{"id":779,"date":"2013-12-13T02:17:51","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T00:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=779"},"modified":"2013-12-13T02:19:17","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T00:19:17","slug":"the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug-cast-and-crew-qa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2013\/12\/13\/the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug-cast-and-crew-qa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug: Cast And Crew Q&A"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug<\/a>, the second in The Hobbit trilogy, and continuing on where The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey left off.<\/p>\n

Following Bilbo Baggins and his group of thirteen Dwarves and the Wizard Gandalf, led by Thorin, as they continue their epic quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor.<\/p>\n

Filmed in 3D, at 48 FPS (frames per second), the film is set to not only wow audiences with its epic story, but is at the cusp of a change in the way films may be presented in the near future. 3D has already improved in leaps and bounds to become a viable addition to both the enjoyment of film and it’s box-office takings, both at the cinema and in the home market, and providing the viewer with a smoother and clearer portrayal of that image maybe be the next leap.<\/p>\n

SAMDB was able to secure some Q&A’s with both the principle cast, director and some of the crew of The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, provided courtesy of Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\"hobbitdesolationofsmaug2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Q&A With\u00a0Richard Armitage (Thorin), Evangline Lilly (Tauriel), Luke Evans (Bard), Benedict Cumberbatch (Smaug), Dean O\u2019Gorman (Fili),\u00a0Aidan Turner (Kili), Philippa Boyens (Screenplay)\u00a0and Peter Jackson (Screenplay\/Director\/Producer<\/h6>\n

QUESTION:\u00a0Benedict, can you talk about playing Smaug and the experience of traveling to New Zealand to work with Peter Jackson on this film?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: \u00a0Yes, I did go to New Zealand. \u00a0It was hugely, hugely helpful. \u00a0I started off with Peter, Fran [Walsh] and Philippa, just the three of them and me, which was a privilege in itself, because of how large everything else is on this film, to have their sole attention. \u00a0And we were in the mo-cap [motion capture] stage, so it began as a physicalization, face and body work, and voice–the whole thing.<\/p>\n

I discovered him via my dad, who read me the book when I was either six or seven. \u00a0I\u2019ve really got to ring him; I keep saying this. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0But I was young. \u00a0I was younger than eight when I went to school, so it was a bedtime treat at home. \u00a0So, that was my first bit of research, and then I went to the Reptile House at London Zoo and had a look there. \u00a0It\u2019s so beautifully written in the book and it\u2019s so well-illustrated in countless editions of the book. \u00a0And then, with Peter\u2019s input and our rehearsals and just playing like a kid, really, in this incredible freeing volume, as they call the mo-cap stage, meant that we could kind of go anywhere with it. \u00a0So it was very, very helpful.<\/p>\n

QUESTION:\u00a0Did you get to mix it up with Martin and the cast while you were there?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: \u00a0I, sadly, met hardly any of the cast. \u00a0I crossed over with people as they were coming back, but I didn\u2019t spend any sort of live time with Martin, which was sad. \u00a0But, no, it was fun. \u00a0We know each other quite well, so we kind of second guessed, in a way, with our performances to some degree, I gues<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0If it\u2019s Andy Serkis as Gollum, it\u2019s easier to understand how he would do a motion capture performance for that, but how do you do a motion capture of this gargantuan creature?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: \u00a0Well, it\u2019s obviously more abstract. \u00a0It\u2019s only going to be an impression of something that\u2019s a serpentine reptile that can breathe fire and fly. \u00a0And because I\u2019m a limited biped mammal, I\u2019m sorry about that, but Peter knew that when I auditioned, so we worked with my sort of negatives and tried to turn them into positives. \u00a0But one of the ways I did it was trying to squeeze my legs together just for to get the feeling of an elongated body crawling on the floor with my elbows and using my hands as claws and sort of over-articulating my neck and shoulder, to the delight of any physio who was unlucky enough to try and heal me afterwards. \u00a0And, yeah, just throwing myself at it with a kind of kid-like imagination and their brilliant expert guidance.<\/p>\n

It was a really fun way to work. \u00a0And Andy came down to start on second unit. \u00a0I said, ‘God, I wish you\u2019d been there.’ \u00a0Because, you know, he\u2019s the don. \u00a0He\u2019s the originator and master of that art form, giving it its proper title.<\/p>\n

