mean, you are, with the suspension of a few things...
...you're kind of really there.
FREEMAN: I've run out of superlatives...
...to describe the places we get to work in, you know.
And just how people have managed to build them.
BRIGHT: it was an amazing effort by so many people.
And to see the success of such a final product is really overwhelming.
This is my dream job.
Who else gets to really conceive wonderful things...
...and have them created by some of the world's best makers...
...and then be able to present it in a place like this film...
...to the rest of the world?
- Bye to the fans. - Bye.
All right, see you. Bye-bye.
[SINGING] The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Tolkien always referred to himself as a composer of words.
[SINGING IN ELVISH]
FRODO: Who is she?
This woman you sing of.
ADAMS: I always think he used songs as a third voice.
You have dialogue:
NARRATOR: "Yes, it is Elves," said Frodo.
Wood-elves.
ADAMS: You have a narrator:
NARRATOR". The singing drew nearer.
ADAMS: And you have these songs that sort of give you another window into that world.
[ELVES SINGING IN ELVISH]
EDEN: What we're seeing in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit...
...is that music and songs are infused throughout.
[SINGING] To heal my heart and drown my woe
Rain may fall and wind may blow
But there still be
Many miles to go
So this time around, when we were doing The Hobbit, Philippa, Fran and I just said:
"Well, maybe because it is a little bit more of a 'children's story'...
...maybe we can get some more songs from the book."
BILBO [SINGING]: The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door
Until our next meeting.
BOYENS: When we were writing the scripts, we had a sense that we probably wanted...
...to use some of those great songs that are in there.
And it becomes hard to imagine telling the scene...
...of 13 Dwarves squashed into Bilbo's little dining room...
...without doing "Blunt the Knives."
Then he said, "Did you hear that, ladsies? He says we'll blunt the knives."
ADAMS: Tolkien is showing you your first glimpse of Dwarvish culture...
...and he's also showing you how well they work as a unit.
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
[SINGING] Blunt the knives, bend the forks
Smash the bottles and burn the corks
Then they start literally frisbee-ing plates down the corridor.
And they're sort of really taking the mick out of Bilbo, they start to wind him up a bit.
[SINGING] That's what Bilbo Baggins hates
But in the end, Tolkien uses this song...
...to show that they know how to be civilized.
Bilbo notices that even though they made a huge mess, they cleaned up the place.
[DWARVES LAUGHING]
To come up with the music for "Blunt the Knives"...
...we turned to Steve Gallagher, who's one of our music editors...
...but is also a wonderful composer himself.
Their instructions were that it was to be a rambunctious...
...almost like a pub sing-along.
[SINGING] Send them down the hall to roll
One of the things that Fran suggested to me when I started writing "Blunt the Knives"...
...was that I should definitely pay respect to Tolkien's words.
She said, "Try rearranging some of them...
...if you find them hard to scan or hard to place beats on."
[SINGING] Blunt the knives, bend the forks
Smash the bottles and burn the corks
GALLAGHER: In the first verse here, Tolkien started with:
[GALLAGHER READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
We just swapped the two lines around so they read:
[GALLAGHER READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
We left that in as that unison cry of the Dwarves taunting him.
[SINGING] That's what Bilbo Baggins hates
Initially, in the "Blunt the Knives" demo, there was an instrumental part.
EDEN: In the book, each of the Dwarves...
...when they enter Bilbo's house, have an instrument.
So it shows you that the Dwarves are very musical people.
In the film version, we only have two.
And at the time, I thought, "Well, I'll have to hire some musicians to play this."
And Fran pulled me aside and said:
"You should ask Jimmy Nesbitt to play the tin flute solo."
And Jimmy sort of thought for a minute and he said:
“Well, I'm not very good.
I'll bring my ﬂute in and we'll try it out."
[SINGING] Send them down the hall to roll
[FLUTE PLAYING]
He just pulled it out of the bag and my jaw dropped open and went:
“Fantastic. You're hired."
[FLUTE PLAYING]
I didn't know I was gonna play the tin whistle and that's still in there. So that was exciting.
GALLAGHER: One of the challenges was making the sounds of Dwalin's fiddle.
JACKSON: It's like a little Dwarf ukulele. MAN 1: Yeah.
MAN 2: It's something he could carry in his pants.
JACKSON: Does it work?
- No. And I couldn't play anyways. JACKSON: Can you give us a tune?
