The Hobbit's Adam Brown says being short changed his life

Actor Adam Brown has revealed how his height changed his life - when he won his debut movie role in The Hobbit thanks to a nationwide search for shorter performers.

Speaking as he is about to star in a new play on the London theatre fringe, Brown, 34, of Blackheath, told how he was called to audition for the lead character, Bilbo, in Peter Jackson’s trilogy when Martin Freeman’s duties on BBC’s Sherlock looked set to stop him taking part.

“They were searching for any actor under 5ft 7in so I just swept in. It was my first film audition. I didn’t really take it very seriously, to be honest,” he said. But Jackson stopped the entire shoot for six months to wait for Freeman and the 5ft 7in Brown assumed his film career was not to be — until he was offered the role of the dwarf, Ori.

Filming in New Zealand for two and a half years was in complete contrast with Brown’s former life running a touring comedy theatre company and playing the Edinburgh festival fringe.

He said: “That was very fun and very silly. Then this lovely gift came along which was The Hobbit.”

He found the “Hollywood lifestyle” of filming “very nice” — but he says fringe theatre was “a lot more rewarding”. However, having made the films he now enjoys “the luxury of picking exciting projects”: “I’m very grateful to wizards and goblins and I fell in love with the world of Tolkien. But it’s lovely to do some really lovely acting on a smaller scale at Southwark.”

The new play, Saxon Court by Daniel Andersen, sees Brown playing Mervyn, “a bit of a nerd” in a City recruitment office during the Occupy protest.

The final Hobbit premiere is in London on December 1 and Brown will dash from the red carpet to be on stage before returning for the party. He joked: “I could probably do the play twice over and the film would be still going on. Peter Jackson loves a long film.”

Saxon Court, Southwark Playhouse, from tomorrow until December 13.