And we just laughed after a while, because we both realized that he\u2019s only done biped mammals. \u00a0No one\u2019s really tried a serpent before, so I don\u2019t think it would have been much help at all. \u00a0[Laughs]<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Peter, what were the challenges of making the film with so many spectacular visual effects, where not all the effects are there for the actors to see?<\/strong><\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0Well, any time we were on a green screen stage with bits of set and a lot of green screen, I would try to bring in the conceptual artwork that Alan Lee or John Howe or one of the Weta Workshop guys had done. \u00a0So I was able to at least let the guys know what was going to be back in the green screen behind them. \u00a0Not all the time, because sometimes I didn\u2019t even know myself when we were shooting it. \u00a0And some of those things you figure out later on.<\/p>\n

The other guys can answer, but, ultimately, it\u2019s the power of the imagination. \u00a0It\u2019s a suspension of disbelief, really. \u00a0Just as the audience, we\u2019re asking you to believe in a world in which Elves and Dwarves and Dragons and Orcs exist. \u00a0When you\u2019re on the stage, you have to also be in that same mind frame. \u00a0You are in that world, whether it\u2019s green or whatever, if there\u2019s a tennis ball that\u2019s supposed to be Smaug, it\u2019s the same thing, really.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Evangeline, your character is a warrior. \u00a0Did you train to shoot bows and arrows, and what did you think when you saw yourself on screen for the first time with this fiery red hair and pointy ears?<\/strong><\/p>\n

EVANGELINE LILLY: \u00a0Yeah, I went through five different types of training. \u00a0I did weapons training, stunt training, movement training, dialect training and language training. \u00a0And in the weapons training, there were two different weapons. \u00a0I had double daggers and a bow and arrow. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0Believe it or not, I used to teach archery to little kids.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0Oh yeah? \u00a0I didn\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n

EVANGELINE LILLY: \u00a0Yeah, Peter didn\u2019t know that either. \u00a0At a kids\u2019 camp when I was a teenager, I used to teach archery. \u00a0But I\u2019m not a good marksman.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0Don\u2019t say that. \u00a0Just stop at the first bit<\/p>\n

EVANGELINE LILLY: \u00a0Okay, okay. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0And I think that one of the great gifts of CGI and working in the imagination is that you can imagine that you\u2019re much more talented than you really are. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0If you can imagine it, then it can appear as so, with Peter Jackson\u2019s magic CGI brush.<\/p>\n

And then, in terms of seeing myself for the first time as an Elf, it was a double-edged sword, because I\u2019m a real Tolkien geek and I had dreamed about being an Elf since I was a little girl, so there was an incredible amount of satisfaction and dream-realization of that, when I first got to see myself as an Elf. \u00a0But I\u2019m also, unfortunately, an actor, which means that I\u2019m very self-critical, and it\u2019s very hard for me to ever give myself, in anything that I do, the stamp of approval without having the appendix that says all the things I did wrong and what didn\u2019t work. \u00a0But just the ears and the wig and the actual visual was very, very exciting.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0I\u2019ve said this to Evangeline, but I have spent more time in her company when she\u2019s wearing the wig and the ears and I look here and find it a bit strange. Because, obviously, I\u2019m much more used to hearing her voice, looking around and seeing the red wig and the ears. \u00a0That\u2019s actually one of the strange things, because the actors walk on the set ready to shoot. \u00a0And they go home at the end of the day and I\u2019m just not used to any of this stuff, to see them as humans. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0It\u2019s rather disturbing.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Luke, you also spent a lot of time in the movie with a bow and arrow over your shoulder. \u00a0How many kids have you taught archery to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LUKE EVANS: \u00a0None. \u00a0Thankfully.<\/p>\n

EVANGELINE LILLY: \u00a0But he\u2019s much better than me.<\/p>\n

LUKE EVANS: \u00a0Well, the longbow, it\u2019s two meters-ten in height. \u00a0It\u2019s different to your bow and arrow, but mine was very, very big. \u00a0So it was learning how to pull the arrow differently than you would have the normal bow and arrow, because it was a longbow. \u00a0But, no, I never taught any children, thankfully.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Peter, I wanted to ask you about making three movies instead of two. \u00a0Did that allow you to make the second chapter more action-packed and what character benefited the most from that decision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0It\u2019s an interesting question. \u00a0I don\u2019t think any character really benefited from that decision. \u00a0We didn\u2019t really change a lot. \u00a0We made that decision after we had shot most of the film. \u00a0It was a decision based on what we had shot. \u00a0We just thought we were going to have to somehow cut a lot of this stuff out, or we could reshape it.<\/p>\n

