Today, I discovered this poignant post by someone who says he is an acquaintance of Richard Armitage (to read it go here). This highlights the concerns I outlined awhile back.
It behooves all of us to adhere to the poster’s suggested standard, especially because this issue affects a real person.
Comments closed for this post.
Edit: the post on IMDb has been removed, so in the interest of not belaboring this issue, I’m removing the link to my previous post.
Yep, I finally had a dream about Richard Armitage. Oh yeah, of course I did. ;-)
Last night I was dreaming I went to Comic-Con with hopes of seeing Richard there. In the dream, I envisioned myself interviewing people with an eye toward maybe seeing our guy. Heather, laden with camera equipment, was also with me and we were there trying to do our job — bringing reports and pictures to the fans. Then I woke up a couple of hours ago, and I really was there. :D
Seriously, awhile back I was invited by TheOneRingnet to come to Comic-Con, and thankfully, really was able to bring Heather with me. I want to take this opportunity to thank Larry Curtis for the invitation, and we will do our best to report as much as possible. Heather and I are also doing work for some other sites, and I can’t tell you how good it feels to do something you love as a job!
For those who read this blog, I will be over at TORn, so check there for reporting, and I may get over here some when I can. We’ll see. Right now the whole experience is surreal, and I’m trying to process exactly what is happening! But I adore a challenge, so stay tuned! :D
Note: I ask that you all understand I am not RAFrenzy this week, or should I say RAFrenzied. LOL! Tolkien and the creativity he inspires has put my imagination in overdrive. I told you all awhile back that I was going to do something else in the future, and I am. Creativity is a big part of that. But no worries. I will get pictures of Richard Armitage if I can get into Hall H and anything I get will be posted as part of TORn’s coverage.
Seriously. That scroll display on Entertainment Weekly is awesome, and you all know how I hate to use the word awesome. This deserves the description.
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bccmee has the panorama for download here.
TheOneRingNet (TORn) has confirmed the Brits don’t have to wait until the day after Christmas to see ‘The Hobbit.’ It had been erroneously reported by a news site and a blog in the UK that the release would not occur until Boxing Day, which was of course upsetting, and how patently unfair it would have been since most of the cast is British.
Some of you know that I have thrown in with the TORn staff to help report and write stories. I thank you for your support of me and hope you give support to TORn as well if you’re not already doing it. I also want to take this opportunity to confirm they are an extremely nice bunch with a great sense of humor and hard working as well. They are working feverishly on this Comic-Con event and will keep you posted in great detail as they will with all the news that’s coming in regard to ‘The Hobbit,’ and yes, Richard Armitage. :D
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Okay, so I published that picture again. Do you mind?
Scan courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.com
It’s a wrap for ‘The Hobbit’ filming! Other than heading to Comic-Con, I wonder if Richard Armitage will get in some skiing. Oh maybe free styling somewhere around Ruapehu:
Wait!
Dear Rich,
Forget I said that. We can’t have you breaking a leg before Comic-Con. We’re all beside ourselves to see you up there where you belong — onstage before a bunch of screaming fans. Be sure to take some Tylenol.
Signed,
One of your crazy fans, who knows what it’s like to break a leg and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Ugh.
What was I saying about getting bored staring at the same picture? I lied. Richard Armitage is Thorin so deliciously in this picture, and you know I’m strongly affected when I use language like that. When have I ever used words like deliciously? Yep, I thought so. Never. And this might be the only time. ;-)
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But then I guess this isn’t exactly the same picture is it. Daria has done some magic on it! And for more of her magic, check out her DeviantArt profile or her tumblr.
The highlights on his face and hair make me think I could find him on a beach somewhere but obviously without all the leather. :D
Original scan provided from Ali’s wonderful iPad. :D And can be seen in a larger format at RichardArmitageNet.Com
Fandwarfing* hasn’t made sense to me until today. The photos of Richard Armitage as a dwarf, frankly, didn’t look like a dwarf. He has always looked like himself in stature — rather large. But ‘Entertainment Weekly’ has a new raft of photos from ‘The Hobbit,’ and one of RA actually gives the appearance of a dwarf. And I find, I quite like it. I guess “dwarves” really can be sexy:
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You can see the rest of the photos including couple of more with RA on the EW site here.
