Wait a Minute

Did we just get another one of RA’s voices? I think we did. I’ll be making another FanstRAvaganza post about his voice work later today, but it will focus on voice work only. Yesterday, we got another wonderful example of it in his screen work. He plays a German! Okay, yeah, I already knew that, but I hadn’t heard him speak with a German accent until yesterday. It’s these kinds of things that really show me how much I’m in the bag for Richard Armitage. The clip of him in the Captain America trailer is what? about two seconds long? And yet I’ve watched it, oh, maybe 50 or 60 times. Of course I have to say 50 or 60 times because anything less sounds like a lie, and anything more might scare you. LOL! But however many times I’ve played it (I really don’t know), I’ve done it all sorts of ways — slowed down, frame by frame, tiny view, huge view, and now I really do sound like a nut. Glad my kids don’t read this blog. LOL! Next time I make a tuition payment and have to chew on them about goofing off, it wouldn’t hold much weight. No, seriously, they’re good kids. One of them carries a 3.9 and the other a 3.85, so I have nothing to complain about, but I’m not going to take any chances. That’s why they have no idea what this blog is called, and if you don’t think that’s been a feat, phew, think again. I’m a techie, and the apples don’t fall far from the tree. If they wanted to find this, they could. I’m just glad they’re so busy they don’t care enough to do it!

Did you see how smoothly I worked in bragging about my kids? I had to say something about them. I am proud of what they’ve done, and I can’t help but talk about it sometimes even more than RA. ;-)

Okay, back to the topic at hand. Man, I cannot wait to hear more of his German accent. I wonder if he will actually speak German. I LOVE the German accent by the way, which is a very good thing since SO’s family are very, very German. His grandmother even spoke with a distinct German accent. Her last name was Schmidt, and her maiden name was Hinman. I dare not tell you SO’s last name. I will say this, it means on patrol, on guard, or watchman. LOL! Oh, sorry. I’m having trouble staying on topic. :D

I wasn’t going to post the new Captain America trailer, but I’ve actually had people ask me about it. I figured most of the people who read my blog are die hard fans who know where to find all the news about RA, but I guess there are some who come here first. Wow. I’m bowled over. So here it is:

Heinz Krüger is on about 1:41. On a slightly related note, I love Tommy Lee Jones. I’ve loved him since “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

Before I forget, here is an audio clip of just RA’s part in the trailer:

And speaking of news, is there a possibility that RA could be in this at all?

RSC 50th birthday celebrations see Robin Hood ride into Warwickshire

By Marion McMullen, Entertainment Reporter
Mar 24 2011

IT’S bow and arrows at the ready as Robin Hood rides into Warwickshire as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 50th birthday celebrations.

Family show the Heart Of Robin Hood follows the recent big screen version of the Sherwood Forest outlaw starring Russell Crowe and the BBC1’s TV series featuring Coventry-trained actor Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne.

The new production, written by RSC associate director
David Farr, will be the Christmas special at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford and the first large-scale family show to be staged in the recently-opened theatre.

The swashbuckling show tells the tale of the notorious Robin Hood and his outlaws.

Read the rest here.

emphasis mine

Screencaps and audio are courtesy of my stash, but to keep up with news, I often go to RichardArmitageNet.Com.

The Ear

Please click on the banner to see the list of participating bloggers

I started to call this post “A Little Hair of the Dog,” but I suppose for me this is “Day 3 FanstRAvaganza?” Yes, I’m behind on FanstRA, but do any of you care? I didn’t think so. LOL! Plus, there is so much to read on the blogs that I doubt anyone processed it all in one week. So I’m continuing on despite my interruption.

What I’m finding interesting about this last week is it’s becoming clear to me I’m at a place in my life where my ability to roll with the punches is imperative. This blog is certainly a reflection of it. Almost every post I had planned has now been turned on its head. Part of me hates this, but part of me gets a thrill from seeing how well I can bounce back. Now if I can figure out how to channel my zest in a way that’s not chaotic and doesn’t make some of you want to tear your hair out, I will, but I’m promising nothing. This is a significant statement from me as my life is filled with promises that I invariably keep or almost die trying. That’s as closely as I’m going to come to speaking of events this past week which temporarily scrambled my mind. Okay, enough of that. Onto more interesting matters.