Oh, rubbish.
GALLAGHER: I sort of did some research into Nordic music...
...and the sounds of the Hardanger, which is like a medieval violin...
...and it has a lower tuning than your standard concert violin.
I couldn't find any of these instruments in New Zealand...
...but I decided that to make the fiddle sound...
...it would be nice to sort of combine some elements of two instruments.
So we had a bowed banjo...
...and this quite low-tuned violin.
And we layered that up with the bowed banjo and that's what you hear in the film.
DWARVES [SINGING]: Splash the wine on every door
[HUMMING]
It's almost like a music video actually, this routine.
WOMAN: And roll!
[SINGING] Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl
Pound them up with a thumping pole
I guess I can just mark this off as I've been in a semi-musical...
...and then call it a day.
[FLUTE PLAYING]
One thing that Peter and Fran asked for...
...was that the song was supported by the Dwarves making rhythms...
...and incorporating these sounds...
...and then the rhythm of these sounds into the piece.
And so we went into the Foley room...
...and we had four of us standing there, stomping away...
...trying to lock everything in time to that rhythm.
Whether it was a plate ting...
...or a cutlery hit.
We had a lot of fun actually just trying to make the sound effects really meld into that music.
[SINGING] That's what Bilbo Baggins hates
[LAUGHING]
[DOORBELL RINGS]
GANDALF: He is here.
ADAMS: And then Thorin shows up and the mood changes.
So the filmmakers really use these songs to introduce character...
...as well as culture.
NARRATOR: And suddenly, first one and then another began to sing as they played...
...deep-throated singing of the Dwarves...
...in the deep places of their ancient homes.
[DWARVES HUMMING]
ARMITAGE: I always believed that it would be a song that had been passed on...
...generation after generation...
...so that you didn't forget what happened there.
[SINGING] Far over
The misty mountains cold
I think the "Misty Mountain" song is their history encapsulated.
When I first heard it, I immediately brought to my mind...
...these are medieval Icelandic Dwarves.
The Dwarves that Tolkien had in his mind that influenced him...
...early on in his career.
In fact, the names of the Dwarves...
...Tolkien took directly from The Poetic Edda, which is a group of medieval Norse sagas.
And when we cut, a little bit later, and the Dwarves are gathered...
...staring at the fire, and Thorin begins to sing in a low voice.
[SINGING] Far over the Misty Mountains cold
To dungeons deep
And caverns old
We must away
'Ere break of day
To find our long-forgotten gold
In The Hobbit, we were shooting the movie a long time...
...before Howard Shore worked on the score...
...and we needed the actors on the set to be able to sing these songs...
...and so we turned to Plan 9...
...a wonderful group of musicians here in New Zealand.
And we've often turned to Plan 9 to provide practical music...
...that we need on set...
[MUSICIANS PLAYING FOLK MUSIC]
If we have a party scene and we need dancing...
...we need singing in a pub.
[SINGING] But the only brew for the brave and true
Comes from the Green Dragon
And they came up with the "Misty Mountains" tune.
We knew that the Dwarven culture was one that they were great singers, you know.
RODDICK: Something that everybody in the culture would do.
I can imagine the "Misty Mountain" song, then, sort of sung in a cavern.
You know, they're miners, and that song being sung in a large space...
...would be beautiful.
So it needed to have that simple shape.
Quite a simple folk song, you know, like with sort of three or four chords.
So we had a few different versions of that.
How many demos did we have of "Misty Mountain"?
- Six or eight. - I think we did eight.
[SINGING] Far over the Misty Mountains cold
CHORUS [SINGING]: To dungeons deep
And caverns old
There was one that goes:
[SINGING] Far over the Misty Mountains cold
Where caverns deep and canyons old
CHORUS". We must away
'Ere break of day
To find our long-forgotten gold
- We didn't know which one they would want. - No.
That's really interesting. You sort of send them off and you go:
CHORUS: The pines were roaring on the height
The winds were moaning in the night
The fire was red, it flaming spread
The trees like torches blazed with light
I think what David Long and Plan 9 did with the "Misty Mountain" song...
...is combined the two tones that Howard Shore in Lord of the Rings set out...
...as the paradigms of Dwarvish culture, musically speaking.
[ORCHESTRA PLAYING]
You have the sound of these very minor, regretful harmonies...
...in parts of "Dwarrowdelf."
