louk419

[louk419]

White Shirt Wednesday 🤍🤍🤍

North & South edition 💛🎩💙

[louk419]

To mark Culinary Arts Month, here's Richard sampling Thai Green Curry from chef Richard Phillips on the Sept 17, 2010, Lorraine show (#1-4) https://tinyurl.com/yjsbf4e9 Memorable for his chopping skills (not!) and admission that he likes his curry "blow my head off" spicy, though the expression on his face tells a different story! 🤣 Also, a Sept 25, 2024, guest stint on the Waitrose Dish podcast (#5-7) with Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett is notable for the way gf Rich devours a smash burger (eating is @ 9:55) https://tinyurl.com/muv6yynt

[louk419]

Monday Munchies 😋 Starting the week off right with a heaping helping of Richard (in super slo-mo!) as John Mulligan, who's having an intimate moment with a fork in the Moving On episode "Drowning, not Waving" (2009). 🔥

[louk419]

Sunday Signings ✍️✍️✍️ (memorabilia edition)

Richard and his Sharpie caught autographing (top, l-r) a now rare Urban and the Shed Crew poster at Newcastle Int'l Film Fest (2018); a very special fan-made guitar at MagicCon7 (2024) (https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Aj8kW5ujt/); Hobbit posters, also at the Con; (bottom) playbills from The Crucible (2014) and Love, Love, Love (2016).

[louk419]

BTS Saturday 🎥 Making of the Geneva trailer

In 2022, just as the Geneva audiobook was reaching our headphones, Richard was already filming an "advert" to market his debut novel to potential readers. Developed by Sassy Films under the direction of Floris Ramaekers, the video was shot at Sky House, an architectural glazing showroom of the IQ Glass Group. https://tinyurl.com/yc2rwbfv

Note: The Sony screen adaptation of Geneva, which Rich officially announced last August, has now been in development for nearly 2 years of what could be a 5-year process. Hopefully we'll receive an update soon. 🙏

[louk419]

Photoshoot Friday 📸 Justin Canning (2008)

Another shoot that keeps on giving ... literally! The number of images in just this one outfit (there were many others) is amazing. A pose for every possible taste. 👏 This navy suit/crisp white shirt duo slays!! It's so perfect on Rich that the combo was also selected 3 yrs later by photog Keith Clouston for the Recognise magazine shoot. 😘

[louk419]

Happy Thighsday 💙 Whether walking or sitting, standing or reclining, in jeans, dockers or dress slacks, Richard cuts a fine figure. Need I say more?! Clockwise from left: leaving ITV and BBC Studios, Sept 17, 2010; at Center for Jewish History in NYC, The Boy in the Woods screening, Sept 22, 2024; at Newcastle Int'l Film Festival, Urban and the Shed Crew screening, Mar 31, 2018; on The One Show promoting Missing You, Jan 7, 2025

[louk419]

Looks like Richard has been busy in the recording studio, with several new audiobooks (including the third in the Arnold Clover series by David Hewson) on the horizon.

He's voiced Ken Follett's work before, so expecting great things from "Circle of Days" ⤵️ coming Sept 23. Available to pre-order now.

[louk419]

B&W Wednesday 🖤🤍🖤🤍 These rather dramatic images of Richard in thoughtful poses are courtesy of photog Paula Parrish who shot them in NYC, Dec 2012, for the cover of Fault magazine. Some praised the shoot for its innovative approach, while others criticized the use of B&W for a fashion spread. What's your opinion? 🤔

[louk419]

It's Top Hat Tuesday 🎩 The stovetop hat -- like the rest of Richard's costume -- is vital to the development of his chaRActer in North & South. (Listen to him speak on the importance of his costume feeling like RL clothing at 2:35 here https://tinyurl.com/5ysjtux7) He wears the hat more in ep3 to signal John's emotional withdrawal after Margaret spurns his marriage proposal. The opposite is also true. John's demeanor softens -- he even smiles -- as he doffs the hat on the Hale's doorstep when he's invited to tea (ep1) and similarly, when he goes to the Higgins' home to offer Nicholas a job (ep4).

[louk419]

OTD in 2017, Castlevania premiered on Netflix. The plot follows the whip-wielding, cynical yet lovable monster hunter Trevor Belmont (voiced to perfection by Richard), whose chiseled jaw and sapphire eyes mirror Rich's own features. The animated series, which ran for 4 yrs, won critical acclaim for visuals, voice acting, action sequences, writing and more. One of the streamer's highest-rated shows, it garnered 30M viewers worldwide by 2018.

