The Hobbit star Richard Armitage has revealed that his character's sword from the movies was stolen – and he didn't realize until Peter Jackson saw it listed for sale online and messaged him to ask if he needed money.
When asked what his most memorable end-of-shoot gift is, Armitage tells Total Film, "Orcrist, the sword from The Hobbit. I just did not expect to be gifted the original sword from the shoot." The actor played Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the Company of Dwarves, in The Lord of the Rings prequel trilogy.
"Actually, I had it in a lock-up and it got stolen, and someone was trying to sell it," he continues in our new issue out on Thursday, May 23, which features Twisters on the cover. "Peter [Jackson, the director] pulled me aside and said, 'Are you hard up for money?' I was like, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'Your sword’s for sale online.' So I had to go through this whole thing of getting the police involved, but we got the sword back. Now it’s on a shelf in a very prominent place."
Armitage's next project is The Boy in the Woods, a historical drama about a boy having to fend for himself in the forests of Poland during the Second World War.
The Boy in the Woods is released on digital on May 27. And you can read more about it and a whole lot else besides in the new issue of Total Film when it hits shelves and digital newsstands on Thursday, May 23.
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