The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Trailer
A curious Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, journeys to the Lonely Mountain with a vigorous group of Dwarves to reclaim a treasure stolen from them by the dragon Smaug.
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While not all their characters appear in J.R.R. Tolkien's famous novel, Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies were a chance for some of the key actors to return to roles they clearly relished while making the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Among the cast who headed back to the New Zealand shoot were Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf, Cate Blanchett as the ethereal Galadriel, Hugo Weaving as the wise Elrond, Elijah Wood as the brave hobbit Frodo and Andy Serkis as the dark, troubled Gollum.
But it was the casting of Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit who joins 13 dwarves on a dangerous adventure to reclaim their kingdom, that caused Jackson the most grief. So much so that, after being convinced Martin Freeman was the perfect choice, he decided to break up the Hobbit shoot so the English actor best-known for The Office and Love Actually could work around filming the second season of the TV series Sherlock.
Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins.
In Wellington for the world premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a grateful Freeman says that one of the best experiences making the movie was the people he met.
''In a story, after all, that is about loyalty and friendship and those kind of issues, it was really nice to meet people who do become your real friends,'' he says. ''It was lovely. Pete is one of them.''
For Serkis, the new Middle-earth trilogy was a chance to get more involved behind the scenes as second-unit director. ''I think one of the reasons that [Jackson] wanted me to be there was because I'd been through the whole Middle-earth experience before and he knew that I'd been wanting to direct for a long time,'' he says.
Serkis, who also joined Jackson on King Kong, playing both the giant ape in performance capture and the ship's cook, has previously directed video games and the short film Snake. On The Hobbit, he particularly enjoyed working with the dwarves.
Among them, Richard Armitage (Captain America) plays the fearless dwarf prince Thorin Oakenshield, James Nesbitt (Match Point) is the endearing Bofur and Sydney-based Kiwi Stephen Hunter (All Saints) is the ever-hungry Bombur.
''We had a great time,'' Serkis says. ''The early sequences particularly, when they were trying to discover their characters in Bag End particularly, they turned into a bunch of frat boys.''
Gollum, of course, is an especially memorable character from The Lord of the Rings, with his conflicted mutterings and desperate craving for the precious ring. Serkis says it did not take long to get back into character.
''It's never really been that far away, I have to say,'' he says.
''But I suppose the first day it's like kind of doing a weird impersonation because so many people on a regular basis do impersonations of Gollum. ''
Garry Maddox travelled to Wellington courtesy of Warner Bros and Tourism New Zealand.
GENRE Fantasy epic based on Tolkien's famous novel.
CRITICAL BUZZ Peter Jackson returns to Middle-earth.
STARS Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis.
DIRECTOR Peter Jackson.
RELEASE Boxing Day.
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