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One thing Tolkien does incredibly well - and this is from a lay person's point of view; I am not scholar or anything - is that you don't have to make an effort to envisage the worlds that he writes about.

Just think about it: in every shop in the reading world since 1956, there has been two feet of book-space devoted to Tolkien.

I'd never heard of the 'Lord of the Rings', actually. So I went to the bookstore and there it was, three shelves of books about Tolkien and Middle-earth, and I was like, 'Holy cow, what else am I missing out on?'

In the same way 'Lord of the Rings' was an interpretation of the book, 'The Hobbit' is being treated the same way. It will be faithfully represented with a fresh interpretation.

I'm the first to admit that I can't be as good as Tolkien, and a movie can never be as good as Tolkien.

'Lord of the Rings' was a set of books in which the world had been conceived before the characters were placed within that context.

I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, and they had a profound effect on me. I'd read other fantasy before, but none of them that I loved like Tolkien.

When I told my mom I was going to audition for 'The Hobbit,' she said, 'Well, you've always loved Tolkien.' And she was right.

They were the books to read, 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings.' A rite of passage going through life.

Everyone in the '80s was reading Tolkien; he invented this whole medieval fantasy genre.