[louk419]

On International Kissing Day 😘 Richard shows his affection from a distance by blowing a kiss (clockwise from top left) as John Porter to a photo of his daughter, Lexie (Strike Back ep1); to greet fans in S. Korea as he arrives to finish filming Space Sweepers, Aug 2019; as he signs off from his 2023 Christmas message; as young Ray Levine watching Cassie dance (Stay Close ep3); during an online press conference for Space Sweepers, Feb 2021; from The One Show backstage couch, Oct 2023.

[louk419]

On this Stubble Saturday, ever wonder how soft or scratchy Richard's beard is?! 🤔 Is it rough like sandpaper when short like this, yet soft and sultry when full? One side of this great follicle debate is illustrated as Rich (clockwise from top left) arrives at the 11th Children's BAFTAs in London, Nov 26, 2006; poses during the Strike Back premiere at London's Leicester Square, Apr 15, 2010; meets fans outside Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds for the Urban and the Shed Crew world premiere, Nov 7, 2015; attends the Obsession preview screening/Q&A at BFI Southbank, Apr 6, 2023. (Photo credit to Guylty Pleasure and Claire Greenway, Max Nash, Tom Dymond for Getty Images)

[louk419]

Today is Alice in Wonderland Day 🐰🎩♥️ commemorating the day in 1862 when Lewis Carroll first told the story to the real-life Alice (Liddell). Coincidentally (not really; I planned it that way!) Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) featured 1&2) Richard as King Oleron, father of Iracebeth and Mirana, played by Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway, respectively. 3&4) Two years later both actresses joined Rich in the cast of Ocean's 8, which also included Cate Blanchett (who was Galadriel in another Richard project, The Hobbit). In addition, 5&6) Rhys Ifans, who plays the Mad Hatter's father, Zanik Hightopp, in Alice, was Hector de Jean opposite Rich in Berlin Station. Just four of the more than 40 actors who have co-starred with Rich two or more times throughout his career. 😮

[louk419]

It's Compliment Your Mirror Day 🪞 a time for Richard to celebrate positive self-image by offering compliments to his reflection: 1&3) in a Matt Holyoak photoshoot, July 2011; 2) as Ellis Stagger in Missing You ep2, staring at himself in a bathroom mirror after covering up a homicide; 4) posing in front of a makeup mirror for a Kaitlyn Mikayla photoshoot, Dec 2021; 5) as Daniel Miller, traumatized by the death of Otto Ganz, in Berlin Station s2e6; 6) dressing for an Esquire UK magazine photoshoot by Blair Getz Mezibov, Dec 2013.

[louk419]

Wet Wednesday 🚿🚿🚿🚿 shower edition

In the shower or just out of one, these Richard chaRActers are certainly all wet. 1) Capt Ian Macalwain (Ultimate Force) should've stayed in the shower, or at least kept his towel on. 😅 Same goes for 2) Lee Richards (Cold Feet) who messed things up with Ramona but good. Chances are 3) Fr Lorenzo Quart (The Man From Rome) is attempting to wash away his sins, but neither he nor 4) Dr William Farrow (Obsession) have much hope of doing that (since neither, imo, is remorseful). 5) Adam Price (The Stranger) and 6) Daniel Miller (Berlin Station), although relatively better people, still have issues that even a warm shower can't soothe. 😓

[louk419]

July is National Foreign Language Month 🌍

Richard has spoken Russian, Spanish, German and French in his career. And if you count The Hobbit, he also spoke several phrases in Khuzdul, the Dwarves' language. Ever the consummate professional, presenting his chaRActers as native speakers was no easy task.

For example, Rich admitted that learning Russian for Spooks "was pretty impossible, really – I had to learn it phonetically," he told spooksforum.com in Aug 2009, adding he used a language CD and a coach. "My biggest problem was that Lucas doesn't just speak Russian; he passed as a Russian native for years, so I had to really work hard at it."

About Pilgrimage, Rich told collider.com in Aug 2017, "The biggest challenge, and the thing that I was most excited about, was speaking French as though it was my first language, amongst other French-speaking actors." Another obstacle to bringing Raymond de Merville to life was deciding how 13th-century Normans would have spoken. "Sadly there were no recordings of it. So we had to come up with a hybrid of accents," he said in an interview with getreelmovies.com.

Rich spent about 25 hours learning German for his role as Daniel Miller in Berlin Station, while simultaneously perfecting an American accent for his bilingual CIA agent. “I started to learn the basics, and it’s quite intimidating speaking German in front of all these Germans who are looking at me like, ‘Yeah, you’re already getting away with that’," he told The West Australian in Dec 2017. "Where I lived in [the suburb of] Kreuzberg everyone spoke German and I just absorbed it. So even on my down days I would speak the language and I learned to love it.”