CIA operations have been executed with less secrecy than the casting and filming of The Rings Of Power – a fact that’s not lost on its star Morfydd Clark. “I got this untitled Amazon project email, which said they wanted actors with some history with Shakespeare,” says the Sweden-born, Wales-raised talent, who leads the ensemble cast as Galadriel. “I went to the audition, and one of the actors sitting next to me was like, ‘Do you know what this is for?’ And I was like, ‘No?’ They were like, ‘It’s Lord. Of. The. Rings.’ I had to go into the bathroom and take a moment, like, ‘You’ve been preparing for this your whole life.’”
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The Rings of Power
By Alice Newbold
When she says that, she means it: her first trip to London revolved around seeing The Hobbit: A Musical, with her “family of nerds” introducing her to the Shire and its inhabitants as a child, making the whole process of auditioning magical for her from the beginning. (Not that she could tell her loved ones about it; cast members were prohibited from revealing their involvement in the series to anyone, even after decamping to Auckland to begin months of production.) She recalls being delighted when someone brought a giant olive tree into a warehouse “to give a sense of Middle-Earth” during one audition – while stepping into Lindon, the elvish city brought to life in the series premiere, moved her almost to tears. “I will say, I always thought of myself as more of a hobbit, so I’m pleasantly surprised to be cast as an elf,” she confesses with a laugh.
Several of Clark’s costumes as Galadriel weighed approximately 15 kilograms.
Matt Grace/Prime Video,
Tolkien fans will inevitably be divided about The Rings of Power, but you cannot take issue with Clark’s performance as a younger version of the so-called Lady of the Woods of Lothlórien, famously embodied by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning Noughties trilogy. If Blanchett’s Galadriel seems to have achieved a degree of hard-earned peace in spite of the general chaos around her, Clark’s Galadriel is at a tortured crossroads. (She is a cool millennium younger, as a reminder.)
For those not quite up on their Tolkien lore, The Rings Of Power begins at the close of The Second Age, centuries after the elves vanquished the dark lord Morgoth – although not before his most loyal servant, Sauron, murders Galadriel’s brother and escapes to the furthest reaches of Middle-Earth. Even as her fellow elves reach the conclusion that Sauron is gone forever, Galadriel insists on continuing her pursuit of the enemy – striking out on her own rather than joining her fellow elves in Valinor. Of course, her hunch that Morgoth’s brand of evil will return proves right.
Seeing the city of Lindon for the first time nearly brought Clark to tears.
Courtesy of Prime Video,
