Billy Connolly Finds Tolkien ‘Unreadable,’ Stars in The Hobbit
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When we ran into Billy Connolly last night at the premiere of Won't Back Down, we wondered: Doesn't he need to be back in New Zealand soon to continue his role as Dain Ironfoot in Peter Jackson's newly three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit? "Oh yes!" he confirmed. "I have to go back for that. I haven't done [the battle scenes] yet. I have to get battle-ready! I ride into war on a wild pig!" So, how many times has Connolly read The Hobbit? "I've never read The Hobbit. Never." What about Lord of the Rings? "Never read Lord of the Rings," replied the 69-year-old Scottish actor. "I could never read Tolkien. I always found him unreadable … I didn't read [the books], and I normally don't like people who have! The people who love it, they're kind of scary. They talk all this gobbledygook and they think of it as the Holy Grail."
