The Hobbit actress, Renee Cataldo, speaks to Elena Blagoeva about demanding fight scenes goblin dances and the highs and lows of acting.
Elena Blagoeva
Fighting dwarves and hobbits wasn’t the most daunting challenge Renee Cataldo faced while filming The Hobbit.
Renee, who played a goblin in the highly anticipated film, says she found her role in the testosterone- fueled cast to be challenging but very fulfilling.
“It was definitely a male-dominated set”, says Renee, one of the only women in a cast of hundreds of men “It was challenging for me to play such a physically demanding role, especially during the fight scenes. I felt a real sense of achievement keeping up with the boys”.
The fight scenes weren’t Renee’s only struggle on set, getting into costume proved to be just as difficult.
“We arrived very early at the set each day and it took about an hour to get into our three-layer goblin suits and at the end of the day – almost an hour to get out of them,” Renee says.
But it wasn’t only sweat and tears for the beautiful Renee. Choreographing a ‘Goblin Dance’ and performing it during her lunch break with friends in front of Sir Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf, and the rest of the cast was one of her most memorable experiences behind the scenes.
“We were a really tight bunch of goblins,” she laughs.
The Hobbit is the first of three films based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel.
The story takes place 60 years before Lord of the Rings, and follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, who is on a journey to reclaim a lost Dwarf Kingdom from the control of a dragon called Smaug.
Renee describes herself as a huge Lord of the Rings fan and says that it was an honour to be a part of the “phenomenal” film.
The Hobbit actress has been pursuing her acting dream since she was a young girl: “I started acting, dancing and performing when I was four years old and have been doing it ever since! It is a tough industry, but can also be very rewarding when things are going well.”
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, premieres on December 14.