The New Murrey and Blue blog

Richard Armitage, the actor best known for his roles as Guy of Gisburne in BBC’s Robin Hood (the only good thing about it IMO) and the dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson’s version of The Hobbit, has always had a special affinity with King Richard III. He was born in Leicester, the place of the King’s burial, on August 22, the same date as the Battle of Bosworth was fought. And yes, he was in fact named for Richard.

Several years ago, Armitage mentioned wanting to do a project on Richard’s life–a non-Shakespearean version, perhaps a tv series of about 22 episodes. However, nothing has come of it till now. Recently, he revealed that there is a project in the offing, although there are no details of the plot or whether it is film or TV. All we know is that Richard said he would not be playing the King, which will disappoint a fair few fans, but very humbly he said that he was now too old for the part and did not resemble him physically enough. What I think we can be sure of is that Richard Armitage will not give us the usual stuff based on Thomas More, etc! Hopefully more news on this exciting project will emerge in the near future!

Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisburne, above