Look, what it does is it allows you to let the characters drive the story, because in a novel, the writer of the novel is often the person who narrates the story, who takes you on the journey, and Tolkien\u2019s voice is obviously fantastic at doing that. \u00a0You feel like he\u2019s right beside you telling you a bedtime story. \u00a0But in the movie, you don\u2019t want me on screen talking about what\u2019s happening. \u00a0So, the discipline on a film is you have to have the story told through the dialog of the characters, through the actions of the characters.<\/p>\n

We ended up wanting to explore some of the character depth that we had done onThe Lord of the Rings films. \u00a0I was also acutely aware that, ultimately, when this cycle of releasing a movie each year is done, you\u2019re going to end up with six films,The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey being the beginning andThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King being the end, and I did want to have a unity. \u00a0We wanted it to feel like it was the same filmmakers, basically, going through the story.<\/p>\n

People always ask about Evangeline\u2019s character, Tauriel, and why we felt the need to create her. \u00a0But inThe Hobbit novel, they are captured by the Elves and they escape in the barrels. \u00a0It\u2019s a memorable part of the book, but the Elvenking is not even named. \u00a0He doesn\u2019t have a name. \u00a0And it was only later on that Tolkien decided that he should be Thranduil. \u00a0He also decided that he had a son whenThe Lord of the Rings was written 18 or 19 years later. \u00a0He created the character of the son of the King, so you\u2019ve got material there.<\/p>\n

But you can\u2019t have a scene in a film that\u2019s a memorable scene and not have just one person as the Elf. \u00a0We wanted three Elven characters who were all different. \u00a0That\u2019s the thing, too, is to create characters that have conflict with each other, and have different agendas. \u00a0Thranduil, Legolas and Tauriel are all on different flight paths, which makes for a much more interesting way for Philippa, Fran and I to write the narrative through their eyes.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0For Luke, playing Bard, you got to use a bit of your Welsh accent. What else about him did you identify with? \u00a0And what was the most fun for you in playing him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LUKE EVANS: \u00a0Well, having my own accent was very special and that was a lovely gift that Peter, Fran and Philippa gave to me; the first time I\u2019ve ever used my own accent in a movie, and probably the last. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0But it was very nice because it freed up my own exploration of the character. \u00a0His heritage and personality are very much part of Bard. \u00a0It did do something very different to the character, for myself. \u00a0My performance was different because of the fact that I was speaking with my own accent and I was Welsh. \u00a0And part of the other people in Lake-town, some of them are Welsh as well, and I had an affinity with them because we all had then an ancestry, so it all sort of paid off.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to talk about everything about the role, because we have another film that\u2019s coming out next year, and we all play a very big part in the next film as well. \u00a0But it was a lot of fun. \u00a0As you can see, I\u2019m often either being chased or chasing. \u00a0The Master of Lake-town is trying to lock me up. \u00a0Something\u2019s always happening in Bard\u2019s life. \u00a0And he knows Lake-town like the back of his hand. \u00a0I actually did know Lake-town like the back of my hand, because Pete used to get me running all over it on a daily basis, either on the roofs or through the streets. \u00a0That was very fun, and it was a fantastic set to work on. \u00a0It was just so expansive and real. \u00a0You could keep walking and walking and turning corners and you\u2019d never come to the end of it, which is brilliant. \u00a0It was really great.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Evangeline, I read that you had just had a baby and were ready to retire when this project came around and changed your life. \u00a0Can you tell us about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

EVANGELINE LILLY: \u00a0Retirement, yeah. \u00a0I had retired into what I thought would be a life of quiet motherhood and writing and didn\u2019t really plan on taking any more acting gigs. \u00a0It had been about at least five years since I had taken a meeting or engaged in a new project. \u00a0I was sort of off the grid, so to speak. \u00a0I was so far off the grid that when Pete, Fran and Philippa were trying to get in touch with me about this role, they couldn\u2019t reach me. And somebody on their production team just coincidentally used to work with my partner, so he got a text message one day saying, ‘Peter Jackson\u2019s trying to reach Evangeline. \u00a0Do you think she might be able to pick up the phone, please?’<\/p>\n

So they did eventually get in touch. \u00a0And, of course, becauseThe Hobbit was my favorite book as a little girl and the Silvan elves were my favorite characters in the book, and it would be a dream come true to play one, I jumped at the opportunity. \u00a0I picked up the phone very quickly.<\/p>\n