As some of you know, I’m doing a series of posts about Richard Armitage’s voice work. Last week I started with The Voice. Hope you hang with me as I continue on with the subject.

Obviously, the deep tone of his voice is wonderful and many of us get a shiver listening to it. I’ve heard some say they could even listen to him reading the phone book. Not quite sure I would get much out of that. Maybe. Depends on how he would read it. There are plenty of other actors with deep, rich sounding voices that are pleasing to the ear. Alan Rickman is great, and Timothy Dalton has a beautiful voice, and oh so many others I could name, and I’m sure that Richard Armitage would do very well with just his natural voice. But the natural quality of the voice is simply not all there is to this fascination. In fact, if I had heard him only speaking as he does normally in interviews, I doubt I would have been this ensnared by it. No, this is something more. It is the way he intentionally uses it that’s so mesmerizing, and I don’t like to toss around words like mesmerizing unless I mean them.

Recently, I saw a picture of him where his luscious beard is gone, but contrary to what some think, that was never the significant wow factor in the Hobbit press conference. Granted, the beard was pretty overwhelming — almost with a life of its own. :D But it was not more compelling than his demeanor, which was mostly effected by his voice. He pulled a Harry! “I’m playing Thorin.” LOL! I think his voice dropped almost an octave when he said Thorin, and then he does it again when he says, “Would you like to be a little bit more specific?” I wish I could have seen the reporter’s face when he whipped that on her! It was like a snake charmer with his flute trying to cast a spell over something that might bite him.

This wasn’t the first time it occurred to me that he uses his voice as an instrument. In my initial watching of Robin Hood, I had the distinct feeling of his voice being played. There was something about the way he varied his pitch that almost had a musical quality and was certainly effective in manipulating me to emotions I never thought I could feel for the bad guy. I’m not one of those women who likes bad boys, so it was quite a shock when I was actually rooting for the evil henchman. LOL! When I first had this thought, I laughed to myself at being that far gone about a then very obscure British actor. Thankfully, I began to be vindicated as I listened to his first audio books for Robin Hood Series 1. (For more on Guy of Gisborne, see note below)

His mimicry in these books is great. I love how he conveys one character with a guttural tone and then turns around and gives another character a tinny, almost flat resonance, and every variation in between for a host of other characters. This did much to paint the picture of them with little or no dialogue or description. But I also had some idea of characters from watching the show and was never quite sure how much that affected the picture in my mind. It was listening to his reading of a Georgette Heyer novel, Sylvester, that I realized how very talented he is, and that’s saying something as I was never a fan of Regency Romance books. I tried to read them as a teen, but the potential sugar shock was too much. So it was with great reluctance that I listened to Sylvester. I’m so glad I did! His verbal rendering of the characters had me completely forgetting the book is Mary Sue on steroids. When I finished the first hearing of it, I had a grin on my face I couldn’t wipe away. For five hours I had been immersed in Regency England where I thoroughly fell in love with the characters and literally had to shake my head to bring myself back to the present. Of course I loved Sylvester and Phoebe, but it was the supporting cast that really made the piece for me. Tom was my favorite with Keighley and some others close behind.

The most wonderful part of listening to the book was afterward I could see Richard Armitage as a little boy with his ears cocked to listen to those around him and then using it to entertain his friends and family with storytelling. It brought such a warm feeling to think of it, and all at once I sensed a great kinship with and fondness for him. I couldn’t help it. I grew up with a mother who’s a performer and has a wonderful gift for it. I, on the other hand, never did, but I still adored storytelling and role playing and ended up with SO who has been storytelling and doing voices to entertain friends and family since he was very young. His children are just like him! My oldest child cannot be around someone for any length of time without picking up his/her speech patterns, and it’s eerie how truly she can nail someone’s speech. Her ear is so attuned to how someone speaks that she sometimes has to restrain herself from mimicking them. My other children do this as well, and I have been the recipient of many hours of entertainment because of it. It’s almost as if they have to express the things their ears are recording to get some relief. All of this ran through my head as I sat there basking in what I’d just heard, and I realized that I didn’t merely appreciate Richard Armitage as a great actor but as a wonderfully sensitive person –much more than I had originally thought. How else to account for someone who could so cleverly convey the feelings and thoughts of his characters with little or no speech, and now he had done it with only his voice?! Amazing.