* a term coined by Calexora to express the hysteria which goes on when seeing the little people and more especially one little people. :D
Photoshop excellence by Heather
TheOneRingnet came through again! They have confirmed ‘The Hobbit’ cast, including Richard Armitage, will indeed be at Comic-Con.
I hope this settles it for some of you. :D
This is a great photo, but someone needs to talk to TORn about a more recent one.
Promo still courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.com
Perhaps I’ve threatened to quit blogging one too many times. Let me assure those who sent me notes. I’m not quitting. I’ve just been busy and had toons on my mind lately. Blame it on the notion of Comic-Con which has me boning up on all things that make fanboys lose sleep. Of course after yesterday, I may blog about Richard Armitage for another five years. No, even I couldn’t talk about him that much.
Then I see something like this:
and chuckle at the thoughts which fly through my head. There wasn’t an urge to number the stubble but rather name the ones under his chin who have lived with him and seen all manner of things. Oh my Barney has gotten an eyeful, and what oh what has Barney endured? There’s a story. :D
Some of you are thinking, “Barney is not an elegant enough name for Richard’s stubble,” and maybe you’re right, but such is the pitfall of having Comic-Con as a filter for the next few weeks and for which RA is responsible.
And with all this talk of defection in recent weeks, I have a confession. I have become a Tolkien fan, which was not in my plans. Quite awhile back I started reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings for the second time. My first reading was at the ages of 14 and 15 and read in part because my guy friends were all reading them, and I wanted to know what was so intriguing. Their discussions also made it obvious my education was not as well-rounded as it should have been. So mostly my curiosity and pride were at work as the impetus, and any satisfaction was clinical. This time around I was just reading for enjoyment, for the wonder of it. And obviously I did enjoy them, but in the middle of all that reading, I began partaking of Tolkien’s essays and letters and fell in love with him.
Yeah, there he is. Can you see my grin?
In particular the ability and encouragement to fantasize in a way that’s edifying makes him irresistible. And that is the point isn’t it? To be edified. That may sound odd coming from the author of a blog like this one (or maybe not), but there has been something edifying about the process here. Oh, sometimes it gets boring. Yes, there it is. Sometimes I get bored with all of this. How many times can you look at the same photo of someone?
But what I’ve been trying to say in my diary entries is how I’ve become utterly obsessed with what words can do and how I came to give myself permission to explore that. As a reader, I’ve always adored others’ abilities to handle words, but I never thought to articulate the wild thoughts in my head. I was a geek and a musician who loved to spend countless hours solving a problem or playing with notes. Playing with the phrasing in a musical piece. But to do something similar with words? No, I could never do that. It was left for the few who mysteriously had some sort of gift. My imagination would have to remain locked up and privy only to me. I was good in math and had better pursue it or something related to it since I didn’t have the “gift.”
If I get the courage worked up enough, I’ll continue the entries. Mostly, I have to forget that you’re all here. It’s only when I post as musing to myself that I can really proceed. Thankfully, I realized before I started this blog that it doesn’t matter if what I say here is perfectly lucid or smacks of great ability. It’s something and better than nothing, and most important that I’ve let myself go to a much freer place. Tolkien is a balm in this respect. I plan to take out his words and review them when I’m feeling the infection of performance mentality, and I love this quote no matter how incessantly it’s been used nor how hackneyed it’s become to some of you. It aptly sums up my presence here:
“…Not all those who wander are lost…” — PPS in a letter from Gandalf to Frodo, Fellowship of the Ring
Thank God for post scripts.
About now you might be thinking, “This blog is your wild thoughts?” No, but it has helped to keep me thinking what happens when you communicate with others in written form. My wandering here has helped me get through writing a book, and if someone had told me a few years ago that I would write a book other than a technical how-to, I would have laughed hysterically. And now I’m halfway through a novel.