And then they said, ‘Your character\u2019s not in the book.’ \u00a0And I took great pause as a great fan of Tolkien. \u00a0I kind of gulped and went: \u00a0‘What? \u00a0Everyone\u2019s going to hate me.’ \u00a0And it didn\u2019t take long for them to completely convince me that it was the right thing to do, and it was a good idea.<\/p>\n

PHILIPPA BOYENS: \u00a0Evangeline is not joking; she is a huge Tolkien fan. \u00a0She was concerned and we understood that. \u00a0But we did explain the idea of the feminine energy that was lacking. Because Professor Tolkien actually wrote fantastic female characters. \u00a0He just didn\u2019t write one forThe Hobbit. \u00a0And she understood that immediately. \u00a0And she was very brave. \u00a0She said yes, for which we are very grateful.<\/p>\n

EVANGELINE LILLY: \u00a0Well, I think, in his defense, Tolkien was writing in 1937. \u00a0The world is a different place today, and I keep repeatedly telling people that in this day and age to put nine hours of cinema entertainment in the theaters for young girls to go and watch and not have one female character, is subliminally telling them, ‘You don\u2019t count. \u00a0You\u2019re not important, and you\u2019re not pivotal to story.’ \u00a0And I think that they were very brave and very right in saying, ‘We won\u2019t do that to the young female audience who come and watch our films.’<\/p>\n

And not just the young female audience. \u00a0Even for a woman of my own age, I think it\u2019s time that we stop making stories that are only about men, especially only about heroic men. \u00a0And I love that they made Tauriel a hero.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0Here, here.<\/p>\n

PHILIPPA BOYENS: \u00a0Oh, women are huge fans of these films. \u00a0It\u2019s wonderful. \u00a0Right fromThe Lord of the Rings films, there was an immediate engagement with women. \u00a0There\u2019s this notion that it\u2019s a genre for boys–dungeons and dragons or something like that. \u00a0But I\u2019m living proof that that\u2019s not true. \u00a0I\u2019ve always loved these stories. \u00a0I think they spoke to me; the characters of the Hobbits especially speak to me, Frodo and Bilbo, of course.<\/p>\n

And when you meet these young women and you understand that passion for the storytelling that they\u2019ve received that is going to create a new generation of young female writers. \u00a0I think we\u2019re starting to see that now coming through and the way that fantasy is being used. \u00a0One of the things that women, I think, especially enjoy or relate to is that Professor Tolkien attempted to make these stories real, that they feel real, like a history. \u00a0They read like a history. \u00a0This existed; this was true. \u00a0And Pete is, I think, a genius at making these films feel real. \u00a0Even though you have a giant, fire-breathing Dragon, he\u2019s a real character, a real being.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Richard, I wanted to ask you about the barrel sequence down the river, which I think is one of the highlights of the film. \u00a0Can you tell us what that was like to film and do you feel like it was worth it now that you\u2019ve seen the finished product?<\/strong><\/p>\n

RICHARD ARMITAGE: \u00a0I think the most dangerous part of filming the barrel sequence was when we were in these little, cut-offFlintstones-style barrels, which were powered by our feet. \u00a0It was like dodge-ems, and we were bumping into each other. \u00a0But, yeah, it came together in quite a few different places on the Pelorus River, which is an extremely fast-flowing river with a current. \u00a0It\u2019s the end of the sequence, and we were racing each other to get to the water.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0Doesn\u2019t Thorin say, ‘We\u2019ve got to get out of these barrels because there isn\u2019t any current, therefore we\u2019ve lost the current?’ \u00a0[Laughs]<\/p>\n

RICHARD ARMITAGE: \u00a0That\u2019s true. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0We went into a sound stage where Pete had built a kind of water course powered by two V8 engines. \u00a0And it was like being at a theme park for two weeks. \u00a0They were dumping tons of water on us and trying to get us to go under the water. \u00a0But I think Martin had the most difficult role in that because he wasn\u2019t in a barrel and there was an underwater camera and he would swap out with the stunt guy. \u00a0It got quite hair-raising. \u00a0But I think it was worth it.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0We had these big V8 water jet things that we had built in a circle. \u00a0It was like a theme park. \u00a0I mean, we were worried because we thought how fast can we actually wind the engine up, and we\u2019d better be careful because it\u2019s going to be unpredictable. \u00a0And it was. \u00a0We had stunt guys doing it round and round and testing it and everything else. \u00a0But these are actors, they\u2019re a little bit fragile. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0But by the end of the first day, the guys were just yelling, ‘Faster, faster! \u00a0Get it faster, faster, faster.’ \u00a0And we had the thing going maximum pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

