Mr Thornton by Celtiux...
For the above interviews, sincere thanks to
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Much gratitude as well for the interview below to:
Light and Night by Knitelady...
Sunday Mirror, Aug 25, 2002 by LOUISE HANCOCK
RICHARD Armitage is showing off his newly toned and honed six- pack. "Look, I've been working out every day since I got this role - can you tell?" he asks anxiously, opening his white linen shirt.
As the man who is about to become Cold Feet's resident hunk, it's not surprising Richard is keen to look his best.
He spends most of his time trying to seduce sexy Spanish nanny Ramona (Jacey Salles) and running around in skimpy swimming trunks.
It's a task Richard reckons he and his abs are more than a match for - even if he was thrown in at the deep end on his first day.
"The first shot of my first scene was of me lying on top of Jacey. I had only met the girl 10 minutes earlier. Even I normally take longer than that to get a result.
"Even worse, I couldn't hear a word the director was saying because Jacey played a trick on me. She came up to me with a little bottle of breath freshener in her hand - one of the tricks of the trade - and told me to open my mouth.
"Instead, she sprayed it in my ear so for half an hour I was deaf. I was lucky I wasn't sacked from the start."
Richard, 29, landed the role after impressing producers, not with his acting ability or pecs but his battered old boots.
"They were the cheapest, nastiest brown pounds 35 boots from Barratts," says Richard. "But the producer really liked them. They saved my audition because I was nervous as hell. When they handed me the script at the door, the first thing I saw was 'and he took off his top to reveal perfect abs'. I spent the whole time in agony, convinced they were going to make me strip and throw me out the door."
Just in case, he's been working out regularly ever since and he's even taken up aqua aerobics.
"Well, since I'm supposed to teach it in the show, I thought I'd better see what it was all about. I can honestly say it was the most embarrassing thing I've ever done.
"I went with a female friend. There was me - a six foot two bloke - with all these women. They were all up to their waists in water. On me it barely reached my thighs."
Born and brought up in Leicester, Richard certainly believes in doing things differently. When it came to earning his Equity card, aged 17, he ran away to join the circus.
"I saw an advert and thought it sounded like a laugh. What I didn't realise at the time was that it was in Budapest. And the furthest I'd been was France.
"But I had a great time for six months. I earned pounds 135 a week, sleeping in a room with a Russian hoopla artist next to the elephant truck."
Back in Britain, he spent several years doing odd jobs before winning a drama school place at 22. In his final year he landed a role in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
"I was an unnamed fighter pilot with two lines. But it was kind of cool to be on a big budget epic as your first acting job.
"I met Ewan MacGregor. who was polite but pretty intense, and Natalie Portman who was just pretty. I kept embarrassing myself because I kept bumping into her double, who looked a lot like her, and thinking it was Natalie.
"I'd be like 'Hi Natalie, how are you' - and she'd be looking at me blankly."
A stint at the Royal Shakespeare Company was followed by a string of small TV roles, including Casualty and Doctors. Before Cold Feet returns in January he'll be seen in a new BBC1 drama, Spark House.
So spill the beans, Richard, what are Adam, Rachel, Pete and the Cold Feet mob really like?
"To be honest, they're all just like their characters - except for Jacey. I expected her to speak with a strong Spanish accent but she's only half-Spanish and she's spent most of her life here.
"Jimmy Nesbitt (Adam) has a big personality but I was shocked as to how slight he is. Hermione Norris (Karen) is lovely, very gracious and sweet. Helen Baxendale (Rachel) is quiet and shy - she keeps herself to herself. It sounds a bit luvvie but they're all really nice, and like a family to each other."
Richard, now single after his last relationship finished three months ago, is looking forward to stardom, but he's aware how lucky he is.
"I actually worked with Sean Pertwee, who plays Karen's boyfriend Mark, a few years ago on a crappy US mini-series about Cleopatra," he says. "The only good part about the whole thing was that it was filmed in Morocco. We had a chuckle about that when I ran into him on set.
"The last time we saw each other we were in Roman armour - now we're starring in the best drama on telly."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20020825/ai_n12850689/?tag=content;col1
Scouting Hobbit locations:
>Though most of the set for The Hobbit is already built, Peter Jackson is still on the hunt for additional locations throughout New Zealand.
Reportedly, Fiordland residents have spotted the director (along with five helicopters) searching for locations from above.
His spokesperson did confirm he is location scouting for the next few days in the Queenstown area and in the North Island before filming starts next month.<
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The other guy in black leather....George Gently pt 1 by alisaGB
10 comments:
RicRAr, thanks for posting that interview. One I missed and hadn't read before. I love it! RA is a riot, so funny about the spray in is ear, and the water (aqua) aerobics (love that the water in the pool only came up to his thighs). Oh to be in that aerobics class! I'm sure the women had a great time even if he didn't! I'm still laughing. Interesting his comments about Hermione Norris, little did they know then they would be working together years later!
You can tell he's much more careful now what he says on interviews than he was then.
We could sign up for every water arobics class in the 50states, Musa, and not be as lucky as the women in Richard's class. They're probably still talking about their TDH poolmate to this day:)
Added a couple more interviews above. All 3 are new to me as well - thought I'd covered all of them but apparently a few early ones slipped by. They really are the most interesting - before he learned to be a bit more clever with the interviewers. The questions posed in 2009 were really rather abrupt but RA seemed to reply without hesitation.
