The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power cast had a big weekend at New York Comic Con 2022 with the debut of the finale trailer and a glimpse into Episode 8. Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Queen Regent Míriel), Benjamin Walker (High King Gil-galad), and Daniel Weyman (The Stranger) also sat down with Andrea Towers in TV Insider and TV Guide Magazine’s New York Comic Con studio to talk about the Prime Video series. They also discussed what it’s been like watching the season play out with fans, family, and friends, plus fan theories about the show’s secret identities.
“The main question people would ask me when I couldn’t say who I was playing were what my ears were like,” Addai-Robinson says of the filming process. Her response was always, “Well, I have ears,” and she notes, “Everyone thought I was an elf.”
Weyman’s Stranger is the most mysterious figure in the show. During the episode rollout, and at NYCC this weekend, he says fans have approached him with their theories about who The Stranger is to gauge his reaction. (Our bet is he’s one of the Blue Wizards.) Without getting into their theories and the merit of them, Weyman says their arguments are always well crafted and that he welcomes the discourse, as “the fans have an ownership of the material.”
“What I love about what’s happened is that people come up with really fully formed arguments. They use the Tolkien lore, all their source material,” he says. “They come up with these really convincing arguments. I think that’s a credit to the showrunners to have written a story so far where the audience can still be going on that journey, can still not be sure where it’s going to end. I’m really excited for the finale of Season 1 to see if we find out anything more.”
One character with lots of Tolkien lore behind him is Walker’s Gil-galad, High King of the Elves. Despite his aged wisdom, Walker says, “If you know the lore, you know he’s got a long way to go.
“He’s one of the oldest elves in the show; he’s the most experienced. One of the joys of this job is getting to collaborate with other artists, namely Kate Hawley, one of our designers. She designed these rings that he wears that are beautifully elegant, but when he makes a fist, they turn into these gnarly looking brass knuckles. That is the duality of Gil-galad.”
Book fans know that Gil-galad’s story leads him all the way to The Siege of Barad-dûr, the battle where Isildur killed Sauron (that point alone should assure fans that the presumed-dead Isildur is alive in The Rings of Power). Gil-galad has a famed weapon, a spear called Aeglos. Walker teases Aeglos in our interview, saying, “It’s going to be fun to watch him explore his political side, but also if you know the lore, he has Aeglos under his bed.”
When it comes to The Rings of Power finale, the trio, of course, can share very little. But they do promise “some answers and some questions!” Wonderfully specific. Learn more about Addai-Robinson’s experience with the women of The Rings of Power and more in the full video interview, above.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Season 1 Finale, Friday, October 14, Prime Video