DEAN O’GORMAN: \u00a0Just amazing. \u00a0So challenging.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0Just to talk about the barrels, one of the things that doesn\u2019t really get referenced in the barrels is the fact that we also did another shoot on a different river in New Zealand, the Aratiatia River in the North Island. \u00a0It\u2019s like a gorge or a rocky canyon that stretches about a mile. \u00a0Right at the head of the canyon, there\u2019s a big dam. \u00a0And four times a day, they open up the sluice gates and just let this enormous torrent of water out, and they let it out for ten minutes and then they close the gates again. \u00a0So, we got a lot of the really hair-raising barrel stuff in the Aratiatia.<\/p>\n

It would be too dangerous to put a stunt guy down. \u00a0I mean, we didn\u2019t even dare putting anyone in the barrels. \u00a0We sent the barrels down completely empty and we put the digital Dwarves in later. \u00a0But some of the more dramatic footage was shot there, and it was great because we could set up the cameras when it was dry in between the dumps. \u00a0We’d set up about six cameras right down the length of the gorge, and then we were there for about three days and four times a day on the dot, these things would open for ten minutes. \u00a0And we had a team up at the top throwing the barrels in. \u00a0You didn\u2019t know what was going to happen to them; you just filmed them on the way down. \u00a0And we had a team at the bottom recovering the barrels. \u00a0We lost three of them. \u00a0I mean, to this day we don\u2019t know where three of those barrels have gone [laughs].<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Benedict, you and Martin Freeman are Sherlock and Watson, and now you\u2019re Bilbo and Smaug. \u00a0What\u2019s your vision on what the third collaboration that you and Martin will do? \u00a0A buddy cop comedy? \u00a0A love story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: \u00a0No, I mean, the weird thing about it is all that chemistry. \u00a0It was very peculiar acting by proxy with him. \u00a0There\u2019s no joke to come out of that. \u00a0There\u2019s no way I could say what it\u2019s like there on the set of 221B Baker Street. \u00a0It\u2019s very light and very brilliant. \u00a0And he\u2019s a bit of an inspiration to be around. \u00a0So that was the biggest con really of what was otherwise a pro. \u00a0I mean, hearing all of these stories of the live action perils and the amount of work that all these people put in; I did my job in about eight days. \u00a0I feel like I\u2019m the cheat at the table, really.<\/p>\n

PHILIPPA BOYENS: \u00a0But what a job you did.<\/p>\n

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: \u00a0Oh, thank you. \u00a0But, yeah, Martin and I will probably have some kind of an outing in the future with something else. \u00a0Who knows.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Peter, given the fact that you\u2019re working on three films simultaneously, how do you distinguish each film aesthetically or narratively as you\u2019re making them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0This is a story that\u2019s charted at the beginning and we shot it in chronological order, to some degree. \u00a0So it is actually interesting because by the time we were done with pickups, I was getting in my groove. \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0It was interesting to get completely into the narrative in the story, because as a filmmaker you\u2019re almost getting swept along with the characters, so now the filmmaker\u2019s on the same journey as the Dwarves over that period of time.<\/p>\n

But the good thing with the middle film is that you don\u2019t have to set things up. \u00a0You can just drop into the story. \u00a0Because, again, as much as the romance of the cinema and the big screen and the 3D and everything else is, unfortunately, the ultimate life of these movies is going to be on Blu-ray or download, hopefully for years to come. \u00a0So that\u2019s where they are going to find their final resting place, as it were.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re telling a continuous story. \u00a0It\u2019s three movies, but it\u2019s telling one narrative arc and you\u2019re trying to make each film work individually. \u00a0And this is the middle; this is where you just pick up, and park your foot on the gas, basically.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Because this is the middle film and has such a heart-stopping cliffhanger because we’ll have to wait a year to see what happens, was it a challenge for you to figure out where you were going to end this film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0It was. \u00a0We did talk about it. \u00a0I mean, there was certainly discussion about it. \u00a0But, hey, it was an opportunity. \u00a0It\u2019s very rare that you get to do films back-to-back, whether it\u2019s two or three films back-to-back. \u00a0And to actually be able to just end on a cliffhanger and think, ‘Well, I do know what happens in the film.’ \u00a0[Laughs] \u00a0And you will see that in a year\u2019s time. \u00a0I would have been, what, about 17 or 18 years old, and rememberThe Empire Strikes Back had a big cliffhanger ending, and it was like three years before the next one came out. \u00a0I mean, we\u2019re being pretty generous with one year. \u00a0[Laughs]<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Benedict, what do you like about working with Martin Freeman?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: \u00a0Martin is very smart. \u00a0He\u2019s really good company. \u00a0He\u2019s one of the funniest men I\u2019ve ever met and he\u2019s a craftsman. \u00a0He works incredibly hard and creates authentic characters and moments and drama and he\u2019s an inspiration to work opposite. \u00a0And I\u2019ve got nothing but good things to say about Martin.<\/p>\n

