He is, at least, sporting a beard that Tolkien could get behind, though not for his own aesthetic reasons. I know.’įor a portion of the film-watching public, 48 year-old, Leicester-born Armitage is probably best known as Thorin Oakenshield, the haughty dwarf king in The Hobbit trilogy, a casting decision which seems faintly ridiculous as he strides into the lobby of The Marlton hotel in Manhattan, where he has been based for five years, a strapping six foot two. ‘What was I thinking?’ Later, when discussing his experiences on the set of Captain America, in which he played the assassin Heinz Kruger – a role that involved some ‘quite traumatic’ underwater filming – he confesses that he has a genuine fear of water. ‘Cut to me, 30 seconds into being waterboarded, going: “Get off, get off, get off.”’ He rolls his eyes. During the making of Spooks, in which he played the enigmatic MI5 agent Lucas North, he famously asked to be waterboarded. It’s not full-scale Method, he insists he just finds it easier, when getting into character, to create real memories for himself, rather than having to construct fake ones. ‘I don’t want to imagine what it’s like to plant trees, I feel like: just go and do it,’ Armitage shrugs. This month, for example, the actor is getting his hands very dirty indeed with the Forestry Commission in Dartmoor, as part of his preparations for playing Astrov, the brooding doctor and proto-environmentalist in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, which opens in the West End next month. Richard Armitage is not a man who does things by halves. Onscreen beefcake tells Jane Mulkerrins why he's ready to drop the tough-guy act, and why he's now more carefree about discussing his personal life