- On the Usefulness of Patience
- On the Atmosphere at the HobbitCon
- Actors’ Q&A Panels
- A Couple of Words on the MOC: Mark Ferguson
- Luke Evans (Bard)
- John Bell (Bain)
- Sylvester McCoy (Radagast)
- Lawrence Makoare (Bolg)
- Ken Stott & Graham McTavish (Balin & Dwalin)
- Adam Brown, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Stephen Hunter (Ori, Nori, Dori, Bombur)
- John Callen & Peter Hambleton (Oin & Gloin)
- Jeffrey Thomas (Thror)
- William Kircher (Bifur)
- Final Words
- Photo Gallery, Part 1: Atmosphere & Cosplay
- Photo Gallery, Part 2: The Actors
- Photo Gallery, Part 3: Even More Actors
Sylvester McCoy (Radagast)
Those lucky ones who had been to the very first HobbitCon, still remember the mindblowing panels of Sylvester McCoy. The eccentric Scotsman who’s famous not only for his role of Radagast the Brown, but also for being Doctor No. 7 in the cult TV series «Doctor Who», suddenly jumped off the stage and, accompanied by the sound of Mark Ferguson’s dropping jaw, started running around the main hall, leading on the crowd seeking to ask him questions. Last year McCoy couldn’t come, but this time around he has returned with a vengeance, and we were quite interested in how he would behave this year.
And the tiny Scot did not disappoint! After answering some of Mark Ferguson’s questions on stage he rushed off again and started running around from one microphone to another. Soon, a whole crowd of people with questions was following him. Together with McCoy we rushed across the hall. Then he discovered a stairway to the balcony and ran up, stopping only for another question.
At one point, Mrs. Underhill, the founder of our site, gave Radagast a gift: a plush toy Sebastian the hedgehog. And from this moment on McCoy was inseparable from it: he took Sebastian to his photo and autograph ops, pretended to struggle with him over the microphone, and during the closing ceremony his maniac hedgehog even got to attack Graham McTavish, causing much excitement in the audience!
Sylvester McCoy: I’m back! You can say, I’m there and back again!
Mark Ferguson: You could walk over there — and back again…
Sylvester McCoy: Yes! That’d be a great name for a movie!
On the most unusual experiences during the shooting of The Hobbit:
— When I fell off my sled, I actually felt my brain moving in my head!
On the bird poo:
— This is actually real! They had extra seagulls flying over me all the time, pooing on me. Because we went for realism in this movie.
We asked McCoy a question about how his working relationship with Peter Jackson was influenced by the fact that Jackson is an avid Doctor Who fan. McCoy answered:
— No, it wasn’t influenced at all! Actually, I was visiting Peter and his family at the beginning of the shooting, and his children were thrilled, they were hoping that Peter would put on my Doctor Who suit — he owns it, you know! But he didn’t. And in all three years of our work, he never mentioned it. It was only on my last day, when Peter gave that great final speech, when he gave me my staff, gave me the chair with my name on it… and at the end Peter said: «And… I got to work with Doctor Who, yess!» And it was wise of him to do that, because it would have influenced our relationship as a director and an actor.
— Who is your favorite Doctor?
— Me! No, actually, usually the first Doctor you’ve seen is your favorite. My first Doctor was Patrick Troughton and he really influenced me in a way.
By the way, I also played Doctor Number 6! In the regeneration scene, when Number 6 is turning into Number 7, I got into Colin Baker’s costume, because he wasn’t available. So if you ever get a question about who played two Doctors — that’s me!
At one moment there was an uproar in the audience and McCoy reacted immediately:
— Is there a problem here? I’m a Doctor, I can help!
But the discussion returned to Radagast time and again.
— Shooting the eagle scene… They put me on top of that mechanical thing. It wasn’t moving, because they were afraid I would fall off again after the sled incident. I wouldn’t mind, I love falling off things.
About his favorite Radagast line, McCoy had to admit the bitter truth about the actors’ life:
— When you’re an actor whose job is to learn lines, you work like this: you learn it, you say it and you forget it. Bot I do like «Rrrrrosghobel Rrrabits — I’d like to see them try!»
About McCoy’s acting technique:
— My acting technique is: I jump off a cliff and then my instinct takes over. And in forty years of experience it hadn’t failed me too much.
Lawrence Makoare (Bolg)
RingCon veterans will always remember Lawrence Makoare. The mighty Maori actor, stuntman and woodcutter played no less than three parts in LOTR. At the early 2000s he came to Bonn for several RingCons. Later he decided that flying around half the world is too troublesome, and did a seven year break, so his announcement was splendid news. And really, the muscular dark skinned giant has immediately become a magnet for the many ladies in the audience. He gladly showed everybody his tattoos and was eager to chat with people at the bar.
