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Movies & TV

03rd Sep 2022

WATCH: The cast of The Lord of the Rings TV series pick their favourite big stunts

Stephen Porzio

The first two episodes of the most expensive series ever are available to stream now.

Amazon Prime Video’s prequel Lord of the Rings series has finally been unveiled to the masses after much anticipation.

Titled The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the show is set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books and follows a number of familiar and new characters.

This is as they confront the “long feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth”.

In the run-up to the show’s release in Ireland, JOE had the opportunity to speak to a number of its cast members.

With the TV series being the most expensive ever made, we asked them about their favourite big stunts they got to perform while working on the project.

It should be said that some of their answers got into very slight spoiler territory for the show going forward.

So, if you do not want anything spoiled, turn away now.

Are you gone? Okay.

Morfydd Clark who plays Galadriel on the show cited the series’ underwater scenes as a highlight.

“The water stuff was something I’d always found quite frightening. I never ever wanted to scuba dive. I’ve always found that terrifying,” she explained.

“But I learnt to scuba dive on this and actually for one of the set-pieces, I was tied – this is a spoiler – I was tied underwater and was just kind of on a breather for an hour and a half without coming up.

“So, that was something I didn’t expect to be able to do and was scared but actually I found it very zen. I felt like I was floating through space.”

JOE also got to chat with Ismael Cruz Cordova, Nazanin Boniadi and Tyroe Muhafidin who play Arondir, Bronwyn and Theo on the programme with the three teasing that their characters will see a lot of action throughout the show.

“I think the three of us actually, because we’re in a vulnerable space in terms of the storyline, we go through a lot,” Cordova said.

“So, that in film language means action. So, the three of us had plenty of stunt training to do and running and jumping and being thrown through things.”

Boniadi added: “I just remember texting Ismael at the end of a workday and going: ‘Let’s have dinner’ and he’s like: ‘I’m comatose because I have gone through so much gruelling physical work’.”

Meanwhile, Leon Wadham who is Keman on the series told JOE:

“I’ll say there was one day when the DP Aaron [Morton] asked if I could do my action left-handed so I could hold a light source with my right.

“And I was like: ‘That actually helps with the story because [Keman] is out of his element but at the same time, I would like to look cool doing this. So, I’ll do it but I have reservations’.

“When I saw it, I was like: ‘That is better but I don’t look cool’.”

You can check out JOE’s full interviews with the cast below. The first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are available to watch now on Amazon Prime Video with new episodes every Friday.