Actors Morfydd Clark & Charlie Vickers talk to The Inside Reel on this edition of “Awards Track” about context, motivation, behavior, characterization and intent in regards to the 2nd season of their Prime Video series: “The Lord Of The Rings: Rings Of Power.”
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00:00At this moment, the great tale of our age is being written.
00:27I think it was only you who would put yourself in my power.
00:34Galadriel.
00:41With these two characters, it's about the power of responsibility,
00:45good or evil, or however you have to see the world.
00:48Can you talk about looking at that psychology from both their perspectives,
00:53especially as you headed towards the end of this season,
00:55which I don't want to give away too much,
00:56but there's so much they're dealing with on a personal level, each of them.
01:01Yeah.
01:02Well, what I love about fantasy is that you're exploring very human things
01:08through these like magical, mythical creatures in these marvellous,
01:12magical worlds.
01:14And that ultimately, I think for Galadriel,
01:17you're watching someone make difficult choices and face who they are
01:22and face the consequences of those choices.
01:26And so that's something that was really fun in knowing that her choices are wild
01:30and can shake the ground of Middle-Earth.
01:34But that that's something that as human beings, we can all relate to.
01:38We all know those moments where we have to own what we've done
01:42and sit with the choices that we make.
01:44And that's really kind of...
01:47I love exploring that while wearing armour and having pointy ears.
01:56END OF MOWERFALL
02:07And during my brief time in your capture,
02:12you seemed intent on finding Sauron.
02:15One might even say, consumed by it.
02:20The way one always is once you've wormed his way inside your mind.
02:25You know nothing of my mind.
02:29You yielded to him. I resisted.
02:33For a while, perhaps.
02:38But sooner or later, he sees you.
02:42Not just who you are, but who you wish to be.
02:47His eye bores a hole, and the rest of him slithers in.
02:54For a while, he even makes you believe that his power has become yours.
03:24Such an amazing actor and so experienced in every way.
03:28But he is a master of working studiously and taking the job very seriously,
03:33but himself not seriously at all.
03:36And that's really what I took away from the season,
03:40was trying to explore the world sincerely,
03:45but then keeping levity and lightness, because ultimately we're doing,
03:49we're so lucky to be doing what we're doing.
03:54Irresistible power that makes every desire's fulfillment seem inevitable.
04:01An ocean of color against which everything else feels forever there after.
04:08A dull gray.
04:17What did he promise you?
04:21An army.
04:24Do you want to know what he offered me?
04:27I cannot.
04:30Children.
04:32Then it would seem he gave us both what we desired.
04:36You see, it is not his lies which must be extinguished.
04:43It is him.
04:46I mean, it's interesting because there's a physicality in both the characters,
04:50both in their stillness, but in their strategy of movement,
04:53both in their own specific ways, in their own specific realms they're dealing with,
04:58whether it be Adar, whether it be with Kalimbo.
05:01It's those kind of things.
05:03Can you talk about physicality informing the intellectual exercise of acting
05:07and how sometimes because you're working with blocking,
05:10can you be instinctive?
05:12Can you get into that energy, that visceral nature of the character?
05:16Because you both do.
05:19We're really lucky with our directors and our showrunners
05:21in that they give us very safe boundaries that we can then flutter about in,
05:28and that's been really fun.
05:30In terms of physicality, it was really fun to be playing a mythical woman
05:34because I really wanted her to take up space in a way
05:37that I don't necessarily feel comfortable doing all the time.
05:41As Morved, I wanted her to be challenging in just the way she held herself.
05:46There was something kind of magical to her lack of shame
05:50and her stridentness.
05:53It was similar for me.
05:55I kind of wanted to start with a fresh slate working with Annatar this season.
06:03I originally started off being like,
06:05I'm going to make him everything opposite to Halbrand,
06:08but as I did this process over these months of preparation before filming started,
06:14I kind of realised they shared a lot more than I originally thought,
06:20and it was actually really useful for me.
06:22♪
06:46Surely you, of all elves, must understand
06:50that to find the light, we must first touch the darkness.
06:57We are not alike. We never were.
07:00It was just another of your illusions.
07:03Not all of it.
07:06♪
07:27The physicality was complete.
07:28I spent a lot of time just like in random rooms by myself
07:31with the costume on to try and work out how he moved.
07:34I developed this thing of stillness and the power that it brings you.
07:39It informed it intellectually in the sense of if I was Sauron
07:45talking like I am now with my hands,
07:48he has so much power bound up inside of him
07:51that the coffee cups would be flying around the room,
07:54the laptop would be over there,
07:56because it's human dissipation of energy.
08:01So it was like everything is contained with him
08:03and that leaves a sense of power.
08:05But the voice, for example, was informed by...
08:10I was doing this weird high voice in rehearsals,
08:13which was interesting because I thought,
08:15this is very different to Halbran.
08:16And the showrunners brought me aside and said,
08:18why don't you just try and make it a different accent
08:21but put it more in Halbran's register?
08:24And that kind of unlocked the whole character.
08:27So it was like the differences but also the things that they share.
08:30I was floored by how terrifying I found Annatar.
08:34I think you have created such a wonderful villain.
08:44Fighting at your side,
08:46I felt if I could just hold on to that feeling.
09:01They could no longer distinguish me from the evil I was fighting.
09:22Are they not the seeds you planted?
09:31And my last question, if I have a moment, is the flaws.
09:35The thing is, we get to see the flaws of the character.
09:37That's what makes them empathetic in certain ways,
09:40that Sauron can make mistakes,
09:43that Galadriel can make mistakes.
09:46Can you talk about finding the flaws
09:48and how that informs the strength of the characters?
09:51Well, I think for me, Galadriel's biggest flaw
09:55and the thing that made her apart from her elves in season one
09:59was that she was cynical.
10:03And I'm obsessed with this idea of hope that you have to water it
10:07and it doesn't just exist from nothing.
10:10And that she has realised that she, with her power,
10:14must maintain hope, otherwise she's dangerous.
10:18Wow.
10:20For you, Charlie?
10:21I think Sauron has...
10:24Well, look, I mean, from our perspective,
10:26he's got a few flaws in that he's...
10:29He's quite evil.
10:32But from his point of view, actually...
10:34Well, I think that's the thing.
10:35I think from his point of view,
10:36he is not aware of any flaws that he has.
10:39You are wise to fear these rings.
10:42In Sauron's hands, they could work an evil beyond reckoning.
10:48Aegion must not fall.
10:50It would be a mortal blow for all Middle-earth.
10:56Sooner or later, Sauron's eye pours a hole.
11:00The rest of him slithers in.
11:02You sought peace. I gave it to you.
11:05This is hardly a gift.
11:07What have you done to me?
11:08What have you done to me?!
11:11Who are you, truly?
11:13I am the one keeping the storm at bay.
11:15For someone who is such a powerful manipulator
11:20and can control people just through words,
11:25there are still some things he doesn't understand about Middle-earth.
11:28And that is the lightness,
11:30the inherently good parts of Middle-earth,
11:33he will never understand
11:35because the fair and good things that he once had as Myron
11:39have been crushed and diminished
11:41through thousands of years of turmoil and pain
11:45and hatred and malice that has been brewing inside of him.
11:49And that's why I think he was so fascinated with Galadriel,
11:52because the hope and goodness that she brings,
11:55he could never fully understand himself.
12:04Sauron is my enemy as much as yours.
12:07I can help you destroy him.
12:10I will not stop until this is put right.
12:14Every soul in the seen or unseen world
12:17will know that it was you who was the architect of their demise.
12:21FUS RO DAH!