As for his training, I don’t know if his ear for voices manifested as a child, but I suspect someone who has that keen an ear did not just develop it when he was grown. I also know that being a musician does not necessarily make someone a natural for voices. I am a musician, and I did not come naturally to an ear for spoken voices. Conversely, SO is not a musician, and he certainly has a keen ear for them. Maybe one day RA will tell us his experience, and if he already has and I missed it, well, I’m sure someone will let me know. LOL! Thankfully, some of my curiosity about his preparation was satisfied when I heard the interview for his second Heyer book, Venetia, about a year later:

I love that interview. It is one of my favorites. I was already anxious to listen to Venetia, but after listening to that, I could barely wait. Venetia is probably my favorite Heyer heroine of the three books RA read, and Damerel is wonderfully male. I was so glad I wasn’t driving when I got to chapters 12 and 13. :D I have also listened to The Convenient Marriage, and until recently, all three books were on my iPod as beloved traveling companions.

And whatever is the case with his training, the joy he takes in entertaining is evident and infectious.

Look at that face!

This puts a smile on mine every time I see it. I think it might now be my favorite picture of him.

If you have never had the pleasure of listening to any of RA’s Heyer audio books, or any of his audio books for that matter, or if you would just like to have your own copy of one of the books, I might be able to help. Until next Wednesday, March 30th, anyone who comments on this blog entry will be entered to win one of the Heyer audio books — your choice if you win. I plan to announce the winner on Friday, April 1st. I’ve never done a giveaway, so I hope this is a pleasant experience for all of us, but I do have a few rules. Don’t you love it! :D

Note: Guy of Gisborne is such an enigma that I’m refraining from much discussion of him in my series as he would completely take me off topic. Thankfully, other bloggers have chosen to write about him. Avalon at Avalon’s Medieval is covering a myriad of topics from the audio books to fan videos to fan fiction. Two other bloggers are actually fan fiction authors: Prue Batten at Mesmered’s Blog has written Gisborne and Sarah Pawley at From the Quill Tip has written The Tempest and My Lady Gisborne. Both share their stories on blog and Sarah also highlights some other fan fiction authors. I have read both Prue’s and Sarah’s works, and if you’re a Guy fan, you will not be disappointed. Even if you’re not a Guy fan, you probably won’t be disappointed. There are also some North and South fictions featured on Sarah’s blog.

Then there’s Judi at Confessions of a Watcher:

Judi is a fairly new fan and should be forgiven for not knowing every jot and tittle of fandom minutiae. We’ll give her a test later. :D I honestly didn’t snap to on the award for Robin Hood until right before I posted this, and I’ve been through hell trying to post, so I wasn’t going to wait, and I absolutely love her recording. But heck, I think the show should have won an award. If nothing else, RA should have won for making such a compelling character from that cardboard cut out baddie. But take pity on Judi as she’s still trying to work out her fascination for Guy of Gisborne. LOL! You can take the journey with her beginning here.

Screencaps and audio clips courtesy of my stash, but I have to give credit to RichardArmitageNet.Com and RichardArmitageCentral for being such great suppliers of the raw materials. :D

At It Again

It’s been hard to get back into the RA universe this week. Certainly, it’s not Richard Armitage. No, it could never be due to him. He is utterly fascinating all the time. In fact, that’s the beauty of having him caught on tape — he can be whatever I want him to be anytime, anywhere. But sometimes real life just won’t let me fanatasize incessantly about him. Did I say fantasize? No, I would never do that. At least not while I’m asleep. I want to be awake so I can get the most out of it, but damn, SO and the kids just won’t stop being who they are to let me do it! So I was in a tizzy pondering my abilities for fantasy about RA (yes, when you’re a rabid fan, you think about heady stuff like that) — at the least trying to work up that perpetual glow fans get when they’ve been wowed by himself’s abilities.