PETER JACKSON: \u00a0The one thing about Martin that I think is amazing as a director is that he gives you choices. \u00a0He\u2019s just exploring the whole time. \u00a0He\u2019s not saying, ‘Okay, I think that one was perfect. \u00a0I don\u2019t need to go any more than that.’ \u00a0On the next take, he\u2019s coming up with a different approach to it, and sometimes a radically different approach. \u00a0Martin, playing the younger Bilbo, coincidentally is exactly the same style actor as Ian Holm.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Evangeline, as a Tolkien fan, have you found that his work has inspired your writing that you\u2019ve been working on, and has your experience working on books of your own informed your acting in a significant way, and particularly in this role?<\/strong><\/p>\n

EVANGELINE LILLY: \u00a0I think Tolkien definitely inspires me as a writer and inspired me probably towards writing, because a good story impacts your life, and I think somewhere deep down inside, one of the great motivations to write is to have an impact and to say something. \u00a0And then, recently, I\u2019ve been doing a lot more studying of writing. \u00a0Much like acting, I\u2019m not formally trained in writing, and writing, I think, is a bit more of a structured, specific craft.<\/p>\n

So, I have been doing my homework. \u00a0I\u2019ve been studying. \u00a0And as I study and learn about story structure and about what it takes to develop a story that will have an impact, that will resonate with an audience, the more it starts to impact my choices as an actress.<\/p>\n

Before I would read a script and instinctively know if I wanted to do the job, if that story was resonating and might feel impactful or say something to the world. \u00a0Now I\u2019m able to sort of make a cerebral choice. \u00a0I can actually break it down and say, ‘Well what\u2019s missing is X, Y and zed, and if only they had added these six elements, then the script would have come to a place where I would be willing to do it.’ \u00a0We all know by gut instinct because we\u2019ve been telling stories since the beginning of time, and we all instinctively know what works and what doesn\u2019t; I\u2019m now starting to intellectually understand that.<\/p>\n

\"hobbitdesolationofsmaug3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Q&A With Joe Letteri (Senior Visual Effects Supervisor)<\/h6>\n

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QUESTION: \u00a0Can you talk about the scope of the visual effects in “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”? \u00a0Was your approach different in any ways from the first film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0The approach was slightly different because in the first film, we were focused on introducing a lot of the characters: Gollum, the Goblin King, introducing Azog as the villain of the piece. \u00a0Plus we had to figure out how to do digital versions of the Dwarves. \u00a0We also had a couple of big environment pieces, such as inside the Goblin caverns and so forth.<\/p>\n

On the second film, it was more about a couple of the big action set pieces, especially the barrel chase down the sluice, and the scene between Bilbo and Smaug at the end of the film. \u00a0It\u2019s a one-on-one dialogue scene similar to what we had with Gollum on the first film, but there\u2019s also a big action scene as well. \u00a0Those two scenes and the Spiders in Mirkwood were the three set pieces that we were looking forward to when we started our work.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0How did the sequence with the Spiders come together, and what were the challenges you faced in bringing it to life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0The Spiders were really Interesting because we were trying play with them spatially. Everything that happens with them takes place up in the canopy of the forest, in the treetops. That was Peter [Jackson]\u2019s idea. \u00a0These Spiders are moving from branch to branch, from limb to limb, using webs to travel through the trees, and we could really play with the three dimensionality of it because everything is happening through space.<\/p>\n

