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.
01:56GALADRIEL'S CASTLE
02:07And during my brief time in your capture,
02:11GALADRIEL'S CASTLE
02:12you seemed intent on finding Sauron.
02:14GALADRIEL'S CASTLE
02:16One might even say, consumed by it.
02:20The way one always is, once he has 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!
Comments