What I really needed was a little Armitage fix. I just couldn’t do it to myself since the curse of taking something fun and making it convoluted complex was riding me hard. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do it. I opened my in-box, and there was a little treat waiting. It was almost as if the laws of attraction really do work. Less than a minute later I was back thinking of angst about life and love in an enjoyable way, and before I could think too much, I was loading up various slide shows (oh, sometimes there are some slide shows that my heart can barely handle for the thrill; I force myself to look at them anyway. :D), and well, my fingers were itching to unleash all of my bullshit on you again.

The little treat I received is packed with goodies to find. So despite its length, you make up for it by watching over and over to mine them. Picture me with glazed eyes and a wonderful glow this morning. :D

Enjoy:

Sometimes I Still Stop

And ask myself what am I doing?! I’ve now written almost 300 posts and published over 170. And most of that is about someone I don’t know and never will. Yes, I feel like a fool sometimes, but what alleviates my conscience is that I’m having such a good time writing. Oh, I know this blog is more than half bullshit, but it’s kept my hand in the writing, and I really do spend time writing other things, which has me asking another question even more frequently: why, why, why was I not writing sooner? Some of the answer is in my diary entries, but I’m not going to tell you everything because I do have to protect the guilty, and, I’m afraid the other stuff would bore the socks off of you.

Or maybe that’s me projecting on you how I feel. I can get bored very quickly, and it’s shocking that I’m still with this blog. I figured this was going to be a one note song — this talking about Richard Armitage all the time, but I never knew something seemingly one-dimensional could be this much fun. NO! I don’t mean Richard Armitage. Apparently he’s not one-dimensional or he wouldn’t have attracted so many interesting fans. Did I just compliment myself as well as all of you? Yeah, I think I did. Whatever, this is fun and you all are fun, and I thank you for giving me so much pleasure. Oh, and thanks to RA too. :D

I need a picture badly.

I honestly don’t know where this picture came from, but it’s too good not to use. I realize it came from the Children in Need clips; just not sure who made it. Whatever, looking at that makes it clear why I keep blogging. Of course, it’s not just how he looks, but that doesn’t hurt. Phew, that stance definitely demands a cold bucket of water on our collective heads. And if People Magazine doesn’t get with it in the next year or two, I may never read that rag again.

At least others get it.

Picture courtesy of Karima. Thank you, Karima! :D

Diary of an RA Fan — Part 20 My Kingdom for a Plastic Horse

See Diary Part 19 here, or to access all entries, hit “The Diary” tab above.

Entry — Still Fall, 2008:

I joined the Armitage Army forum today. The lure of it was too much to resist any longer. My desperation to talk to others about Richard Armitage and Stanislavski and identities and art simply overcame any hesitance I had about looking like a fangurl with exploding ovaries. I want to wallow in a discussion about what I’m discovering, and IMDb is not enough. What I’ve read on the Army site has given me tons to check out, but it’s a little daunting knowing where to start.

A couple of weeks later:

I didn’t get very far. I became distracted by a discussion that may have cured me of my fascination with Richard Armitage. Me, the cheapskate, has totally had my purse strings loosened by this guy, so once again I had to buy something that had several posters atwitter. It’s amazing to me what I’ve bought in the last several months. Thankfully, this item wasn’t very expensive, but I did have it sent express mail, which costs a young fortune, and now I’m the owner of one of these.

My only problem is that I can’t let this thing see the light of day. I mean I don’t even know where to put it. I’m not quite ready to take a page out of the book of the ladies who went on about theirs. Several of them said they used their kids for cover. The little SOs would not let me do that. They would call bull on me so fast, it would make my head spin. I don’t have that luxury, so I’m stuck with this thing crammed, er, lovingly placed at the back of my lingerie drawer. I CANNOT BELIEVE I’m writing this. What’s really sad is that I’m bummed I didn’t get what I really wanted — one of these.

