John Noble
John Noble
John Nobleis an Australian actor and theatre director of more than 80 plays. He is best known for his roles as Dr. Walter Bishop in the American Fox science fiction television series Fringe, and Henry Parrish in the Fox action-horror series Sleepy Hollow. His most high-profile film role was as Denethor in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He also provided the voice of the DC Comics supervillain Scarecrow in the 2015 video game Batman: Arkham Knight, where...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth20 August 1948
CountryAustralia
I've played a bunch of different versions of Walter [from Fringe].I loved it when he was being random, which was probably the original version of him, more than anyone else. I loved doing Walter then, and all of the different mental states that we've played.
We've had such a close relationship with the fans. Through social networking and the internet, we have much more contact, and we did go to things like Comic-Con. So, I think people know most of our secrets.
Working in television is very hard. I think people know that.
Walter is incredibly complex. I do a lot of thinking about the work I do, and try to get the rhythms of scenes.
Doing animation is great fun. It's like a different world.
I remember when I read Walter, for example, six years ago now, I said, "This is the role for me." I said that to my family. There was something there that I knew was absolutely right, and that was just based on the character. That's when gut instinct comes into play. I know there are certain things I won't do.
I'm a character actor, so as a character actor, I'm always looking for something interesting.
It might be different for people that are A-list actors, but a lot of us really look at what's offered to us and look for something that has some traction with other people. But, it's not like I read 100 scripts a week, and then pick and choose. Maybe some actors do. I certainly don't do that.
A lot of the times, roles are chosen for us.
I'm truly grateful to the writers of Fringe for giving me that because, over the years, when I've spoken about the character with them, I've always felt that this would be the perfect way to end and complete his journey, and to complete the journey of this series, and they gave it to me.
I was a very lucky actor.
It was wonderful to be able to play a character who had so many colors and who was able to play comedy, to play incredibly vulnerable, which he did a lot of the time, to play the love story, and to play the relationship with the son, which is quite unusual. That's a gift to me, as an actor.
We often get pigeon-holed as a tough guy, or whatever else. I've been pigeon-holed as a heavy and serious, and almost a baddy, but not quite a baddy, over the years of my work in television, particularly.
I suppose, when you start up in acting, you hope to be given challenges, and you always have dreams about the things you could do and couldn't do, but normally we get pigeon-holed a little bit, as we go on in our careers.