In the film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, who plays the role of the Auctioneer who is in charge of disposing of Bilbo's house and belonging?
Was it Ian McNiece from Doc Martin or someone else?
In the film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, who plays the role of the Auctioneer who is in charge of disposing of Bilbo's house and belonging?
Was it Ian McNiece from Doc Martin or someone else?
According to the DVD subtitles, the person who Bilbo meets going up the hill is Worrywort and the auctioneer is Tosser.
The actor is therefore confirmed as Mervyn Smith.
Based on what I could find I'd say it's probably Mervyn (Merv) Smith.
On the IMDb full cast & crew page Mervyn (Merv) Smith is credited as Tosser Grub (although this list is awaiting verification). Peter Jackson's The Hobbit Wiki states that Merv Smith portrays Tosser Grubb in The Battle of Five Armies as well as the extended edition of An Unexpected Journey. If this is the same character it would mean that he turned grey over the course of Bilbo's journey.
I checked the credits for An Unexpected Journey (see first image below, bottom right) where Tosser Grubb is listed as portrayed by Mervyn Smith, the same goes for the The Battle of Five Armies credits (second image).
Going off the cast listing here and the mentioning of the auctioneer in charge of the selling of Bilbo's possessions here, I would say that the auctioneer was played by Merv Smith (as mentioned by EricSSH in the comments).
Actually, I think the actor above is Merv Smith. Here are pictures of him:
Look at the jowls. Then put a prosthetic nose on him. Merv also has a gobbler chin as well.
I reckon the auctioneer is played by Toby Jones, compare the voice and accent with his role as Lance in the detectorists (BBC TV series).