So much for art.

Present day:

I hid that doll so well I couldn’t find it to take a picture for this post. I moved it from the lingerie drawer so it wouldn’t be discovered there and given a significance that it doesn’t hold. Now I’m wondering where it will emerge, and what my explanation, if any, will be. LOL!

See Diary Part 21 here.

Diary of an RA Fan — Part 19 “the important thing is that you play truly.”

See Diary Part 18 here, or to access all entries, hit “The Diary” tab above.

Entry — Fall, 2008

Autumn is finally here in earnest, and its beauty usually makes me pensive. But this year I feel rushed. There is so much I’ve wanted to do, and I’ve done almost nothing. Dad’s gone and Mom’s not in great health, but that doesn’t seem to stop her from talking about England. That’s all she ever talks about, and I know full well the chance we’ll go there is almost nil. She is simply not up to it, and I can’t be gone for another month. The world would stop around here if I were gone for a month as I was last summer. Then again, maybe that would be a good thing. LOL!

I was driving over to see Mimi the other day. I love to drive to Mimi’s. It takes me on one of my favorite routes. The trees are close to the road and seem to glow as if they’re lighting the way to somewhere sublime. I swear they’re backlit by something other than the sun. Even though I love visiting Mimi, I wanted to just sit in the woods. It was a gorgeous day, truly a halcyon day — sunny but cool and barely a cloud in the sky. Just enough clouds to make the sky seem painted. Yeah, sometimes it’s so blue it doesn’t look real. I’m blessed to live here.

But I’m not satisfied. I wonder what that really feels like. Maybe I experienced it when SO and I were coming to know each other or when we had the little SOs. I certainly love them all more than I can express, but feeling satisfied is so fleeting, I’m not sure I’ve experienced it. Maybe it’s not supposed to last long. I don’t know. So much I don’t know, and there’ s not much time to figure it out.

I haven’t watched any Richard Armitage for a couple of weeks, and I’m feeling some withdrawal. That simply can’t happen. It’s an inexpensive thrill for me even if I do have several hundred dollars invested, and I’m going to continue. And whom does it hurt? I watch when I have time! ROFLOL!! Yeah, I’ve made time for it, but I’ve got to have some outlet or I’ll go nuts, and I don’t want to go nuts again. I’d rather re-immerse myself in Robin Hood even though the frustration lingers about its ending and my silly urge to blame someone hasn’t gone away. Dominic Minghella, the chief writer, is apparently the guilty party. Must find out more about him because I need to understand how someone could develop those characters and then use them like that? Or maybe it was just over my head.

I’ve got to put all of that aside. At least long enough to rewatch the show; otherwise, it will be a constant specter, and I’ll never figure out what fascinates me so much about a character who’s a thug, and of course I realize he wants redemption. Redemption stories are almost always powerful, but I’ve never had quite this reaction to such a minor character.

I could dismiss it as mere objectification of Richard Armitage. Damn. No! But oh his movements are beautiful. Even his seemingly languid movements are rife with something begging to be explored. His movements in total are imbued with something I just can’t name. I would love to describe what it is, but words fail. They always fail. I guess I’m lazy. If it’s not easy to say, I drop it and move on. I’ve always had a problem expressing myself about anything that moves me deeply except to sometimes fob it off with a crack. But something truly fitting for what I feel never comes. My words never sound as I want them to sound. They’re prosaic, and I cringe at them.

A few days later:

I started reading Stanislavski. That’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a teen and became fascinated with Brando and James Dean. Richard Armitage reminds me of those two more than any other actors. In my mind he’s those two fused. When I was a kid, Mom referenced the Actors Studio where Brando and Dean studied. She also spoke some of Stella Adler. From there it wasn’t too many steps to pique my interest in Stanislavski. I should have read him years ago. Only a few pages into his book and I was intrigued. He is speaking of things I’ve thought but didn’t feel free to pursue. To pursue them would be playing mind games, but heck, I’ve done that anyway. I wonder how much better I could have expressed myself if I had let my mind unfocus and tap into my subconscious. What I’m loving is that I have finally figured out what Richard Armitage is doing that has sucked me in so thoroughly!

