Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2012

Film actors are known to complain about location shoots, which keep them away from home for weeks at a time. But what if acting duties call one to the other side of the world for a full 18 months? It was a most welcome invitation for the cast of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, who recently visited Tokyo. All installments of the series were filmed back-to-back in New Zealand, requiring a particularly long shoot. “For a year and a half, we became a brand-new family and went on a brand-new adventure,” says Andy Serkis, who reprises the role of Gollum that he started in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. “It was special to see the atmosphere on the set was very much the same,” says Elijah Wood, who appears again as Frodo. “The scale seemed much larger in a way, but the intimacy and connection amongst the people working was very much the same.” Richard Armitage, who plays Thorin, says that Peter Jackson helped allay his fears about joining the popular film series. Martin Freeman, who won the coveted role of Bilbo in the trilogy, praised the ingenuity of the director, who taught himself filmmaking as a child using his parent’s 8mm camera. “It seems like the biggest student film ever made, and I mean that in the best possible way,” the English actor says. “We are making the largest film on planet earth, but it still somehow felt like we were making jam or something.”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is currently screening nationwide.