How the Hobbit team brought Radagast to life

As part of the DVD release of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’, we’ve managed to get our hands on a behind-the-scenes featurette all about how Peter Jackson’s team brought to life perhaps the most endearing of Middle-earth’s inhabitants: Radagast The Brown.

Watch the video above to see exactly how they did it.

It might make you love him just a little bit more…

[Related story: Hobbit stars on 'dark' sequel Desolation Of Smaug]
[Related story: Why the Hobbit HAD to be so long]

Woodland wizard Radagast was excluded from Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ trilogy (he appeared briefly in the books), however the director reveals “one of the joys of adapting ‘The Hobbit’” was how they were able to finally introduce the character.

‘[It] gave us an opportunity to expand some of the narrative Tolkien wrote,” explained Jackson.

Sylvester McCoy, perhaps best known as the seventh incarnation of the Doctor in cult sci-fi series ‘Doctor Who’, was chosen to take on the role of Radagast (described in the clip as “the most brilliant piece of casting”), calling his strangely charming character “a bit dopey, absent minded… a tramp really.”

We also get to see just how much detail Jackson’s design team at Weta put into creating the ‘ragged’ look of Radgast: his animal-like costume, accidental tree-dwelling house, and exactly why he has so much bird poo down his face…

‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.