This explains a lot and contains a description of what happens to me when I watch Richard:

The fundamental aim of our art is the creation of this inner life of a human spirit, and its expression in an artistic form… Our experience has led to a firm belief that only our kind of art, soaked as it is in the living experiences of human beings, can artistically reproduce the impalpable shadings and depths of life. Only such art can completely absorb the spectator and make both understand and also inwardly experience the happenings on the stage, enriching his inner life, and leaving impressions which will not fade with time. — Spoken by Director Tortsov from An Actor Prepares

The inner man he’s created, the inner life is playing out, and the truth of it is so beautiful I can’t get enough. There’s a sanity to it that I’ve seldom seen in an actor. Maybe I’ve never seen it.

“Impalpable shadings and depths of life.” What a way to describe it. Perfect really. John Thornton drinking tea at the Hale’s, nodding his head but unable to look at or speak to his mother after his rejection from Margaret, agonizing at the train station before Margaret comes back to him with her portmanteau. John Standring having his mouth full of sausage, being frustrated at his body’s impatience in an intimate moment with Carol, grinning at Carol as he tries on a suit. And Guy. Guy awkwardly holding the Sheriff’s bird, lighting up when he realizes the nun is a fake, looking intently at Marian when he sees she’s not wearing her betrothal ring, beaming when he comes to tell her the king is returning, rushing up like a little boy to her before the wedding. The ring of truth in these moments completely submerges Richard Armitage and the person he’s fashioned is there thinking and feeling and drawing me into his story.

“Will not fade with time.” Certainly I will remember John Thornton’s sweet eyes looking at Margaret as she explains her business proposition or Guy saying to his servant Thornton that the thing is to be understood.

[note: imagine my grin a year later when I read RA’s crack in this article. There will be more about all of this. It’s too much for one post. Oh, and I went on to read more Stanislavski and some Grotowski and Vakhtangov. Phew.]

Quote in the title from Mikhail Shchepkin.

See Diary Part 20 here.

Yorkshire Wench

NOTE: if you’re looking for Yorkshire Wench’s videos, they are no longer accessible online. Go here for more information.

Man, that name conjures all sorts of things. Of course John Thornton and his proximity to Yorkshire, and as a good little RA fan I know RA has ties to Yorkshire as well, and not only due to his interest in Richard III. Then there is my own experience with the place. I was simply overwhelmed by Yorkshire and really bummed I didn’t get to spend more time there. I love history and having read about the War of the Roses, I really wanted to see Yorkshire as I got to see Lancashire. Plus, my camera was having a problem when I drove through there, so I didn’t get one picture! Perhaps this means I have to go back to the U.K. and rectify that? Oh yeah, that’s what it means. LOL!

I wanted to embed this wonderful picture of the Yorkshire Dales, but WP is being a bully, so I’ve uploaded it, Do me a favor and click on the photo to see its original, and hey, you should probably vote for this picture on that site as well.

But all of that is not what this post is about. This is about someone who has supplied many RA fans with countless hours of pleasure in viewing videos and screencaps. YorkshireWench was one of the first to make fanvideos of RA’s works, and I have several. They are some of the first RA videos I obtained, and I still have them in online storage and some on my iPod. I think I’ve thanked her for those on LiveJournal on several occasions (but not as RAFrenzy). However, I’m going to thank her again because she’s shutting down her website, and I’m taking the occasion to tell her again how grateful I am for her work, which is really all I know of her except that I think her name is Claire and she’s a Pisces like me.

If you’re new to RA, then you have probably never seen these videos, since they are not on YouTube. Here is the link to her website [link disabled; see edit below] where you can get links to her videos on Vimeo. You will have to get the links on her site since all of these videos are private and therefore will not come up in search results on Vimeo. To access them you will need a password, which is listed on the homepage of her site. You can also download the videos in various formats. I recommend downloading because the quality is so much better than Vimeo.

