While “The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies” is just now sweeping into theaters, filming on the trilogy wrapped all the way back in July of 2013. That hefty amount of interim was due to both “Smaug” and “Five Armies” being shot at the same time. But after a year and a half of waiting, Luke Evans was finally able to see his character Bard the Bowman”s epic showdown on the big screen.
“It brings back a lot of memories. Also, it was lovely to see these incredible sets,” he said during a sit down interview with Hitfix.
Places like the Dale, that were relatively small sets, later got a makeover from the digital effects team. Evans was impressed by the final on-screen transformation.
“Seeing the geography of where everything is. I love that. I mean, no one knew how that was going to look until we saw the film. It was all Peter and the very clever people who work in digital,” he said.
And it wasn”t just the geography of the sets, but the action sequences too. Evans had to use his imagination when it came to conjuring up fiery rooftops. After all, the script can only tell an actor so much.
“There was a bit of script. ‘Bard runs across rooftops,[…] shoots an arrow.” But really, when it comes to something as visual as that sequence, you can only structure it to a certain extent,” Evans said. After that, it”s all by the seat of your pants. “At one point, you”ve just got to wait until the day, put me on cables, stick me on a rooftop, and work out what I can do.”
Not everything was CGI, though. For example, one sequence had Evans swinging around a huge bell tower, which was a practical set. But unlike digital effects, there are hazards to working with a lot of moving parts. Evans discovered this the hard way.
“That was a revolving bell tower. It was revolving around one way, and the bell was swinging. I constantly kept hitting my head. You know when I cut the rope?” [Laughs.] That was purely for my sake […] I was completely dizzy the whole time.”
Peter Jackson”s “The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies” is in theaters and IMAX on December 17, 2014.