Gidday,
I trust you are well. Bruce Hopkins here, I played the role of Gamling in Peters LOTR trilogy.
No doubt you are buzzing at the announcement of the start to filming for The Hobbit.
Fantastic to see Jed Brophy in the mix again. It is great to see the mix of kiwis in with such wonderful international actors. Being a small country chances are many of us have worked together at some point, and in fact I have worked with John Callen, Mark Hadlow and Jed, so am really happy for them all. Obviously I would be even happier if I saw my name in there also, but alas I will not hang my future rent payments on it. Having said that I got called into LOTR with a weeks notice 9 months after they had started shooting, so anything is possible.
I have posted some new audio on my RadioLIVE host page. I have part 2 of the chat I was having with the wonderful Mike Foster, US representative at the Tolkien Society. Mike really is a fascinating guy and has a relationship to Tolkiens work that would be the envy of any Tolkien enthusiast, having had access to Tolkiens original manuscripts.
The pièce de résistance is the audio from late 2007 when Sir Ian, Sylvester McCoy and Jonathan Hyde were in town with the Royal Shakespeare Company performing King Lear and The Seagull. I spent time with them, introducing them to the best and most eccentric bar in town called Shanghai Lils, taking them to the beautiful wild west coast Karekare Beach one day ( this is the beach where part of the NZ film The Piano was shot ). I also took them to a small cafe where a mate of mine made the best seafood chowder in town. During this time we agreed I would pick them up from the theatre after their final show and take them to Shanghai Lils for a drink before I had to go and do my overnight radio show. Ian asked if they should come with me to the radio. Of course I was blown away by his offer.
The final night duly arrived and as arranged I took them to the bar. After a couple of hours with them I said goodbye as I had to go do my radioshow with my mate Joe. There was no way I was going to bring up that Ian had said he would come to the radio with me, as they were having a damn fine time as it was. As I said goodbye to Ian, he asked “are we not coming with you? “, this is just one small example of how much integrity this man has!
Fortunately our show producer, Jason Beaumont, upon seeing who turned up with me, had the great sense to record the show.
After listening to it a couple of times recently I realise this needs to be shared, I have edited out the ad breaks and what transpired was truly a brilliant session.
My co host Joe doesn’t play up to the fact that we have 3 of the worlds greatest shakespearean actors in the studio or that one of them happens to be ‘Gandalf’ and another Dr Who! The callers to the show are blissfully unaware who they are chatting to.
My personal highlight…just before they leave the studio Sylvester McCoy plays the spoons while one of our favourite regular callers, 75yr old ‘Leggy Peggy’, plays a medley on her piano, brilliant!!! Peggy passed away in her sleep in 2008 so this is now part of her legacy.
Despite the fact that we were slightly pie eyed from a nice session at the bar there are some really nice insights from these 3 hombres. You just have to excuse me yelling out across the studio throughout, I was jumping off the walls with excitement…and red wine! Sylvester had wanted a copy of this, so hopefully he may listen in via this link at the one and only TORN http://www.radiolive.co.nz/WeekendHosts/BruceHopkins/tabid/561/Default.aspx
Would love to have the fans pop in and have a listen
Cheers
Bruce