Lee Pace told Total Film magazine he’s not sure he’ll ever play a human again. “It’s been quite an interesting year. I don’t know if I’ll ever play a human again! I was a vampire in Twilight, the King of the Elves in The Hobbit and now an alien warlord in Guardians Of The Galaxy,” he says. In the newest interview, which is published in February 2014 issue he discusses Ronan the Accuser, the villain he plays in Marvel’s franchise; comic books and his upcoming series Halt & Catch Fire. “I’m very excited about playing what is going to be a very complicated character over a lot of years; to keep digging deeper and trying to find out more about who he is,” Lee shared.

High-quality scans have already been added to our gallery.

Gallery Link:
Magazine Scans > Total Film (February 2014)

In summer, Lee talked to CLICK about his Guardians of the Galaxy character and social networks. They now posted the full interview with him. He gives a shoutout to his Tumblr fans (which are truly incredible!), talks Thranduil’s rings, The Fall and more.

CLICK: And a final one from the fans, one of them asked if you have a story behind all the rings that your character Thranduil wears?
LP: Oh yea there’s stories about those rings, they mean something to him. This character has been so much fun to play. I’m a huge fan of these books and my father gave me The Hobbit when I was a kid. I was born in a place called Chickasha, Oklahoma and near where my grandparents lived there was a cemetery and there’s a gravestone there that says ‘Bilbo Baggins.’ So not many people know that Bilbo Baggins was actually buried in Chickasha, Oklahoma! My dad was a big fan of the books and Lord of the Rings and he gave them to me as a kid. Never in a million years did I imagine would be here talking to you right now as a part of the movie or Orlando Bloom’s father.

CLICK: To go back a few years, the first thing I saw you in was The Fall which I thought was just an amazing film.
LP: Aw thanks.

CLICK: And I always imagined it must have been a tough film to make with the director Tarsem being so focussed on the look of it.
LP: You know the thing about working with Tarsem was he is a true artist. He’s a true artist and I respect what he’s working on. And it really taught me how to do my job, how to work with a director as talented as him because I saw that what I needed to do was to help him make his movie. To understand what he needs from me to tell his story. Because he’s working on something really big and cool. So hard, not at all, it was inspiring. It was such an incredible experience, everyone on set was a photographer and we travelled the world together. So it was the experience of a lifetime and Tarsem is a good friend and just a true artist. I’ve got tremendous respect for him.

CLICK: I read that Peter Jackson recognised you first in that film and kept you in mind?
LP: Yea I think they flagged me for that for a little while.

CLICK: Six years or so!
LP: Yea! And we’d met and we talked about it and they asked me to do it and said I would love to [laughs]!

CLICK: In the first movie your entire appearance is essentially one dismissive hair toss!
LP: Yea.

CLICK: Can you tell me a bit about what he gets up to this time?
LP: Yea he’s a very consequential character in The Hobbit. He has a much bigger presence in this movie. But the stuff in that first movie I’ve tried to keep it very detailed and I’m looking at those dwarves and that pile of treasure they’ve accumulated and I know that there’s something bad coming. Yea I know it’s a very funny moment, I’m in it for like 20 frames.

CLICK: One person online actually asked what the name of the elk you’re riding was.
LP: Actually there’s an actor playing the Elk you should ask. It’s a horse named Moose. Playing the elk.

CLICK: That’s very confusing!
LP: Yea!

CLICK: You’re obviously featuring in this second movie more, you’re all over the trailer. Is that strange, seeing yourself in such a massive promotion?
LP: Well I remember then Phillipa Boyens showed me the trailer in her kitchen when we were doing reshoots and she was saying they were going to release it in a couple weeks. And so we’re watching it and the voiceover kicks in and I’m like ‘God those lines sound familiar… Philippa that’s me!’ [laughs]

Full interview here.

Sarah Dunn photographed eight lead actors from The Hobbit for YOU mag. Lee Pace was one of them and here’s an exclusive shot shared on her facebook page.

Many of The Hobbit cast members flew to Belin, Germany two days to attend the European premiere. Lee was not there, but Evangeline Lilly talked about their relationship in her interview, when asked who’s the one person she couldn’t have gotten through without. “I think Lee Pace, who played King Thranduil of course. My king. He actually lived with me and my family for a littler while during shooting. He didn’t want to stay in his hotel so I was like “come live in our spare bedroom!” So he did,” she answered. “We were roomies for a while and we got really close. And I miss him. I wish he was here.”

You can watch the full interview below.

Lee Pace (Thranduil) and Richard Armitage (Thorin) talked the struggle between their characters with Click.

Pace’s view is a good deal more philosophical, at least when he’s not in character. “I look at the refugee populations in the world right now and it’s shocking and moving to see a story about displaced people and this king who is determined to not just save the people but the culture, the heritage. So the scenes I love most are when the dwarves are sitting around the table in Bilbo’s house singing. That’s what that become about. It’s not just the gold. That’s me as an audience member and a big fan of these movies speaking, not the Elven King. Because he’s not the biggest fan of the dwarves! [laughs]”

Full article here.

Canal+ released a new behind the scenes video featuring clips from all three movies of The Hobbit trilogy. In the 24-minutes long French dubbed video we can see the fight between Thorin and Thranduil, Lee Pace joking while having his make up done, and more.

New York Daily News has a new article about Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel) and Lee.

