alongexpectedmovie:

fuckyeahmartinfreeman:

Martin’s on the cover of the September issue of Empire magazine for The Hobbit. TheOneRing.net has an exclusive excerpt from the issue, which is out this week:

Freeman: [On Bilbo] “It’s funny. Peter particularly wanted to talk about how English Bilbo is, how hobbits are these English gents. But that wasn’t helpful. I am English, so I can’t play English. I get it, there’s a sort of fastidiousness about him, a kind of uptightness.” 

Serkis: [On Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins]”It was clear as day it should have been him, but he’s so mercurial in his performance. You just don’t know what you are going to get. Yet he’s brilliant at taking direction. There’s a rhythm that one works with Martin. He likes to try it his way and then you start saying, ‘What about this?’ When he gets it, it’s gold. And it’s so totally Bilbo. In all these films it is about finding the character moments within the bigger canvas.” 

Freeman: “I want Bilbo to be three-dimensional”[without the aid of special cameras, Freeman means.] “I want him to be as real as you can be in Middle-earth. Also I’m a believer in knowing what state you are in — because I am not in Dog Day Afternoon, I’m in The Hobbit — and so pitching it accordingly.

[On shooting a testing dialogue sequence opposite Andy Serkis in a leotard in his first few weeks on set]. “I’d much rather start with a scene like that, well written, with someone who is brilliant and knows this material. This is a very heightened, stylised world. It’s not Nil By Mouth.

I like the fact he [Bilbo] is brave. To go from a fairly peaceful existence, where people roam about quite nicely, to a place where he could be eaten — that’s a proper thing for him. It’s a well-loved character, so don’t fuck with it too much. He’s lighter [than Frodo], I would say. For black-and-white purposes he’s more comic.

It’s absolutely gargantuan… Everything is bigger and takes more time. I mean, Sherlock is posh telly, but even Sherlock is fast compared to The Hobbit.”

Plus, a new Behind the Scenes still from E!Online:

Oooh, this post has pictures…