Original-Cin Q&A: Cast of New Tolkien-Based Series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
By Bonnie Laufer
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, based on the novel The Lord of the Rings and its appendices by J. R. R. Tolkien, is the much-anticipated new series coming to Prime Video on September 2. Created by showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay, the series is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Queen Regent Míriel.
Amazon bought the television rights for The Lord of the Rings for $250 million in a five-season production commitment worth at least U.S. $1 billion. This would make it the most expensive television series ever made. To say that there is a lot of pressure on this series to deliver is an understatement.
Our Bonnie Laufer spoke with several of the cast members and creator J.D. Payne about the series. Here are some excerpts from her interviews
Click here to watch ALL of Bonnie’s interviews with the cast and creators
ORIGINAL-CIN: J.D., it was a long and arduous process finding the right people to adapt this series. How did you and your writing partner Patrick McKay clinch the deal?
J.D. PAYNE: We don't feel that we wrote it, I think we feel that we adapted it from these amazing stories that Tolkien left us. Our job was to unearth and hopefully weave them together. Patrick and I have been working together for 25 years, from directing plays together and we worked primarily in features before this and did a little bit of TV here and there.
When we heard that Amazon had acquired the rights to produce a show based on Lord of the Rings, we very aggressively pursued it. It was like a cheetah chasing a rabbit because we felt that there was a story here that demanded to be told. I daresay some folks at Amazon started feeling the same way we felt how the series should look and feel and I'm sure it was very scary for them to take a chance on us. But we're just incredibly grateful that they gave us the opportunity and there was confidence-building to work so closely with the Tolkien estate on this project and have their blessing.
The pitch process was scary, but also a very exciting process that went on over six months. It was truly humbling that in the end, we were sort of last, last folks standing. Pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into this thing every day ever since to fully be worthy of this honour has truly been amazing.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Lindsey, this is a huge, lavish production and one of the most expensive series ever made. Not that that’s enough pressure, but you had to cast A LOT of people for this show. Where did you even start?
LINDSEY WEBER (Executive Producer): Great question. After I joined the project, this was the first thing, the first of many things that we needed to tackle. To be truthful, it was the first thing that kept me awake all night, how we're going to find 22 series regulars. In addition to casting, it was important to keep in mind who can take us on a 50-hour journey.
We needed a cast of actors who can be charming and, in every way, hit all the marks. So, we began working with this casting director Field Park, who's really wonderful and we just began searching the old-fashioned way. There's no shortcut. You just start seeing tapes and looking at people and using our gut intuition. You have to get people, you have to do it on a timeline and it can be quite a stressful process.
Then you just hope for that moment when somebody special comes along and for each of our cast members, they just had this something. We called it the Middle-earthness in them and we knew they needed to be the best. They also had to have that little bit of pixie dust and we really feel like they do.
Benjamin Walker as High King Gil-galad.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Cynthia, you play the regal queen Míriel. When you booked this role and then had time to process what you were getting into and the enormity of this project, what were you feeling? What kind of pressure comes with that?
CYNTHIA ADDAI-ROBINSON (Queen Regent Míriel): To be totally honest, I wasn't feeling so much pressure because the reality is I got cast during lockdown so it all really happened from home. I was home for many months and got to sort of sit with the reality that I was going to have this opportunity to leave my little lockdown and take a journey to Middle-earth and I thought, “Oh my gosh, that's like a winning lottery ticket in so many ways.’
I was incredibly humbled, I was appreciative, I felt a deep sense of gratitude because it just felt it truly felt fated. There was just something about the timing of when this opportunity presented itself. For me, that felt like it was meant to be, and I feel incredibly lucky to get to play a queen leading the Kingdom of Númenor. I do remember once I started to do a deeper dive, I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a once-in-a-lifetime.’ I just grabbed on for dear life and got started.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Sara, once you got on set what surprised you: the enormity of these sets and this world?
SARA ZWANGOBANI (Marigold Brandifoot): It was insane but so amazing! We spent about 90 percent of our shooting time in the forest in the landscape of New Zealand and that alone was so nourishing it became so much part of our world and gave us the gift of being in nature. Also, there were several times where I would just be standing there looking around at all these people who made this all come together and think this is surreal. I have an absolute, dream job and it really felt like stepping into a book.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Robert, for you this had to have been incredibly surreal. You play Elrond, who of course is played as an older version in the films by Hugo Weaving. Not just that, you came off Games of Thrones, another beloved series. How does that even compare?
ROBERT ARAMAYO (Elrond): Thrones feels like it was a long time ago but truthfully they really are two completely different assignments and worlds so it was easy to adapt to this one. What inspired me so much about playing Elrond was the history. It's so deep and it invites you to come to it with your own imagination. The opportunity to do that and to explore this half-elven character and the duality in him was extraordinary. A lot of where he comes from is about friendship and duties. His heart is in what he's doing and that was exciting because he's different, he's Elven, a different sort of creature which I found absolutely fascinating.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Benjamin, playing the King couldn’t have been an easy feat. Once you booked the role and thought about what you had taken on and the scope of this production, were you freaking out a little bit?
BENJAMIN WALKER (King Gil-gilad): Oh yes I was and I still am! Luckily anytime I get too nervous or confused or too worried I go back to the source material. It's so dense and so supportive of the world we're trying to create that I find that that's the best place of comfort for me.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Sophia, Princess Disa is such a wonderful character. Seriously, a gift-role from God?
SOPHIA NOMVETTE (Princess Disa): Thank you very much. She really is a gift. She's a huge blessing, just because of what it means, for the industry, for the world of Tolkien and for the Tolkien fans. The accessibility that it gives for new fans to come into play, she is a vision and a formidable character, and I am the mere host of such an iconic moment. It's thrilling.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Did your expansive theater background help you at all with what you had to endure for this role and this production?
SOPHIA NOMVETTE: Yeah. I feel like I spent years preparing for this. I’ve been learning the craft and depicting the minutiae of all the details of scripts and characters and bringing them to life with not a lot of sets and not a lot of costumes and not a lot of resources. So to have that foundation behind me in what actually felt like a theatrical piece was terribly helpful.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Ema, you are playing Eärien, one of the new characters created for the series. I am sure you got these amazing scripts, but it's also something fresh and exciting. So how did you approach it?
EMA HORVATH (Eärien): I was one of the last actors to arrive which was kind of interesting. The actors playing my father and my brother had already been in New Zealand for several months, so I hit the ground running. Maxim Baldry, who plays my brother Isulder, is a very adventurous person and the second I got off the plane he was like, ‘Come on, we're going to Queenstown, we're going to do a bunch of activities.’ Lloyd Owen, who plays my father, would invite us over for dinners all the time.
So even though the Tolkien lore can be over overwhelming in some sense I just gave it my all and love the ability to help create this wonderful new character. What matters in the moment is the relationship between you and the other actor that you've built. So, I spent as much time as I could with my new family down there and it really added to my performance.