Some of my favorites:

Any Other Name (Robin Hood)

Requiem for a Dream (Robin Hood)

Upside Down (The Impressionists)

Adagio for Strings (North and South)

What If (North and South)

Enough about that; go take a look, and if you’re offended by some slash, you might not want to look. I’ll tell you plainly that I’m not a fan of slash, but there are plenty of others to like, and I do. Just so you know, “Any Other Name” is one of my all time favorite Guy videos, I just couldn’t upload it or easily link to it for my top ten fanvids.

edit: since I wrote this piece, Yorkshire Wench has shut down her site, but I have obtained links to all of her Richard Armitage videos on Vimeo, which you can find here. If you want links to all of her videos, you can find them here. But if you go directly to Vimeo, the password is butterfly.

Who the Hell is Richard Armitage?

[NOTE: I now have a permanent page (“Who is Richard Armitage?”), and it has more video clips.]

This post is for all of you who have recently been introduced to Richard Armitage, the actor, via some poll or celebrity site where he popped up as perhaps the number two or even the number one contender in a contest. But you have never seen him animated and are completely perplexed by his fans’ love. Somewhere, sometime, some of you have uttered that question. I used to ask it myself! Hopefully when you are done with this post, you will begin to understand what his fans see. I’m not going to waste time trotting out his bio. You can read that on IMDb.

I want to gush and draw you the perfect picture of him with my words. To somehow convince you that he deserves the respect his fans give him. But I know it is probably wasted because I’ve been where you are, and no words were going to do it for me. I had seen stills of Richard Armitage before I saw him act, and I was profoundly unmoved and even put off. He just can’t be appreciated from a few pictures. The chameleon quality he brings to his acting helps to make him one of the finest actors, but it sometimes puts him at odds with stills. Seeing him moving and speaking is the key to understanding. If you have never done that, then you don't get it. But you’re in for a treat if you watch him. Not only is he extremely masculine, he is sensitive as well, and the superb mingling of these makes him an utterly beautiful man to behold. As gushy as I am, this post has been very difficult to write. I want to gush a lot more, but I’ll refrain and let him speak for himself.

John Thornton:

Guy of Gisborne:

Harry Kennedy:

Claude Monet:

John Standring, one of my favorite characters:

Lucas North:

Ricky Deeming:

John Porter:

edit:

Thorin Oakenshield, his latest portrayal:

By Popular Demand

Okay, so I don’t know who all loves a certain video, but a few do if my email is any indication, and I think I’ve made it clear how much I love it. :D I will say again that its name fits — “Guy-Supermassive….”

Oh, and the shot above is from one of the best parts of the video — when the song’s bridge is playing. LOVE IT! Perfect clip!

I’m excited Elvira, per Joana’s enthusiastic consent, has now put it up on her site RAfanvids, and in several formats. If you’ve had trouble viewing from your phone, perhaps this will help. Check it out.

Enjoy!

edit:

Thanks to Elvira I’ve uploaded a better copy of the video to YouTube and disabled the older copy.

Google Can Be Such a Tease

Those alerts can really mess with my head if I let them. Thankfully, I’m a skeptic so I mostly don’t fall for it. But sometimes I miss out because what I’m reading might be true. This morning (for those who don’t already know) there was an alert about Strike Back. Supposedly it’s been renewed for a second series. I will love that if it happens, but for now I’m reserving my hysteria happiness until someone can confirm for my jaded ass that it’s true.

Somehow The Mirror reporting it isn’t enough. Can’t remember what they burned me on, but it was something or I would be giddy by now. Plus, the lack of detail in that piece makes me want to stay away. Or is this just my cynical self running amok?

In the meantime, a picture of RA’s character being put upon:

Oh! Freudian slip. This is the one I meant:

Screencaps courtesy of RichardArmitageCentral.com and RichardArmitageNet.Com