Now, as he stars in ITV\u2019s new thriller Red Eye<\/a>, he has spoken with Radio Times magazine<\/strong> about perhaps his biggest role to date, Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit film trilogy, and has revealed his fear at the time of filming that they had \u201cmade the wrong choice\u201d in casting him.<\/p>\n Asked if he ever has \u2018pinch-me moments\u2019 in his career, Armitage said: \u201cI remember getting to New Zealand to shoot The Hobbit and not unpacking. I genuinely thought I was going to be fired and sent home because they had made the wrong choice.<\/p>\n \u201cNot in a million years would my nine-year-old self, reading the books, ever have imagined that he\u2019d be starring in the films!\u201d<\/p>\n In Red Eye, Armitage plays Dr Matthew Nolan, who is arrested on suspicion of murdering a woman during a recent business trip to China when he lands in the UK.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/b><\/p>\n As he is extradited back to China, with DC Hana Li (Jing Lusi) as his police escort, it appears there is a larger conspiracy at play, with multiple incidents affecting the flight.<\/p>\n Armitage told RadioTimes.com<\/a> what drew him to the role<\/a>, saying: \u201cOne of the things that I was attracted to about the role was, by default, as a doctor, he\u2019s somebody that we should trust. He\u2019s taken the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, therefore, the accusation of killing someone and leaving them for dead strikes me as unfair.\u201d<\/p> He continued: \u201cNormally, I would probably have written a biography of him, but I didn\u2019t. I focused on his job and I focused on the here and now, because I wanted this man to be an enigma.<\/p>\n \u201cI did like the idea of the viewer fluctuating between completely trusting him and really having serious doubts about who he really is.\u201d<\/p>\n [squirrel-affiliate-playlist squirrel_playlist_id=\u201d609\u2033 \/]<\/p>\n Red Eye is available to stream in full on ITVX. The Hobbit trilogy is available to stream on Prime Video. Sign up for a\u00a030-day free trial of Prime Video and pay \u00a38.99 a month after that<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Check out more of our\u00a0Drama<\/a> and Film<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on.\u00a0<\/strong>For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Armitage played Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":50047,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/richard-armitage-feared-hed-be-fired-from-the-hobbit-i-didnt-even-unpack-scaled.jpg",2560,1704,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/richard-armitage-feared-hed-be-fired-from-the-hobbit-i-didnt-even-unpack-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/richard-armitage-feared-hed-be-fired-from-the-hobbit-i-didnt-even-unpack-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/richard-armitage-feared-hed-be-fired-from-the-hobbit-i-didnt-even-unpack-768x511.jpg",768,511,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/richard-armitage-feared-hed-be-fired-from-the-hobbit-i-didnt-even-unpack-1024x682.jpg",800,533,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/richard-armitage-feared-hed-be-fired-from-the-hobbit-i-didnt-even-unpack-1536x1022.jpg",1536,1022,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/richard-armitage-feared-hed-be-fired-from-the-hobbit-i-didnt-even-unpack-2048x1363.jpg",2048,1363,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Armitage played Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's film trilogy.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/50046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2024\/04\/HTDOS-FP-065-54e2d95.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"HTDOS-FP-065\\"\/")
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