Amazon Studios has finally released its long-awaited series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The studio/streamer has been hard at work on the series ever since Amazon purchased the rights to produce tv programs based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novels for over $200 million in 2017. And with a production budget rumored to be as high as $1 billion, the series has certainly been a big gamble for Amazon.And whereas the LOTR trilogy largely followed the story of a hobbit named Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his quest to destroy the one ring, the series appears to focus on a younger Galadriel who is determined to hunt down Sauron (a character that was once voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) as the commander of the Northern Armies.Portraying the iconic character now is the actress Morfydd Clark who is known for her work in films such as Saint Maud and The Personal History of David Copperfield, as well as the HBO series His Dark Materials. And while the actress already has played various roles throughout her career, preparing to portray Galadriel took a little more work than before.
Morfydd Clark Didn’t Know She Was Playing Galadriel
To be clear, Clark also had no idea that she was auditioning for The Rings of Power at first. “I was in the waiting room and one of the people sitting next to me asked if I knew what this was for, and I said no, and she said it was for The Lord of the Rings,” the actress recalled. “had to go to the toilet to have a word with myself.”
And later on, when Clark found out she’d been cast, she didn’t know she was playing Galadriel until she got to the set.
“I didn’t know who I was playing at that point. It wasn’t till I got to New Zealand that I found out,” the actress explained. “So that was strange. I got on a plane to the other side of the world, knowing very little.”
To Prepare For Her Role As Galadriel, Morfydd Clark Needed ‘Exposure Therapy’
Despite all the roles that Clark has landed over the years, it’s safe to say that nothing prepared her to take on the iconic role of Galadriel. For starters, she’s never handled a character who would readily pursue an enemy, even when she’d have to do it alone.
“When I was playing Galadriel, the stunt-team said, ‘You’ve got a problem, because you’re used to being attacked on film,’” the actress recalled. “I would flinch a lot when people came at me.”
To overcome this, the crew used a well-known technique to help Clark get over her fear and anxiety. “So they did exposure therapy with me, where I would have all these huge, huge men running at me, screaming with swords,” the actress explained.
“To stop me from looking frightened. Because I’ve definitely been cast as the victim. And Galadriel is not that.”
And of course, the actress also had to do actual fight training for the role. “We’d start every morning with three hours of stunts, that would involve kind of general strength, flexibility, and then obviously, the swords would come in,” Clark revealed.
“And there were times at the beginning where, they’d be about 20 of us there, and we’d learn a sword fight all the same, and then perform it like a group of elves, which was really fun.”
Morfydd Clark Came To Discover That Galadriel’s ‘Serenity’ In Lord Of The Rings Trilogy Is ‘Hard Earned’
Meanwhile, ever since the show premiered, some fans have commented how differently Clark has been playing Galadriel compared to the more stoic portrayal that Cate Blanchett had delivered in the LOTR movies.
And while they might not seem the same Galadriel to some, Clark assures fans that her version of the elven queen explains just how Galadriel came to be when got older.
“I would say that her serenity is hard earned. I don’t think you get to that level of wisdom without going through things. She actually speaks about [how] with wisdom, there is a loss of innocence, which was a really good thing for me to find in the lore,” the actress said.
“The elves by the Third Age have evolved to a certain degree. The elves in the First Age are really messy and screw each other over a lot, and fight and mock each other also. They are the history of Middle Earth, and so they are forever changing. It was really interesting for all of us playing canon characters to be exploring how these characters become what we know them to be.”
The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is expected to run its eight episodes until October 2022. Clark is aware that the series is supposed to go on for five seasons but she’s still getting used to the show itself.
“I think I’m still acclimatizing to what this means. The next few weeks are going to be huge in that, but also kind of a relief,” she said. “You make things so they can be seen and enjoyed. It’s about time that that happens with this. But I think I’m gonna go through another acclimatizing period.”
