Great interview. I really am intrigued by his saying that Peter called Martin out of a scene (for movie 3) without RA knowing and sent him back in and when he did it elicited a response out of RA that he didn't expect. Now that is interesting.

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Can't wait to see what scene it is...wonder if its about searching for the Arkenstone.
(Good to see you around HS!)

Thanks Kel, enjoyed it very much.

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I haven't seen the Popcorn Taxis video so I didn't hear it there, but I have heard about this somewhere before - maybe from one of Peter's vlogs??

Are you able to briefly expand on the comments that were missed out?

Oscar: Whilst you shot quite a lot of the trilogy, there’s still actually quite a bit more shooting to do – I was quite surprised at that.
Richard: Yeah, at the end of May we go back and we’ve got 10 more weeks of shooting. We haven’t shot a single frame of the Battle of the Five Armies. Actually I think it might be the Battle of the Six Armies.
Oscar: Spoiler Alert!
Audience: (laughing)
Richard: cont… yeah, so we have to do that and also they would have edited the second movie and the third movie and decided they’ll need to get some new material, so that’s what we go back to shoot. 10 weeks of shooting is effectively enough time to make 2 small independent films. So you can imagine the scale of what we have to do. I started training again at the end of January so I could swing that heavy sword around we’ve been talking about. But I was gifted a replica of the sword at the end of the last year so I could practise with it*. I was very close in taking it to the gym with me ;)
Audience: (laughter)
Oscar: you didn’t bring it with you now though?
Richard: I didn’t bring it with me. I surely would never have got it through security.
Oscar: I would have liked to have seen you go through Customs with that. ‘Well, I’m an Actor!’… It would have certainly taken them by surprise.

Member of the Audiences - question: They’ve done a great job making the horses look like Dartmoor Ponies. What were the horses like to work with? They seemed far less grumpy than actual ponies.
Richard: I loved my horse – my horse was called Sharmon. She and I became very close. I used to go out riding with Jed Brophy (Nori) on weekends. When we were on location we used to go and visit the horses and take them out. Tolkien describes Dwarves as not liking the horses, they don’t ride very well. Which I get slightly annoyed about because obviously I was totally in love with my horse. And yeah, they had some hairy costumes on which Sharmon didn’t like. She used to try and shake that woolly coat off.

Member of the Audiences - question: There a lot of Urban legends about working with Christopher Lee. How was your experience with working with him?
Richard: I hate to disappoint you but I never met Christopher Lee. Sadly. (audience gasp) Well I don’t like giving away too many secrets about filming but, all of Christopher’s stuff was shot in the UK because he was too old to travel. Yeah, so I never got to meet him sadly.

Member of the Audiences - question: If you hadn’t have been cast as Thorin, who would you have liked to have been cast as?
Richard: Umm, you tell me (smiles). Actually one of my favourite characters in the book is Beorn, so I would have liked to have had a crack at him. But you wait until you see Mikael Persbrandt – it’s an incredible performance - and he really lives up to that image that I had as a kid. Yeah, he’s one of my favourite characters.

Member of the Audiences - question: This person had a bit of difficulty with the question, but Oscar helped out by rewording the question for them: What was it like to feel like watching yourself in a movie?
Richard: It was really surprising. I had actually thought that I hadn’t done very much in the first movie. I thought all my stuff is in movies 2 & 3. So when I saw the first film I was shocked. I just didn’t realize what Peter had been doing; I didn’t realize the shots that he’d choose. Um, I was obviously quite pleased. Because he made Thorin look pretty awesome – that’s his work mainly, not mine.