It can legitimately claim to be the biggest TV show ever made. It's certainly the most expensive, and representative of how the grandest filmed stories of our time are coming more from the streamers and less from the movies. It's the biggest swing yet from Amazon's Prime Video, designed, and
'You're chilling with the first elf of colour': How The Rings of Power brings diversity to Middle-earth
Ismael Cruz Cordova as Arondir in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, coming to Amazon Prime Video tomorrow.
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"To be able to do a job like this feels unreal," Clark tells TimeOut in Los Angeles. "There is an element of pressure to it. But we are in a big ensemble cast, so I always felt like I was part of a big group of people trying to make something together, also part of an enormous New Zealand crew. So I was never alone."
Like much of the cast, Clark first discovered Tolkien via The Hobbit, which was read to her as a child.
"Then it was Peter Jackson's films that really catapulted me into an obsession with Middle-earth," she elaborates. "Since then, they've been films that I rewatched, books that I reread, audiobooks that I've listened to. I've always liked to escape into Middle-earth."
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So she relates to the intense fan base surrounding this property, which she admits adds more pressure.
"Because I'm part of that fan base. So I have high expectations about Middle-earth and how it should be respected."
Clark thinks viewers will be surprised by the "messiness of the elves" in this series.
"The elves are nowhere near as wise and serene as they end up being," she says.
It's a point also stressed by American actor Benjamin Walker, the celebrated Broadway star playing High King Gil-galad, the elven leader.
"There's more to him than the floaty, aloofness of the elves that we assume," he tells TimeOut.
Walker agrees with Clark about the intense fandom surrounding all things LOTR.
"Pressure's a good thing," says Walker. "Pressure's how you make a diamond. It's a pleasure to feel that level of interest and support. You don't want to make something that people are indifferent about."
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One element of the show that has some sections of the fan base worked up is the presence of people of colour, something lacking in previous Tolkien adaptations.
It's of particular significance to Puerto Rican actor Ismael Cruz Cordova (The Undoing), destined to break out as an elf named Arondir. He tells TimeOut he was inspired to become an actor by watching the famously extensive behind-the-scenes featurettes on The Lord of the Rings DVDs.
"I wanted to become an elf, but there were no elves of colour back then," he says. "So I put that as a north star, and now you're chilling here with the first elf of colour."
Cordova is confident the fans will embrace this more diverse Middle-earth.
"Some people have had an...energy...about seeing some of us that are of colour in the show. [But] I think that everyone is going to be so pleased once [they see it]. It takes you about seven seconds to see the rules in this new world. There's nothing to worry about."
There are also considerably more central female characters this time around, including English actor Sophia Nomvete as Princess Disa, as the first on-screen female dwarf and the first dwarf of colour, plus Aussie actor Markella Kavenagh as Nori, a female harfoot with a key role.
"It's a necessary moment," says Nomvete, who took inspiration from a popular New Zealand tourist destination for her character. "A trip to Rotorua had a huge influence on Disa. There's so much ancestral spirit in that place."
Among all the English, Welsh, American and Aussie actors, they've managed to find room in the core cast for a Kiwi: Leon Wadham (Go Girls), who plays a Númenórean named Kemen.
"I grew up in Wellington, so Middle-earth has been inescapable my whole life," he tells TimeOut. "When I was in primary school, Peter Jackson made the original trilogy and then when I was at drama school, he made the Hobbit movies. It never once occurred to me that there would be a place for me inside Tolkien's work. It's been an absolute dream. I still can't believe it's happening, to be completely honest."
It's become such an inevitability that visiting actors gush about New Zealand, you'd think we'd be sick of it by now. But we're not. All the talent at the Los Angeles press day is typically effusive about our fair country.
"I think New Zealand really helped my cynicism," says Clark. "The friendliness and openness of the people, particularly in a time where we were very far away from home and worried about our families, I'll be forever grateful for that."
"It changed my life," says Walker, whose actor wife Kaya Scodelario (Crawl) joined him in Auckland for the duration.
"In a lot of ways, New Zealand helped raise our kids. We live in London, and my son can't walk past a piece of litter because he learned that level of respect and connection with the Earth and the obligation to look after one another from being there. For that, I will be eternally grateful."
"It not only coloured our experiences, but I think you can actually see it in the work. That little extra bit of beauty and respect," he continues. "And I haven't had a good cup of coffee since I left, so thanks for that..."
LOWDOWN
Who: Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Leon Wadham and others.
What: New television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
When: The first two episodes begin streaming tomorrow on Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes weekly.
