Читать книгу An A-Z of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit - Sarah Oliver - Страница 26

 Name: Bolg

 Alias: Bolg of the North

 Race: Orc (Goblin)

 Played by: Conan Stevens

 Character description: Bolg is an orc warlord. A typical goblin, he is cruel and uncaring.

The actor chosen to play Bolg was Australian actor Conan Stevens. He almost didn’t get the part because he missed the first round of auditions as he didn’t find out about them in time, but thankfully his manager was able to speak to the casting director. They arranged for Conan to film an audition and send it to the casting director via the Internet but, before he could do so, Conan contracted dysentery (an inflammatory disorder of the intestines) and so he was really sick. Because there was no time to waste and he didn’t want to miss out, he had to film the audition even though he had lost a lot of weight and was feeling low on energy. The casting director was very impressed when he saw the audition and the rest is history.

Getting a part in The Hobbit movies meant so much to Conan because the book had had a huge impact on his life when he read it as a 12-year-old schoolboy. He loved it and went on to read The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey and more books about Roman and Greek mythology. Following this, he then began role-playing games such as Dungeon & Dragons, Aftermath and Warhammer. By the time he was sixteen he had decided that he wanted to be an action movie star. To find out more about Conan, visit www.conanstevens.com.

Before being cast, Conan had spent 25 years as a professional wrestler and martial arts expert. He is a massive 7’ ¼” tall, and prior to The Hobbit his biggest acting role was playing Gregor Clegane in the Game of Thrones TV series (2011).

In between filming the first and second Hobbit movies, Conan shot the Spartacus TV series in Auckland. He played a German character called Sedullus. This proved to be a big challenge because the majority of his lines were in German, a language he couldn’t speak. He also squeezed in the movie Vikingdom (2012), which was filmed in Malaysia, playing the Nordic God of Thunder, Thor.