Interviews new to me too.
They are just great because he's so unguarded he always makes me laugh. I agree with you about some of the questions, though I do love his instructions on how to smoulder...he's got that down to a science, I think we all agree..and glad he's not like Lee! Interesting about what happened to him as a child, no wonder he's afraid of water.
Lucretia Borgia? That's interesting too...
Agree they are most interesting.
Thanks for posting these RicRAR!
Did you all see this article about the controversy of casting RA as Thorin:
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film/casting-the-hobbit
Thx for the link, Musa:)
I've read it and decided ignoring those naysayers would be the best reaction possible for those who place more stock in director Peter Jackson's opinion than anyone else's.
Afterall, Jackson already stated that RA's superb acting skills were the primary reason he chosen him as Thorin. He did add that the actor's other attributes will serve to place him along side, if not ahead, of some of the LOTR cast members.
IMO, the naysayers arrogantly assume their negative attitude is wiser than the man already proven to be the creative master at transferring Tolkien's writings to the screen.
If we ignore the small-minded remarks they'll fade away;)
Watched ep 3 of Sharpe last night when the Capt learned he was a father. Wasn't Sean's performance endearingly warm-hearted and moving when he held his new daughter for the first time?
DH is really enjoying every episode, and never fails to mention that the episodes cannot fully be appreciated unless viewed without editing for commercials.
I love the Sharpe series, especially when Sean Bean curses and swears. A true Yorkshireman. He's not my type, but I appreciate his acting abilities.
I'm looking forward to seeing what the character of Thorin turns out like. Perhaps he'll be slightly greying (isn't Thorin supposed to be in his 50s? It is easier to age up an actor than trying to make them appear younger). A long beard (false) is my guess with longish hair with a salt and pepper colouring (dark with grey in). Those eyes are so expressive and the voice sultry I'm sure there will be no mistaking who it is. As long as he doesn't look like some barmy garden gnome!
One thing Richard can't complain about - he wasn't picked for his looks and the size of his abs! (Was he?)
Sue, I suspect Sharpe's take charge attitude appeals to DH, who was in an authentic army for a couple yrs; and learned to lead troops as well - in a professional sense of the word - as a business manager.
The Thorin look has already caused great speculation and controversey, hasn't it. There are those Tolkien purists who believe TH dwarves must mimic Gimli from LOTR. However, the latter is the only dwarf so far that received the Jackson touch. Perhaps the director will interpret Gimli's look as the exception, and the pleasing to the eye actors he has cast for TH will become
the new standard. Will revealing filming pix leak out between now and Fall 2012?...hope so:)
Did you notice in one of RA's earliest interviews when he was abruptly asked "north or south?" He replied the North because there lie his family roots, and also because they tell it like it is. hehe
Sounds very familiar -- this region of the US prefers to tell it like it is as well. That sort of direct honesty drives the pretentious liberals to distraction:)
I think Richard has a foot in both camps when it comes to North or South. His dad is from Yorkshire (the North) and his mum from Oxford (the South), although he comes from the Midlands which is sort of North (not that far from where I live as the crow flies, which is North). I must admit Yorkshire people are very down to earth and tell it like it us, almost to the point of sounding insulting, but "straight as a die".
I must admit some of the phrases and words/sayings that Richard comes out with in interviews reminds me of the sort of thing my mum and dad's generation would use, which I'm familiar with, but alas are no longer used much, which makes me wonder if he has picked it up from his dad. I love hearing him use them and it reminds me of the North an awful lot and how people speak here. It's strange that he speaks very nicely, with no traceable dialect and yet uses northern phrases and words after all the time he's spent in London. He obviously hasn't left his roots behind. It's very charming to hear him speak in such terms. Long may it last!
Sue, the Midlands dialect is described as the original source in the US for a huge swath of land from east coast to west. The majority of Americans are not interested in and no longer realize their original roots. If you asked them where their immigrant generation came from you'd receive a blank stare. There are also a large number with genealogical curiosity who keep those websites busy.
Richard was asked during an interview pre-RH3 how he handled Guy's dark moods once the cameras stopping rolling. He replied "just shake it off" but then added that the role did cause him to appear with "a face of thunder" most of the time. Said he wanted to take on a more light hearted role at some point.
During interviews for one of the Spooks series he was asked the same question about Lucas North's troubled emotions and he started to give the same "face of.. reply but caught himself and substituted dark moods instead. I wondered at the time if someone had mentioned how unusal the thunder phrase sounded, which prompted him to edit his response. You can see that self-edit feature in his eyes working constantly during an interview. After much trial & error, he has it down to a science now - rarely gives an answer he might regret.
Just had an RA photo frenzy. Bloggers photo upload software has been refusing to get the job done for the past couple days. Finally received a green light and must've posted at least 10 pix in the latest post. Never know, tomorrow the blogger gremlins might be moody again. Did manage to outsmart them yesterday with the slideshow..hehe..where there's a will, there's always a way;)
Whoever said one day computers will give humans orders instead of the other way around, wasn't far from the truth. haha:)
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