Im just a lucky guy, Jackson told us.

I never, ever thought Id be the adapter of Tolkien.

I never even allowed myself to have that thought.

I just wanted to invent my own stories.

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Why do you think Tolkien remains so popular?

Its a good question, and quite a personal question.

I dont think theres necessarily an intelligent answer I could give you.

And I think thats why Tolkien is so successful, because he studied mythology.

He was a professor at Oxford.

He loved the Norse sagas.

He loved Greek mythology.

Their oral stories because all mythology originated as oral storytelling long before they were recorded on paper were lost.

England lost whatever mythology it once had.

And so he set about trying to create a mythology for his country.

He knew the rules of mythology.

He knew the way those stories become timeless.

You still get the same entertainment value from them.

Swedish fans have been waiting for Mikael Persbrandt and Beorn for a long time now.

His character does do more in the third film, in ways I wont explain.

But he does have more to do, and he does come back into the story.

Hes not necessarily a good character or a bad character.

Thats how he chooses which side hes going to be on.

And there is going to be a little bit more of him in the extended cut of this film.

We shot scenes with Mikael.

No, anything you’re free to imagine can now be put on film.

Which is interesting, because the responsibility becomes storytelling again.

It becomes about entertaining audiences.

So its a good thing and a bad thing, technology.

How has your approach changed fromLord Of The RingstoThe Hobbit,in terms of technology?

I use a lot more handheld cameras now.

And I was able to look at the screen and I was literally in the movie.

Well, 48 frames is by far the best way to see this film.

Look, 24 frames is not a perfect frame rate.

Its an arbitrary frame rate which was born in 1927 when sound movies first started to come in.

Cameras used to be hand cranked, which was usually about 16 or 18 frames per second.

But 24 frames isnt very good, especially with 3D, and especially with action, because it strobes.

It flickers; every time you move the camera, it judders.

48 frames makes it much smoother.

There are twice as many screens in 48 frames this year than last year.

Its by far my preferred way to see it.

It looks really great at 48 frames.

Also, what is the appeal of Benedict Cumberbatch?

In a novel likeThe Hobbit,Tolkien is the narrator.

Its Tolkien thats telling you the story, almost like hes reading it to you.

Its very much his voice describing the characters and whats happening to them.

In a film, you cant do that.

The Elves gave us the opportunity to create a female character in a book which had none.

Casting Elves is very difficult.

Elves are ethereal, theyre beautiful, theyre timeless.

We always have tremendous difficulty casting Elvish characters, and Evangeline was someone who we had met.

We hadnt worked with her before, but we had met her over the years.

And she was terrific in the book.

It goes way, way back, before the shooting of the first film.

I hadnt seenSherlock, and I didnt know who he was.

He had a great, intelligent take on the character.

And Benedict had such a wonderful approach towards Smaug, as this huge, intelligent, psychopathic dragon.

He is essentially a psychopath [Laughs].

And its a great way to approach a dragon.

There have been so many dragons in movies, so how do you do it differently?

Ever since I started doingThe Hobbit,people would say, Whats Smaug going to look like?

Whats Smaug going to look like?

It was pretty scary, when theres so much anticipation out there.

As intelligent as we could.

We interviewed a lot of actors, and Benedict was the guy who impressed us the most.

Peter Jackson, thank you very much.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaugis out now in the UK.Our review is here.