Richard Armitage
Richard Armitage
Richard Crispin Armitageis an English film, television, theatre and voice actor. He became an overnight sensation in his native England with his first leading role as John Thornton in the British television programme North & South. But it was his role as dwarf prince and leader Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit that first brought him international recognition. Other notable roles include John Proctor in Yaël Farber’s stage production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Francis...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth22 August 1971
CityHuncote, England
CountryUnited States of America
The bad guys have all the fun!
The war we are fighting today against terrorism is a multifaceted fight. We have to use every tool in our toolkit to wage this war - diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power - and we are developing new tools as we go along.
Today, Iraq is an immediate danger to our nation. This time, we cannot wait. We cannot wait for Saddam Hussein to take a devastating action or to transfer a weapon of mass destruction to someone else who will. After September 11th, it is simply no longer an option to sit back and contemplate an enemy - one with a stated intent to harm us, a track record and the means, and just wait for him to strike in order to protect ourselves.
The CIA estimates that Iraq probably has a few hundred metric tons of chemical weapons agents, for mustard gas, sarin, and other deadly concoctions. This is addition to an extensive capacity to produce biological weapons, including anthrax and ricin, which is fatal within 24 to 36 hours of exposure.
Well, I think finding the weapons of mass destruction is going to be quite time consuming. I know we've uncovered some documents, we'll have to exploit them, and we're going to have to blanket a country the size of California and search, I think, quite rigorously, but we'll come up with them.
I think most conflicts do end with negotiated settlements; some don't, but most do.
Let's face it, the Obama administration was handed a pretty poor deal from the previous administration.
I'm probably more of a new man. I'm not particularly alpha. 'Nourish and nurture' are my watchwords as opposed to 'search and destroy'.
I can work hard and be disciplined like a soldier, but I could never reach their level of fitness. I have a strange appreciation of soldiers. I saw myself on screen and thought, 'That body is so not hard enough to be a soldier.'
Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.
It fills me with dismay sometimes when you look at the scripts that do come to you that are primarily focused on violence. There are so many other things to play around with.
I never like to go out of character when filming starts. I fear that if I do, I might not be able to pick it up again.
I think if I had come out of drama school and been an instant Hollywood superstar, I would be taking long, leisurely holidays.
I think when I close my eyes what I think is 4,500 days or so, 4,250 I guess days, was long enough to give Iraq to come into compliance with the international order. And I think to myself how many Iraqi citizens died under the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein during those 4,200 odd days, and I think to myself how many more citizens of how many nations, the United States, Israel, or any other neighbor would die if Saddam Hussein went unchecked, though I am just grieved by the sacrifice of our brave men and women, but I think ultimately the greater good is served.