Voice of Smaug?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

Seconded!

I don't like dragons so obviously I wouldn't want a dragon to have Scar's voice.

But Smaug is pretty much the coolest bad guy in Tolkien's corpus, if not beyond. And his chief competitor is another dragon, Glaurung!

Maybe if Jeremy Irons were Smaug's voice, this fact would cause you to like dragons.

Personally, Jeremy Irons as Smaug would be considered an awesome thing.

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

But Smaug is pretty much the coolest bad guy in Tolkien's corpus, if not beyond.

I prefer Saruman. <3

Maybe if Jeremy Irons were Smaug's voice, this fact would cause you to like dragons.

No, it might lead to me not wanting to see the Hobbit film at all in fear of losing my ability to watch the Lion King without thinking of dragons.

But yeah Jeremy Irons' voice anywhere is an awesome thing.

[Morthoron]

Tuor, you skipped my suggestion on TORn:

Pee-wee Herman.

That would throw everyone off.

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Tuor, you skipped my suggestion on TORn:

Pee-wee Herman.

That would throw everyone off.

*brain asplodes*

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

*brain asplodes*

*Casually wipes Mnemo's splattered gray matter off his shirt*

Ummm...sorry about that. I hope you didn't need that brain. I simply suggested Pee-wee Herman because most people are suggesting folks like Jeremy Irons, Ian McShane, Sean Connery, Tim Curry, John Hurt, Geoffrey Rush, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart and the like to voice Smaug, and these individuals, fine actors one and all, have each done very recognizable voice-overs for notable cartoon/CGI characters.

Personally, I would prefer an unrecognizable, ominous voice for Smaug, rather than watching the movie and saying, "Hey, that's [fill in the blank] doing Smaug's voice!" The cameo superstar voice/appearance in movies has been so overdone that it is past cliche. Besides, the voice of a many-ton talking dragon would be distorted, loud and would reverberate about the cavern. Such large vocal chords amplified in such a vast hall would be more of a rumbling growl at its quietest and a bellow of a herd of hefalumps at its loudest.

[Kent2010]

Djimon Honsou would be interesting, but I would like to see Derek Jacobi considered.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Jacobi's voice is just a little light. But at the same time the deep, booming Darth Vader thing is a pitfall to be avoided. Smaug should be an *aristocrat*- a sneering, cynical, supercilious villain, which is why Irons comes to mind (think of his von Bulow). Alan Rickman maybe. Tom Wilkinson might be good (he's a voice chameleon). But I'm leaning toward Jason Isaacs (who hasn't as distinctive a voice as Rickman and wouldn't carry as much Harry Potter baggage).