The week the Hobbits came to town

My love for all things Lord of the Rings (well...the movies, anyway) is what first brought me to NZ way back in 2004, so it's fair to say that those movies changed my life. 

So you can imagine how chuffed I was to find myself, by pure cooincidence, staying in the same village where filming for The Hobbit was going on.

For the past five days I've been a giddy little girl, unashamedly asking people to take my photo with them and chatting up whomever I can, so long as they're somehow linked to the movie.

At first, I only encoutered crew members (drivers, caterers, etc.), all of whom received these hoodies a few days prior:

That dude in the background owns this hoodie.  He goodnaturedly offered to let me wear it for a photo. 

I'm such a geek.

 A few days later, I came across some of the lesser-known actors such as Richard Armitage, Graham McTavish, and Stephen Hunter.

But, finally, on Monday this happened:



Martin Freeman! He plays Bilbo.  You might also know him from The Office, Hitchhiker`s Guide to the Galaxy and Love Actually.
(Stupid blogging site!  Why have you made vertical pictures unusable?)



And the main event:



Yup.  That's me with Sir Ian Freaking McKellan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gandalf/Magneto himself.
He was lovely.  Friendly, funny, gracious and all round awesome.  Defnitely not the diva he has every right to be.

How amazing is that????? I was shaking when I first talked to him, but he was obviously used to it and took it all in stride.  I'm sure I came off as a ditzy chick. Oh well. 

Sadly, they've wrapped up their filming here, and they've left me bereft.