Announcer: Aidan Turner, Kili

Announcer: Rob Kazinsky, Fili

Reporter: Richard, we haven’t heard from you yet.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role?

RA: Yeah I'm playing Thorin who is the leader of the dwarves

...of this particular group of dwarves on this particular quest.

Reporter: Can you tell us about yourself?

RA: Me as a person? Would you like to be a little more specific?

I've got 40 years to talk about.

Reporter: Why do you think you're suited to this role?

RA: That's a good question actually. That might be one for Peter, Fran and Philippa.

Reporter: Why do you want to play this role?

RA: I just think it's just a really amazing opportunity to take a character

...from a book that I was brought to as a child.

I mean my first experience onstage was in a production of The Hobbit.

Martin Freeman: Really?

RA: At the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. And I played an elf.

And Gollum was a little papier mache puppet with a man offstage on a microphone.

Off-camera: Michael Sheehan?

RA: Yeah his voice was not that different.

So it's kind of been in my childhood very prominently so to come to it as an adult,

a middle-aged man, and have another look at it is a brilliant opportunity.

Reporter: Richard, you mentioned about papier mache Gollum.

Are you looking forward to acting against green screens?

RA: Yeah, I was in the mocap studio yesterday which is a first for me.

I've never quite understood the technogy behind it but it really does appear that it's like being in

Avatar the movie and I quite look forward to that.

But also I think with this film in particular there's enough creative genius in terms of

the art department and the technological department but at the same time

I think we're going to get out there in nature and really experience this possibly more so than

a purely technical film which is really exciting. It's a good marriage of both I think.

Reporter: And you're all going to be covered in prosthetics. Are you looking forward to that?

RA: We don't know yet actually.

It's still up for grabs, hence the little bit of experimentation in the facial hair department.