And you have the male voices, which were associated with Moria.
[SINGING IN DWARVISH]
The chorus is the Dwarf chorus...
...and they're singing in this ancient Dwarvish language.
[CHOIR SINGING AND ORCHESTRA PLAYING]
ADAMS: Combining those two tones...
...is largely what results in the "Misty Mountain" song.
You have a very minor moded tune with male voices.
[SINGING] To find our long-forgotten gold
We were doing Richard Armitage's audition...
...and he was just about to leave and I was looking down at some of my notes...
...and I suddenly go, “Oh, yeah, of course. 'Misty Mountains."'
And I said to him, "Can you sing?"
And he sort of went, "Well, yeah."
Which was really funny because that-- Boy, can that guy sing.
[SINGING] Far over
The misty mountains cold
Far over
Wow, it comes out of nowhere.
It's just-- What a beautiful voice.
I hate him.
There is something religious about the sound...
...but it needed to be right from the gut, right from the core...
...not too much of a performance.
It's very personal how these voices are blending.
[SINGING] Far over
The misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep
And caverns old
It turns out that as an ensemble...
...we have a beautiful, kind of resonant choir within.
'Ere break of day
To find our long-forgotten gold
JACKSON: So is everyone good to shoot? MAN: Yeah.
Good.
Towards the end of the song, I think it's good if Richard turns around...
...and connects with you guys...
...and then just as the song reaches its finale...
...you know, in the last verse or something, you can start to look up at Richard...
...and that might draw the last couple of you to your feet.
- All right, well, let's give it a go, eh? Shoot? - Yeah.
- Set. WOMAN: And playback.
DWARVES [SINGING]: The pines were roaring
On the height
You really did feel that coming-together feeling...
...while we were shooting that scene.
It really sums up the atmosphere of what's about to happen...
...and where we're gonna go on our journey.
[SINGING] The trees like torches
Blazed with light
And then, I guess, it made sense...
...that that song would become the theme of their quest.
ADAMS: You actually get a lot of the "Misty Mountain" song...
...in Howard Shore's score of the film.
And I like the fact that the score shows you these variations in that theme...
...and gives you the sense that maybe what we hear in Bag End...
...isn't the only way the song is ever sung.
BOTH [SINGING]: Far over the misty mountains cold
[IMITATING ELECTRIC GUITAR]
HUNTER: To dungeons deep
And caverns old
[IMITATING ELECTRIC GUITAR AND DRUMS]
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
Change the tune, why don't you?
I feel like I'm at a funeral.
Bofur's song at Rivendell is there for a purpose in the story.
[CLEARS THROAT]
[SINGING] There's
An
Inn, there's an inn There's a merry old inn
Beneath an old gray hill
We wanted something that was an opportunity for the Dwarves...
...to really thumb their nose at the Elves, you know, to be disrespectful.
And having one of the Dwarves jump up on the sacred plinth...
Oh
...which is the same plinth that the One Ring is put on, heh...
...later in the Lord of the Rings, and starts singing a pub song.
The Man in the Moon Himself came down one night
To drink his fill
We just thought that's a great, you know, device...
...to show how the Dwarves don't really have any respect whatsoever for the Elves.
So we then thought, “Okay, what can he sing?"
And it was a bit naughty of us.
What we ended up doing was taking a song that Frodo sings...
...when he's in the Prancing Pony...
...and we never got to use it in the Lord of the Rings.
NARRATOR". For a moment, Frodo stood gaping.
Then in desperation, he began a ridiculous song...
...that Bilbo had been rather fond of, and indeed, rather proud of...
...for he had made up the words himself.
Tolkien was very interested in how songs and stories survived...
...and how they might have been in previous cultures.
So the "Man in the Moon" is Tolkien's pre-history...
...of the "Hey, Diddle, Diddle" nursery rhyme.
BOFUR [SINGING]: So the cat on the fiddle
Played hey-diddle-diddle A drink that'll wake the dead
It gives you a sense that maybe there's a link...
...between modern-day real world and the history of Middle-earth.
It's interesting that in this particular version of The Hobbit...
...we have Bofur, the Dwarf, singing it on a table...
...similar to Frodo in the Lord of the Rings.
Now purring low
Now sawing in the middle
BOYENS: So either Bilbo learned it off Bofur...
...or Bilbo had written it on the journey to Rivendell...
...and taught it to Bofur.
You decide.
