Martin Freeman Martin Freeman Martin John Christopher Freeman (born 8 September 1971) is an English actor and comedian, who became known for portraying Tim Canterbury in the original UK version of sitcom mockumentary "The Office", Dr. John Watson in the British crime drama "Sherlock", Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" film trilogy, and Lester Nygaard in the dark comedy-crime drama TV series "Fargo". His other notable film roles include the romantic comedy "Love Actually" (2003), the comic science fiction film "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (2005), the semi-improvised comedy "Nativity!" (2009), the comedic "Three Flavours Cornetto" trilogy, most prominently in
The Hobbit themes explored in "The Hobbit". Maps figure in both saga literature and "The Hobbit". Several of the author's illustrations incorporate Anglo-Saxon runes, an English adaptation of the Germanic runic alphabets. Themes from Old English literature, and specifically from "Beowulf", shape the ancient world Bilbo stepped into. Tolkien, a scholar of "Beowulf", counted the epic among his "most valued sources" for "The Hobbit". Tolkien was one of the first critics to treat "Beowulf" as a literary work with value beyond the merely historical, and his 1936 lecture "" is still required in some Old English courses. Tolkien borrowed several elements from