STACK NZ Apr #61

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FEATURE

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MARTIN FREEMAN's incredible journey as Bilbo Baggins comes to an end in The Hobbit:The Battle of the Five Armies.

How has your life changed over these years, with Sherlock, Fargo and The Hobbit films all proving so successful? MARTIN FREEMAN: Those things have definitely altogether made a real change and a lovely change—I welcome it, of course. I genuinely feel very lucky to have all these plates spinning at once. It’s fantastic. It’s more than you can hope for. So, yeah, my life has changed. It’s more busy. Occasionally, yeah. I did my time with people shouting “Tim” [from The Office ] for a few years. So there’s a bit of that, but it changed quite a long time ago from character names to Martin Freeman, which I was happy about.Yeah, there’s a lot of that, I suppose. Do people shout “Bilbo” at you in the street?

Does Bilbo stay with you as a role? It doesn’t particularly stay with you, but you always keep part of your head open to it. I did ADR a couple of weeks ago, the last bit of voice-looping that I will ever do on The Hobbit movies. So, you have to psychologically and emotionally remember where you were. If someone put a gun at my head and said, ‘Inhabit Bilbo now’, I would physically, ticks-wise and gesture- wise, know what to do. But I don’t think I carry him around. I don’t feel that with any character I’ve played. Is it strange for you that your Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch plays the dragon, Smaug? Well, it is and it isn’t. I think he’s good casting. Whether we had done Sherlock or not, I think he’d be good casting for that part. It didn’t feel that strange. Again, truthfully, it felt like, ‘It seems to be following us around, this screen relationship.’ But I didn’t see him the whole time we did it. Even my bits, I wasn’t even working with his voice. I was just working with someone reading his lines. So, in truth, it didn’t feel that odd, but when you step back from it, it’s another thing people will hang on us together. Like, ‘They’re a couple in this as well.’ In that sense, it’s quite odd.

What do you think Peter Jackson’s greatest skills are as a director?

I was always amazed at his ability to keep three films in his head at once, and juggle those, and know where that was going to go and what was needed five scenes down the line, that he’s doing this little punch-in for, and this cut-away is going to mean something four hours away… it’s hard to describe but he’s keeping that whole universe in his head. It’s a huge undertaking, a massive undertaking. Obviously he’s got help. Jabez Olssen is a fantastic editor but Pete is a fantastic editor too.That’s what amazed me about him. On a human level, he was surviving on very little sleep, and a lot of stress. Outwardly, he seemed to cope with it very, very well. So, in a way, the things I was most impressed about him were human things. Not necessarily director- related. How are you not having a nervous breakdown? Have you stayed in touch regularly? Yeah, we have the odd e-mail. But we’re not best mates. Apart from anything, we live too far away. I care about him. I like him. I think he’s a decent person. Were there stand-out scenes in The Hobbit:The Battle of the Five Armies that you loved to shoot? I had a nice scene with James Nesbitt as Bofur on the battlements. I liked the fighting. I liked doing that. I hadn’t done much professionally, though at drama school I was always quite good at stage-fighting. Unless you are an action person—and I’m not exactly one of those—you don’t tend to do loads of it anyway. But I had a very good team of stunt-doubles, and my stunt- double was fantastic. But the understanding was always: when I could do it, I would do it. Where it was possible for me to do it, without insurance going mad or running the risk of injuring myself and being out for a

I suddenly realised I've spent a good chunk of my life with these mad people. And I did get a bit emotional [on the last day]

• The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies is out now

APRIL 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.co.nz

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