But all of this is a preface to a question, really.
Can I have two infatuations? :D
A report from a local in New Zealand:
I travelled to Wellington to see Ian McKellen’s one man show in support of a theatre in Christchurch which miraculously survived the big quake but the 10,000 after shocks has left the building needing a lot of expensive repair. My sister lives in Wellington so I was staying with her and she was coming to the show with me. There were rumours that the cast of the Hobbit would attend but I tried not to get my hopes up.
We arrived at the theatre and positioned ourselves on the stairs so we could see who was arriving. First we saw Martin Freeman and shortly thereafter Richard Armitage. He had a quiet demeanour and although he greeted some friends was left alone by the people in the lobby. He has a bit more hair on top, dark, and the beard is as we have seen before, perhaps a bit bushier. I think he was wearing the Spooks series 8 jacket – the one with leather trim along the raised collar. He was also wearing a thick black long sleeved Tshirt and black jeans. He took his seat a few rows back from the rest of the cast which seemed to include most of the kiwis, and Aidan Turner, Billy Connolly, James Nesbitt and Luke Evans. I was in the circle and couldn’t actually see him from my seat.
The show started and it was a magical show. It was definitely an audience who knew their Shakespeare and of course NZers are as fond of Sir Ian as he is of NZ. The first half of the show began with a passage from The Hobbit, and then he talked about JRR Tolkein and previous Hobbit productions, and wielded his sword which is very large and very beautiful. He then admitted that there are 2 versions of the sword, an aluminum one for fighting and a heavier one for ceremonial occasions. The audience was then invited to ask him any questions they liked, and it was a very merry story telling session until intermission.
Spotted RA again (it is helpful that he is tall) but he did not stay in the lobby long.There were a lot of people in the lobby, and I was feeling rather shy myself, so didn’t approach him.
The 2nd half of the show was all about Shakespeare with soliloquies from a number of plays. The audience loved it and there were some spellbinding moments.
AND THEN he invited the Hobbit cast on stage. I’m sure you can guess who waited at the back of the queue as they all climbed the stairs to the stage, and there was quite a number. RA was holding a collection bucket, as were other cast members and I started to get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Members of the audience were then also invited on stage and Ian gave them some instructions we could not hear. What he was telling them to do was to fall down as if dead at a particular point in the next speech, which is what they all did. I took a video with my pretty poor camera which is now on You Tube. The One Ring Site has one with better audio, and the bows at the end, but mine has lightly more RA:
And then the show ended. We headed out to the lobby, and there were members of the cast with buckets collecting but no sign of RA. Luke Evans, James Nesbitt and Aidan Turner I spotted, but where was RA? After a bit of waiting we decided he must still be in the theatre stalls area, and headed in there. There was a large queue waiting to talk to Martin Freeman but only about half a dozen talking to RA. He was chatting to an expat English family while they all took photos with him. And then it was my turn. Summoning my courage I asked him if he would sign my book, a copy of The Hobbit of course. He said “Good book” and I said I had thought I should read it before the film came out. He asked me my name, and then said he would also put his character’s name after his signature in the book (being an unassuming chap he thought I wouldn’t already know-as if!). I asked if he had enjoyed his time in NZ, and he said he loved New Zealand. I said that I really enjoyed his performances and he said “oh bless you”. I then asked how much longer he would be Thorin and he said about a month. At this point (and yes, I did make a donation in the bucket while all this was going on) I was too shy to ask for a photo, but I was so thrilled to have had a short conversation with him that it felt like an imposition to ask him for a photo as well as the autograph. I wished him good luck with the rest of the filming, and moved on.
I think he may be very tired as they near the end of filming as he was very still. There was not an ounce of “movie star” in his manner. I wouldn’t say he was shy, but certainly not someone to push himself forward.
NZfanofRA
Thank you NZfan!
I feel the urge to start making grand pronouncements about this wonderful fellow we’ve all decided to follow, but I’ll try to refrain for now. Maybe our friend in New Zealand will be so kind as to fill us in on some things if we ask nicely. :D
RAFrenzy 