To find his Elven King Thranduil, Jackson had to trek even further from Middle Earth — all the way to New York.
After seeing Lee Pace’s turn in 2006’s “The Fall,” the director traveled to the other side of the globe to recruit the Juilliard-educated actor.

They didn’t have to pitch Pace very hard to join a cast that included one of his idols, Sir Ian McKellen, who plays the wizard Gandalf.

“Even when I was in high school drama [class], I would see theater books and there would be pictures of him playing Macbeth opposite Judi Dench,” says Pace. “And I remember looking at them going I wonder what they must be like in person.”

To get into the proper regal mood for his character, Pace would stare at the image of artist Damien Hirst’s famed “For the Love of God” diamond skull sculpture on his iPhone.

By the time Pace’s plane landed in New Zealand, he was ready to assume the throne as the father of Legolas (though Pace, 34, is actually two years younger than Bloom) in “The Desolation of Smaug.”

Pace has called the Big Apple home since he migrated from Texas as a teen.

“I remember being like 17 and I had never been in New York before and I was taking a taxi from LaGuardia down to Lincoln Center where Juilliard is, looking out the window and thinking that it looked like Sesame Street,” he says.
And after a spate of work that took him away from the city for more than a year — including filming Marvel Studios’ upcoming “Guardians of the Galaxy” — Pace is finally home.

What’s the first thing he did upon returning?

“My laundry.”

Full article here.

The release days is just few days away now! Are you excited? If not yet, you should take a look at this brand new behind the scenes video.

When are you seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug?

In the new video, Lee Pace shortly introduces his character, Thranduil, talks his relationship with Thorin and how unpredictable The Elven King is.

Thanks to my lovely friends at Richard Armitage Central, I came across a new interview with Lee. He talks working with big names such as Orlando Bloom and Ian McKellen, immortality, his childhood dreams and more.

For American actor Lee Pace, playing Thranduil, king of the woodland elves in The Hobbit meant he was playing the father to Orlando Bloom’s Legolas, the elf hero of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

In Middle-earth years, Thranduil is centuries older than his son. In the real world, the 34 year-old Pace is two years younger than Bloom.

“I love Orlando. We had a great time on set,” he says of his film offspring but older colleague. “I learned a lot from him, to be honest – just understanding what the concept is with these creatures.”

Thranduil isn’t much like the other Tolkien elves we’ve met before on screen. He’s not like the serene pointy-earred folk of Rivendell, like Elrond or Galadriel. This Elvenking comes with a crown of ornate twigs matched by a chip on his shoulder.

“There’s a perfection to them, but they live forever, so is that perfection or a curse?” wonders Pace. “He’s thought and killed a lot; he’s taken life a lot and survived a lot of battles and he’s sad, he’s hurt because in a Buddhist way he’s not immune to the suffering, and it changes who he is.

“He’s not a happy elf, not a nice elf.”

He’s also the sworn enemy of dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) whose wee gang he takes captive during the part of the Hobbit story covered by The Desolation of Smaug.

“The first scene that I shot was with Richard – and talk about being thrown right in at the deep end. It’s a pivotal scene for both of the characters and it’s the first scene that I shot, the confrontation between the king of the elves and the king of the dwarfs and they do not see eye-to-eye.

“That’s one of the interesting things about The Hobbit – the conflict between the elves and the dwarfs – and we really worked hard to make that conflict specific.

“When Thorin comes through again and I catch him trying to disturb a sleeping dragon I’m determined to stop him … [Thranduil] doesn’t want to be his friend, he just wants people to kneel in front of him.”

Pace seems to have a thing for immortality. Before donning the ears and blonde wig to play Thranduil, he was best known for the short-lived fantasy-comedy television series Pushing Daisies – in which his character Ned had the ability to revive the dead.

As well, he was “good” vampire Garrett in the final film of the the Twilight Saga.

Jackson cast him in the Hobbit trilogy after seeing him in adventure fantasy film The Fall.

For Pace, the shift to New Zealand to the shoot fulfilled more than one ambition.

“All I ever remember wanting to do, as a kid, was act – nothing else. in fact, about the only thing, other than acting, that I’d like to do is go live in the woods, build a log cabin at the top of a hill and try and hide away from the modern world.”

“So, in many ways, the Hobbit ticked all the boxes: not only is it the ultimate acting challenge but it’s also biggest adventure you could go on while making a film.”

The role offered a mix of mental and physical demands.

“The scenes in Elvish were incredibly difficult because we had to learn a completely new language – I’d hate to see the out-takes from those scenes,” he laughs.

“Also, the fighting was a huge challenge because you’re on set with 200 stunt guys swinging these huge pieces of metal around and trying not to hurt anyone, or get hurt yourself. It was pretty intense, at times. The fighting was one of my favourite things that I did in the movie, yeah, because he’s tough. He’s like a game-changer when he enters battle.”

Pace says his year-and-a-half stay in New Zealand has also rekindled his love of the great outdoors, with most of his time off spent tramping or skiing.

“You know, I had a sense that going down to New Zealand to do the Hobbit would be one of those life-changing experiences and that’s exactly what it’s turned out to be,” he adds, seriously. “Getting to work alongside all these incredible actors like Ian McKellen, James Nesbitt and Billy Connolly, who I adore, was an eye-opener.

“It made me appreciate how much I still have to learn as an actor. But I was there, like a sponge, soaking it all up.”

Full article here.