MAN: Lovely. - So you're gonna be chorus master.
Why, it's not-- Well-- Yeah.
It's good because he knows the words really well.
Jimmy came up with that tune himself.
He did it all himself.
Fran invited Jimmy to come over to our house...
...and to work up a tune.
So anyway, I went home and I thought, "What the hell am I gonna do?"
You know, I'm not a songwriter, you know.
But I showed it to Peggy, my eldest...
...and I said, “I think it's kind of like a drinking-type song."
She looked at the words and she said:
"You should have a kind of a 'unh-unh-unh' beat in your head."
And then it sort of came together. I just sort of looked at it and I went:
[SINGING] There's an inn, there's an inn There's a merry old inn
Beneath an old gray hill
Then that naturally goes:
And there they brew a beer so brown
The Man in the Moon Himself came down one night
To drink his fill
I remember having to play it to Peter on a Sunday.
I went into Peter's bedroom, he was drinking tea...
...and watching Rugby whilst reading the Economist. There you have Peter Jackson.
And there they brew a beer so brown
What makes a good pub song is something that people can join in with.
[HUMMING]
[SINGING] The man in the moon himself Came down one night
To drink his fill
Oh
And there they brew a beer so brown
Beneath the old gray hill
Totally out of tune. It's not even close to the tune.
- Well-- -it's just rubbish.
[SINGING] While the landlord shook The Man in the Moon
"it's after three!" he said
It would be great if Dwalin just yelled the whole thing.
MAN: Yep.
- So the cat... McTAVISH: Oh!
[IN GRUFF VOICE] The ostler had a tipsy cat!
They sort of just let you go with things. That's what was weird about it.
This massive, massive, you know, thing...
...but also they say, “Oh, you can write that song."
Or "if you come up with a tune, we'll record it." Heh.
[SINGING] They all went back to bed
Hey!
That's music.
[HORN BLOWS]
ADAMS: The fact that the villains have a song too...
...says something about the pervasiveness of music in Middle-earth.
[NARRATOR READING ON-SCREEN TEXT]
The "Down, Down in Goblin-town" song...
...really gives you, right away, a peek into the identity of this people...
...and so we hear that the Goblins like to crack and snap bones.
ADAMS: In the book, you hear it before you meet the Great Goblin.
In the film, it's really the Great Goblin introducing himself.
I feel a song coming on.
I'm very happy to say that my character has a song in this movie.
[SINGING] Pound, pound Far underground
Catchy, isn't it?
It's one of my own compositions.
It's a hate-filled number...
...which I think children will enjoy...
...and senior citizens will appreciate.
GREAT GOBLIN [SINGING]: Clap, snap The black crack
HUMPHRIES: It's entirely about destruction...
...death and torture.
But I try to do it in a sympathetic way.
[SINGING] Down, down to Goblin-town
"Down, down, down to Goblin-town" was the catch phrase...
...so it's a great, great line...
...and really lended itself quite well to sort of musical adaptation.
They did play a recording of the composer singing it.
GALLAGHER [SINGING]: Clap, snap The black crack
Grip, grab Pinch and nab
He looked at it, listened to it, then he looked up and he said, "This is all wrong."
My character is tone deaf...
...and so I had to do what is an extremely difficult thing...
...for a person like me who sings beautifully.
I had to sing it badly.
[SINGING] Pound, pound Far underground
He went through the lines and said, "Well, I don't think the Goblin King would sing it like that.
I think he'd sing it like this." He was right.
Flatterer.
GALLAGHER: The song is kind of reversed engineered in a sense.
His performance was the starting point.
Yeah!
GALLAGHER: And we based all of the instrumentation...
...and all harmony around his performance.
Hmm. It's metal, it dings...
...it shall be Goblin.
The sound designer, Dave Whitehead, and I set up a percussion orchestra...
...in the ADR room at Park Road Post.
WHITEHEAD: Peter said that the Goblins were scavengers...
...and that they would gather bits and pieces from the world above.
GALLAGHER: They're taking this junk that maybe other cultures would throw away...
...and they're using it for actual useful, and in this case, musical ends.
Some of the things we recorded were actually unlistenable.
They were so sort of, um, abrasive.
WHITEHEAD: I do think you have to become a Goblin to make Goblin sounds.
That's mine.
WHITEHEAD: So once we got the percussion into a really good shape...
