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Some say Amazon Prime's Rings of Power is one of the most expensive disasters ever. Others are furious about the politics seemingly woven into the scripts. Then there are those who openly prefer HBO's House Of The Dragon, which has aired at roughly the same time. But for the most part, J.R.R. Tolkien fans seem to be digging the series.
Perhaps this is because the care and detail put into crafting the show is so exemplary. Or perhaps it has to do with the talented group of actors who are filling out the Dwarves, Harfoots, Men, and Elves of the Second Age of Middle-Earth. Among them is Robert Aramayo who plays Elrond; the same character later played by Matrix star Hugo Weaving in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films.
Of course, this version of Elrond is in his infancy... at least in terms of the long life of an Elf. Fortunately, Robert knew exactly how to tailor his performance to meet such standards. This is because he was a pretty knowledgeable Tolkien fan long before being cast...
How Robert Aramayo Learned To Speak Elvish
Robert Aramayo has found himself in two very nerdy properties recently. Game of Thrones fans know him as the Young Ned Stark in a couple of episodes of the final few seasons of the show. But he's really making a name for himself in Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
While talking to Vulture, Robert revealed just how big of a Tolkien fan he was prior to making the show. This helped him immensely when trying to understand how to verbalize the dialect of Elvish his character speaks.
"[J.R.R. Tolkien] writes extensively about how you should stress his Elvish," Robert explained. "We’ve also got this incredible resource in our dialect coach and linguist."
"I remember walking onto set for a different scene that was in Elvish and she was playing Mr. Tolkien speaking Quenya."
This is the Elven language spoken by the Elves known as the Noldor, who ventured to Valinor and then returned to Middle-Earth, such as Galadriel.
Robert noted that Quenya is very different from the language that most of the Elves speak in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy. That would be Sindarin. This branch of Elvish was spoken mostly by those who ever went to Valinor. It was very popular in the Third Age of Middle-Earth, the time period in which Peter Jackson's films take place, and J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord Of The Rings" books are set.
"Quenya is a very different language in the way that it’s spoken than Sindarin," Robert continued. "[It] is more melodic in the way it’s spoken. We’ve heard Sindarin a lot in other iterations, but Quenya was really new in terms of the structure of how it goes. Tolkien created all this to justify his passion for languages, which was really a surprising thing for me to learn."
How Big Of Tolkien Nerd Was Robert Aramayo Before The Rings Of Power?
"I encountered the books in the way you should encounter them," Robert said when asked by Vulture about his previous relationship with J.R.R. Tolkien's original masterpiece.
"I started as a child with The Hobbit, and when I got to a certain age, the First Age stuff, which is the most dense and complicated. It’s also my favorite. I discovered it in this period of my life, and now it is pretty much all I read. I especially love things like The Silmarillion that you can just read and reread."
Robert's knowledge of Tolkien's work helped him discuss certain key decisions being made about his character.
"[The writers and I] spoke a lot about [Elrond's] parentage. He’s sort of an orphan, and there are unhealed wounds that exist within him," Robert said, referring to the fact that Elrond is actually part-human as well as the fact that he was raised by a captor.
"I liked the showrunners’ ability to collaborate with that, because it became important to me that he’s an orphan and that he doesn’t belong here or there. I’d gained such passion for [Elrond's parents] Eärendil and Elwing, who appear in the Silmarillion. everything they’d achieved. It’s a lot to live up to for him!"
Did Robert Aramayo Base His Performance On Hugo Weaving's Work?
For many, Hugo Weaving is the quintessential Elrond. Therefore, Robert had some pretty big shoes to fill. But Robert was dead-set on doing something different.
"I grew up with those movies, and I love his performance, and I think it’s natural for people to compare the performance. But right now, Elrond’s a very young elf with so much to go before we get to the Council of Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring. He’s lived through so many defeats by that point, so I was excited to just start with this young elf who still has a lot to learn. That felt like an exciting place to begin. He’s going to live thousands and thousands of human lifetimes until he gets to that point!"