That makes it really tricky to figure out the motion, because you\u2019re starting with nothing, in a way. \u00a0So we’d choreograph the Spiders in space to get the action we wanted towards camera, and then figure out how to move trees, branches, limbs and webs around to be where their feet connected to get the proper action.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Were you also integrating live action shots of actors against a green screen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0Exactly. \u00a0A lot of live action on green screen, and some digital double-shots, such as when we have to move characters like Bilbo through the canopy as well.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0What was your process for creating the barrel chase, considering all the different shooting locations, practical and digital elements, and given that the entire sequence takes place on water?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0There were some waterways and rapids here in New Zealand that we immediately thought we could use not only reference, but as shooting locations. \u00a0Then we had to work out the logistics of putting people in barrels for the close-up shots. \u00a0For the more dangerous rapids, how do you weigh down the barrels and get them to move correctly so that we can put the Dwarves in later digitally? \u00a0How do you build a waterway for the close-up shots that\u2019s going to tie all this in together?<\/p>\n

The way we started is by picking a couple of the locations that we knew would be good for the live action waterways. \u00a0We got geographic data for those and built them digitally in small pieces. \u00a0We started prevising [previsualization] the whole scene and laying out what the action needed to be from the escape from the cellars all the way down to the lake, and coming up with gags and things that might be happening along the way. \u00a0Then we put all those pieces together.<\/p>\n

We figured out how much of the river sequence we could use from the live action photography, and then, for anything that we couldn\u2019t get, we started to build geometry digitally to fit into that. We took bits of what the riverbed would look like, as if it were real, and tried to lay it into sections where the action needed to be. \u00a0It\u2019s an ongoing process because as the animation gets refined and the action changes, we\u2019re constantly having to go in and reconfigure the waterway and rebuild all of it.<\/p>\n

Technically, what\u2019s really hard about the sequence is the water simulations. \u00a0We\u2019re dealing with tons and tons of water that we\u2019re pushing down these rapids and floating barrels through it, so you have a lot of animation on top of the water, and it has to all work in the right way.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0How much of the finished sequence will be digital versus live action?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0Pretty much all the shots are visual effects. \u00a0Even if there\u2019s live action, we have to extend the background or change it a little bit so it fits in with the Elf kingdom–adding trees to the riverbanks and so forth–so that all these different locations that we used feel like it\u2019s connected.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think there are any shots in that sequence that we didn\u2019t touch, but as with all these sequences, there\u2019s a variation. Some of the shots involved just putting a couple of characters in barrels, because on the rapids, things are happening really fast. \u00a0In other shots, we\u2019re moving characters in the foreground. Then there are shots where we\u2019re creating everything that you see in the frame.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Moving onto Smaug, how long does something like that take, and what are the challenges of bringing this Dragon to life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0The biggest challenge was his dialogue, coming up with a good characterization for the way he speaks. \u00a0We had that in mind when we designed him for the first film, but we hadn\u2019t done any dialogue tests at that point. \u00a0We just needed him for that last shot where his eye gets revealed.<\/p>\n

The first thing we did was animation tests with some of Benedict Cumberbatch\u2019s lines to make sure that the design we had for Smaug would still hold up when he was speaking. \u00a0You wanted the shape of a Dragon head, but in its own unique design. \u00a0So, he needed to look like a Dragon, but he also needed to talk and to talk with personality.<\/p>\n

That was the main thing we were after. \u00a0How do you get that sense of his personality through his dialogue? \u00a0Because most of it is in his face. \u00a0With many characters, their body language gives away a lot of what they\u2019re doing. \u00a0But not with him. \u00a0His body is so big that a lot of it is just in his face, head and neck. \u00a0So we spent a lot of time just trying to refine his personality.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Did Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance provide you with some inspiration in that effort to bring personality into Smaug\u2019s face?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0A bit, yes. \u00a0We did a test early on with his original dialogue where we had him on the motion capture stage having free rein to perform the character physically. \u00a0We looked at what he was doing and it gave us some ideas. \u00a0But he is a fully animated character, not mo-cap.<\/p>\n

