00:00Whatever it was you did, be free of it.
00:04One day this will be your kingdom.
00:09The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power showrunners
00:11J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay are responding
00:13to some oft-repeated fan criticisms of their Amazon series
00:17that adapts J.R.R. Tolkien's Second Age.
00:19To those who have complained that dwarf wives
00:21in The Rings of Power don't have beards,
00:23Payne says they actually do, it's not accurate.
00:27We looked at various versions of what facial hair
00:29on dwarf women might look like.
00:31There are beard hairs applied lovingly one at a time
00:33and there are these sort of mutton chops on the side.
00:36McKay added, I would go further to say
00:38that Tolkien himself, if you study his entire body of work,
00:41has answered this particular question both ways.
00:44There's a very strong argument to be made
00:46that dwarf women should have beards
00:47and a very strong argument to be made that they don't.
00:50We're happy with where we landed.
00:52Meanwhile, others have said that elves
00:53don't have shaved heads or short hair.
00:55Payne says, if Tolkien ever wrote
00:57a comprehensive style guide to hairstyles in Middle Earth
01:00over its thousands of years of history,
01:02I would love to see it.
01:03And according to McKay, part of this show is to go deeper
01:06and broader into each of these races and cultures.
01:09To say that any culture as rich and with as long of a history
01:12as the elves would all have the same hair for 9,000 years,
01:16that doesn't seem to correspond and harmonize
01:18with the breadth of the imagination that Tolkien left us.
01:21And for those who have claimed the costumes look too new,
01:23McKay says, I certainly don't agree with that note.
01:27I think we are always talking about a lived-in world
01:29and we're always talking about adding breakdown
01:31to give costumes a more worn-in look.
01:33For more of what the pair had to say
01:34in response to fan criticisms
01:36and The Hollywood Reporter's deep dive
01:38Rings of Power cover story, go to THR.com.
01:41This is The Hollywood Reporter News.
Comments