Lawrence’s opening joke was still remembered by many RingCon visitors of old:
Lawrence Makoare: I’ve got to admit… I don’t drink anymore!
Audience: …But I don’t drink any less either!
Lawrence, astonished: That’s right! I don’t drink any less either!
On the Black Speech:
— Please don’t ask me to say anything in the Black Speech! I don’t really remember it. What I do remember is that it affected my voice. So I made some «Gollum Juice» from Andy Serkis’ recipe. What was in there… a little bit of honey, a little bit of whisky, and whisky, and honey, and a little bit of whisky…
On the second «Hobbit», Makoare played Bolg, son of Azog. He shared his experience at the motion capture stage:
— Conan Stevens was originally cast as Azog. Then he was recast as Bolg. But he couldn’t fight, he was just too big, the fight scenes didn’t work out. When they cast me for the part, they said «It’d be mocap», and I said: «What’s that?» And they: It’s like what Andy did with Gollum». And after doing it for five weeks I said «Where were you eleven years ago, where it took for me 11 hours to put makeup on, and 4.5 hours to get it off?» It was such a relief!
We asked Lawrence a question on why he didn’t return as Bolg in «The Battle of the Five Armies» — he was replaced by John Tui. Makoare answered:
— I was cast in 2013, and was scheduled for pickups for The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014. Then I got a movie I shot in Malaysia, it’s called «Marco Polo». And the Weinsteins wouldn’t release me from that movie, so John Tui got to do it. He is a friend of mine, and he’s my exact opposite — he is short and thick. But as it was done in MoCap, it didn’t matter!
About actors from LOTR who had an influence on Makoare:
— Aragorn. He chipped his tooth. He broke his toe. He got lost in a bush, took photos of it and made a book out of it!
Of the four characters whom Lawrence played for PJ, he has a favorite one:
— It has to be Lurtz. I got to kill Boromir. And I had so many great actors to play with… Viggo Mortensen. Christopher Lee. I could just listen to his stories for days! But I really wanted to play that one guy with blue eyes, curly hair, ring on his neck. I could play Frodo!
— Would Lurtz defeat Boromir in a fair fight?
— Sure. With one hand tied behind my back!
Lawrence told an interesting story from the LOTR days:
— We had a cross-dressing party at Lord of the Rings. Men were dressed as women, and women as men. And I went to this party and I saw this gorgeous woman in curls, tight stockings, miniskirt, but I knew it was a guy because of the way she stood. And then she turned around, and it was Andy Serkis! He was in full makeup, but unshaved.
And than later I saw a beautiful young man in a suit. The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. And it was — Liv Tyler!
And then on the dancing floor I saw another beautiful girl, and it was… Sala Baker [who played Sauron in LOTR prologue]!
Lawrence disclosed a bit about movie magic:
— The black orc blood was basically molasses, that was sweet. And if they put it in your mouth for closeups, it was colored mouthwash. But sometimes we did it with real blood, because… we all make mistakes. We had a fight scene with Viggo, and… It wasn’t me who did the mistake! His hip wasn’t supposed to be there!
Lawrence told more about working with Viggo Mortensen:
— When I threw that knife at Viggo… they shot this scene on four different cameras. And before starting the filming they changed my contact lenses for hard lenses. You can’t see anything in these. So we rehearsed the throw. I rehearsed throwing the blade sideways and then it would be put in with the computer. And when we came to shooting this scene, I lost my circle of vision. I threw it, and all I heard was a «ching!» Next thing I hear is Peter Jackson, saying to the camera men: «Tell me you got that!» — four times! And Gino, my makeup artist, is telling me, shocked: «You threw the knife at Viggo… and he deflected it!»
What Lawrence kept after the shoots:
— Is anyone from Weta here? No? Good. I have Lurtz’s teeth. I have a few of his face prosthetics. Some Elvish ears. I’d have liked some of these shiny swordy things! But I didn’t have an official end shoot date. So I didn’t get anything.
Question about psychology of book characters and about the third movie were immediately blocked off by Lawrence.
— Guys, I didn’t read the book and I didn’t see the third film. At the premiere I got a seat at front row at the right, so I didn’t see anything. So I went into a bar instead.
Lawrence is rather philosophical about the fact that his characters rarely survive:
— My friends keep asking me: «Do you ever get to live?» And I say to them: «I get paid for dying. When you die, you’re gone!»
You must be logged in to post a comment.