All of his dialogue was ultimately re-recorded, and he was in a booth for that. \u00a0Of course we looked at that as well and took some clues from it, but mostly it was in the delivery itself. \u00a0Then we took our own cues as to what to do to make him work as a Dragon.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0How did you work with the designers to create Smaug\u2019s physical appearance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0We have an understanding of what the Dragon is supposed to look like, such as what kind of skin he’s supposed to have, but we really have to break it down even more than at the sculptural or the design stage. \u00a0We have to get very specific about details like the size of the scales around the eyes and how they blend into the skin and the eyelids, because if he\u2019s got to blink or squint his eyes, the size of the scales have to be such that they will support the level of animation that we need. \u00a0You might see in the design that he\u2019s got these great big scales and they look cool and scary, but then you realize that area needs to be more flexible than would have been allowed for. \u00a0So we have to go back and redesign it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re always making those kinds of changes with performance in mind. \u00a0That\u2019s always the main thing. \u00a0Can he perform what we need him to perform? \u00a0Then we try to take all the other ideas and fit them in so that they work within the constraints of the performance.<\/p>\n

For example, one of the big things that Peter wanted was to show that Smaug is old. \u00a0He\u2019s been in Erebor for a long time. \u00a0When you see him up close, he is really battle-scarred. \u00a0We don\u2019t know where that\u2019s come from–battles with other Dragons or in his attacks. \u00a0That\u2019s all lost in history, but you need to see that in his face. \u00a0So we gave him lots of detail to evoke his history.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0What is it like collaborating with Peter? \u00a0How does he inspire you, and what level of trust do you have in each other after working together for such a long time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0The great thing about Peter is he is always full of ideas, but he still leaves room for everyone else to try and show him new things. \u00a0He\u2019s always willing to be amazed if you can show him something better than what he was originally thinking.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not proprietary about things in that way. \u00a0It\u2019s a really great way to work, because you know you\u2019ve got what you need. \u00a0He tells you, ‘This will work.’ \u00a0So you\u2019ve got a starting point, and we can all get on the same page with it, but if, in the course of doing that, you think, ‘Maybe if we did this it would look even cooler,’ he\u2019s completely open to working with those ideas.<\/p>\n

For example, he\u2019ll give us the sequence for the cut and there\u2019ll be a lot of gaps in it. \u00a0We\u2019ll take a pass the first time around and put in the effects and the animation before we even talk to him about it, because we have a pretty good idea of what we think is going to work in the style of what we need for the characters and for the story. \u00a0It allows us all to jump into the story that much faster.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: \u00a0Can you talk about the process of creating the characters of the skin-changer Beorn, and the Orcs Azog and Bolg?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0Beorn exists in two forms: his human form and his bear form. \u00a0The idea there was to take the design of his human form, some of the styling that was done in his facial hair and his eyes, and try to carry that through into his bear form so that you understand that it\u2019s the same character.<\/p>\n

We started off with a real bear just for simplicity\u2019s sake, but immediately started putting some of Beorn\u2019s human features into the face and altering it so that it didn\u2019t look like a bear. \u00a0We wanted to give him a little bit more of a mythical animal look, and show the age, fight and determination in him, because he\u2019s the last of the skin-changers. \u00a0He\u2019s the last of his kind. \u00a0So a lot of effort went into translating the personality and the look between the human and the bear.<\/p>\n

With Azog, we had introduced him in the first film, so he didn\u2019t actually undergo a whole lot of changes. \u00a0We\u2019ve done a little bit of refinement to the skin quality and texture because in the first film, we saw him mostly at night, and we knew that in this film we\u2019d see him in some daylight shots. \u00a0So we spent a little time with him.<\/p>\n

Bolg is the new one. \u00a0He\u2019s got a pretty unique design. \u00a0He\u2019s Azog\u2019s son, so we started off trying to make him look a little bit like Azog, to give him a family resemblance. \u00a0But Peter really wanted him to be this kind of freakish warrior. \u00a0He is so battle-scarred that the armor is basically pounded into his skin. \u00a0You see bits of his helmet have become straps nailed into his skull, and his body armor has just been embedded in his skin. \u00a0It was a lot of conceptualizing to try to figure out how to make that work believably, especially the body armor. \u00a0It has to look like it can take a blow, but still give him the freedom of movement that he needs, because he\u2019s pretty physical. \u00a0He\u2019s fighting all the time. \u00a0It was a pretty unique character design.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Do you have a favorite sequence, character or element that you created for this movie that you\u2019re particularly proud of or that you especially enjoyed working on?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOE LETTERI: \u00a0It\u2019s hard to narrow it down. \u00a0The work that the water simulation team is doing is pretty outstanding. \u00a0Like I said, that level of richness, detail and accuracy is really nice to see. \u00a0But from a movie point of view, watching a character like Smaug, because of his personality and his dynamics, is always a lot of fun.<\/p>\n