del toro on smaug the magnificent

“All my life I’ve been fascinated by dragons. I was born under the Chinese sign of The Dragon. All my life I’m collecting dragons. It’s such a powerful symbol, and in the context of ‘The Hobbit’ it is used to cast its shadow through the entire narrative. Essentially, Smaug represents so many things: greed, pride he’s ‘the Magnificent,’ after all. The way his shadow is cast in the narrative you cannot then show it and have it be one thing, he has to be the embodiment of all those things. He’s one of the few dragons that will have enormous scenes with lines. He has some of the most beautiful dialogues in those scenes! The design, I’m pretty sure that will be the last design we will sign off on, and the first design we have attempted. It is certainly a matter of turning every stone before figuring out what he looks like, because what he looks like will tell you what he is.”

via the-hobbit-movie.com