...we actually played it to Peter and he said that he would like to have horns.
[BLOWING]
Dave Whitehead has made some amazing horns from a combination of different things.
And so we have a modified didgeridoo...
...modified with the classic rubber glove and a children's noisemaker.
[BLOWING]
When we work on a film, we have to look at the space that the scene is set in.
The Goblin-town is in a huge cave...
...and, obviously, the set wasn't a huge cave...
...and so we had a team go out to Waitomo Caves...
...which is in the middle of the North Island.
You know, it's the classic dripping cave with the stalactites and stalagmites.
Four of the crew went up there...
...to record what we call impulse responses of the cave.
The sound that goes:
[HUMS]
From low up to high.
[BEEPS]
This is pretty much taking like a sound photograph...
...of the echoes and reverbs of a room.
And so then we can take this sound photograph...
...put it in our software, have Barry Humphries sing...
...and it sounds like he is singing in Waitomo Caves.
[SINGING] Down, down, down in Goblin-town
I'm convinced that the song will be a huge hit.
It could even go platinum. Heh, heh.
[GROWLING]
BOYENS: We weren't sure there was gonna be an end song.
We were pretty rushed.
Initially we wondered about reprising...
...the Dwarves singing "Misty Mountains." We did. We tried it.
[OVER SPEAKERS] Far over the misty mountains cold
It was way too slow. Then we were thinking about "Maybe someone else could sing it."
And Fran and I were in my car, the radio was on...
...and Neil Finn was singing.
Fran was like, "Well, he could do it."
And I said, “He really could. Do you think he would?"
Sol rang him. He was in England.
I got a call, only a matter of two weeks ago...
...and now I'm working on some music...
...which will occupy a place at the end of the movie.
[SINGING] Far over the Misty Mountains cold
My brief was a reprise of "Misty Mountain."
I just explored the melody as much as I could...
...and tried to find my own voice for it.
I brought it up in key a little.
To find our long-forgotten gold
BOYENS: Neil Finn was incredible.
He understood the flavor and the feel of what we were going for...
...but he needed to make it his own.
It couldn't just be a reprise of the Dwarves' "Misty Mountains."
So he came up with the lyrics, and we loved them.
FINN: I think the lyrics ended up being quite specifically...
...about that moment in the story where they're perched on the rock...
...looking with some hope towards their ancient homeland.
Our home.
Was long ago
When lanterns burned
But every day
Our hearts have yearned
The first sign of the Dwarven influence was drums turning up.
It would be good to put...
-...some "ba-rums" into the chorus. - Yeah.
FINN: Above the stony hill
The {eaves of wind
The addition of big manly percussion...
...that would give a certain rousing Dwarvish quality to it.
[NEIL FINN'S "SONG OF THE LONELY MOUNTAIN" PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]
Anvil was just obvious. They're a mining folk, those Dwarves.
Within Erebor, there would have been the sound of mighty anvils being struck.
God bless the anvil.
[MAN GROANS]
MAN: Three, two, one!
[CROWD CHEERS]
FINN: We were delighted to be asked to play the song...
...in front of the assembled throng in Wellington for the premiere.
This is for Peter, Fran and Philippa. Thank you.
I think it had great heart and great spirit on the day.
[SINGING] Far over
The misty mountains rise
Leave us standing
Upon the height
What was before
We'll see once more
is our kingdom a distant light
FINN: it was an epic day.
People from all over the world who were just nuts for Middle-earth.
YORKE: So many people turned out. It was such an amazing experience.
Surrounded by the people that you've worked with...
...for the last three years.
We'll be there soon
I actually never thought that we would ever be lucky enough...
...to get to work in Middle-earth again.
SERKIS: I don't think this is the end.
I can't imagine there won't be another thing that we'll come back to do.
And all who find us will know the tune
HADLOW: What a journey.
Let me do it again. Can we start again now?
I think I will miss the camaraderie the most...
...coming onto set every day and seeing your colleagues.
McTAVISH: I think that's a measure of what this experience has been like for people.
You can have truly life-changing moments while you're here...
...for that amount of time.
This is absolutely unbelievable.
Everybody that's come to help us celebrate this film.
You know, The Lord of the Rings was such a great experience...
...and now we've been able to take The Hobbit...
...and it seems like fate's meant for us to be here.
FINN [SINGING]: Until we get our long-forgotten gold
Far away
The misty mountains cold
Thank you.