Tolkien’s Legacy – How Prime Video’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Keeps the Middle-Earth Creator’s Stories Relevant for a New Generation

“The function of myth in human history is to connect to the heart and bypass the head, and I think Tolkien’s great skill was condensing so many of the world’s great myths into this Lord Of The Rings,” explained actor Owain Arthur (The One and Only Ivan), who plays dwarvin Prince Durin IV in Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The series launches September 2nd in more than 240 countries and territories in 32 languages and the cast was recently joined by the creators for a virtual TCA press conference. “It’s just part of the function of human society to tell each other these stories which explain and let you feel what it is to be human. He's definitely not binary either, in the sense of good and evil. It’s just he deals in the gray and that’s what’s so fascinating for us all.”

The Rings of Power is set thousands of years before The Hobbit, drawing much of it’s inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s further writings. “This is a new story for most audiences who are going to be watching it,” shared co-showrunner and executive producer Patrick McKay. “We felt from the very beginning as producers that we weren’t interested in a show that was a nostalgia play or a retread or a reboot or a sequel in a lot of the traditional ways we were getting as viewers. The show had to earn its place on the stage and stand on its own two feet and hopefully rise or fall in its own merits. And in that respect, the stories are different stories than you’ve seen before onscreen from Tolkien. His themes and his ideas that he wrote about are throughout the show, his language is throughout the show, his world, his characters. But audiences are going to be going on a new experience than they’ve had before and there’ll be twists and turns and surprises along the way and sometimes it’ll be intense, sometimes it'll be hopefully very funny and heartwarming. But it’s not going to be the expected.”

Outside of Sauron’s shadow, a mysterious dark foe who looms large over the events of the series, the biggest anchor for fans of The Lord of the Rings is Galadriel, portrayed by Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud). “It's very interesting to be able to play a magical creature and an immortal creature,” the actress shared. “I can’t remember the exact quote, but Galadriel says something that alludes to, ‘With wisdom, there’s a loss of innocence.’ And so that was really formative for me in terms of what does it mean to have innocence as a creature that’s already been alive for thousands of years. That was something I really worked with. She has a unique perspective because she is history, and so she can’t escape her history. No one can, but she really can’t because she was part of it. To play a kind of living myth was wonderful.”

The series includes characters created by J.R.R. Tolkien, but also includes some new creations, like Arondir, a Silvan elf soldier portrayed by Ismael Cruz Córdova (The Mandalorian). “I grew up in Puerto Rico in houses with mud floors and experienced so many hardships in my life,” the actor revealed. “I saved all my money to buy my first DVD, my first DVD was The Lord of the Rings, I felt myself in there. I felt that the spiritual and emotional connection, especially with the Elves coming from the mountains, I found a little home there. But someone who grew up in perhaps a much easier life can still find their spirit in there, you're able to connect that existential dread for the ways of the world.”

Like Peter Jackson’s films, this introductory season of The Rings of Power used the natural wonders of New Zealand to bring Middle-Earth to life. “It's interesting to see the end result and I can see where there's that sense of, gosh, there must have been all this green screen and CGI,” actress Cynthia Addai-Robinson (The Accountant) shared, who plays Míriel,Queen-Regent of Númenor. “To be honest, there was so much that was built practically and the creators, the production design, all of those elements, it was really about a 360-degree as much as possible, in-camera, practically-built world. As actors, we all got to have that experience of turning around and really being in these worlds and really having them fully built and fully realized. And I think that's really going to play when you watch these episodes… I predominantly work within Númenor and Númenor is a fully-built, fully-functioning city with a dock and boats and other elements. So it was an interesting experience to get to work in what felt like a real world within Middle-Earth.”

“It also made the scale work a lot easier,” added Markella Kavenagh (My First Summer), who plays Elanor ‘Nori’ Brandyfoot, a Harfoot Hobbit. Scale work is the practice of making similarly-sized actos look drastically different in size, with the effect perfected by Peter Jackson and his team on the first Lord of the Rings trilogy. “That imagination and that world was already set up for us that then we could really hone in and create a dynamic between us and build a different relationship in regards to actor-on-actor and preparation. The crew was just so accommodating. And we’d have to do so many odd things to get into character and they were fully understanding. So it was an experience and I am very grateful to have had it.”

“The most tricky part of the green-screen work was when you had to match what you did on a smaller version of the set,” shared Robert Aramayo (The King’s Man), who plays elven statement Elrond. “That's where it gets really challenging. But I think what was good about it was we were just in it together. It’s a very close friendship in the show and I think all of that helped, really.” Robert also worked on Game of Thrones, another fantasy world that fans sometimes want to pit against The Lord of the Rings. “I love that world, I love this world, but I feel personally like the tapestry and the colors of both materials are so different… I love fantasy, and so now we all just get to watch more fantasy, which can never be a bad thing.”

The Rings of Power may be a new story, but everything about it is deeply rooted in the characters and world created by Tolkien. “It’s based on the appendices, which come at the end of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and then also poems and songs and stories and half-whispered rumors and histories that are found scattered throughout the text,” explained co-showrunner and executive producer JD Payne. “Part of Tolkien’s allure is that he created a world that is always bleeding out beyond the pages where he hints at something but doesn’t give you all of it and that’s part of what makes it so intriguing, makes you always want to lean in and learn more. Our job is to take you back to a time set many thousands of years before the stories that you know. Thousands of years before Frodo, before the ring, and Sauron, everything from the stories that people have seen more commonly, we’re going back to the time in which the Rings of Power were forged, in which we are showing the rise of the dark lord Sauron, the story of Tolkien’s Númenor, which is Tolkien’s Atlantis, and then finally ‘The Last Alliance of Elves and Men.’ These are stories that audiences have seen hinted at before and that readers have been tantalized by little details of. We really try to take the little clues that Tolkien gave us and build them out into entire storylines or characters. And every single person on the stage represents something that started as, sometimes in some cases, a single sentence somewhere buried in Tolkien.”

“This will be the first time people get to watch a Middle-Earth story without knowing what happens next, so hopefully it’s really fun for people,” said executive producer Lindsey Weber. “Amazon’s reach is incredible and we’re so lucky that we’re doing this with them, but Tolkien is global and is owned by everyone. Tolkien is for everyone and so it really feels appropriate that it is able to reach the far corners of the globe.”

The world is ready to return to Middle-Earth with the global launch of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Friday, September 2nd on Prime Video. New episodes in this eight-episode season will be released on Fridays.

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