‘Rings of Power’ Star Morfydd Clark Fainted When She Was Cast in Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ Series

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) hopes to revive his dream project to make a mammoth 10-episode television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is as big a TV show as TV shows have ever been, with a record-setting budget spent on recreating J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth during the Second Age, and a cast of nearly two dozen series regulars and dozens more featured players deployed to enact its sprawling tale of the rise of Sauron. And yet one character sits undeniably at the show’s center: Galadriel. The ancient elf, so old she was born before the moon and the sun first graced Middle-earth, was a crucial character in Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” novels and Peter Jackson’s “Rings” trilogy, as played by Cate Blanchett.  In “The Rings of Power,” set thousands of years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings,” a younger Galadriel is not yet the serene and wise co-ruler of the Elven kingdom of Lothlórien. Instead, she’s consumed by her hunt for the Dark Lord Sauron, the mysteriously absent master of evil responsible for the death of Galadriel’s brother. In “Rings of Power,” Galadriel is at once hardened by the millennia she’s already been alive, but not yet the stately (and formidable) woman of stature she becomes in the Third Age.

SPOILER ALERT: The first two episodes of Prime Video’s epic The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are live, and here is a gallery of photos from Season 1. Note that some of the images might be spoilers for those who haven’t watched yet.

By Morfydd Clark has an exciting role as the armor-wearing, ice wall-climbing protagonist of Rings of Power, Amazon's that's been lauded as the most expensive television series ever made. But off screen, the 33-year-old actor has a soothing voice and a calming demeanor—remarkable considering the making of the epic new series, out now, tested the Welsh actor in every sense of the word.

A new era of Middle-earth! The Rings of Power explores a totally different side of The Lord of the Rings — and fittingly, the cast is full of new faces.

“Rings of Power” star Owain Arthur carried around a “newborn baby” while filming the new Amazon Prime Video series — in the form of a beard.In order to play Prince Durin IV in the show that debuted Thursday, he went through the wringer in the makeup chair and it didn’t stop there.The Welsh actor, 39, said the bushy, braided beard he wore all day on set weighed several pounds and came in 16 separate pieces.“[It was] attached to my face so it would move but not pull,” Arthur told Variety, adding the beard “weighs as much as a newborn baby.”“[The] hook takes a lot of the weight. It’s also attached to the wig at the back,” he explained.Arthur said the team also decided to have him wear the beard lower on his face so he could “express” emotions “and not have the makeup be a hindrance.”Given the complicated process, Arthur had two artists working on him for over two and half hours daily to get his look just right for the part.

The Rings Of Power stars Morfydd Clark and Charlie Vickers have discussed the most challenging aspect of filming the Amazon series.Set thousands of years before events in The Lord Of The Rings, The Rings Of Power covers Middle-earth’s Second Age, which spans the rise of Sauron, the forging of the rings and the last alliance between Elves and Men.Clark, who plays a younger version of Galadriel, originally depicted by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s trilogy, had to undergo extensive underwater training for numerous scenes as the character – which she described as the hardest thing to learn while filming.“We had to learn to hold our breath. I got up to three and a half minutes,” Clark told NME.“That was really challenging because unlike everything else where you get better at it, so it starts to feel better.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.” As you’ll read (and see in the video above), this week’s column is a little different this time around. I am running around the Beverly Center trying to find something to wear for my interview with actor Luke Macfarlane. It’s not often I think about my outfits because I’m classic and consistent — chinos, button-up shirt, bow tie and a pair of colorful sneakers. However, my time with Macfarlane is going to be different because my editor has convinced me not only to work out with him, but to do it on camera.

Morfydd Clark is opening up about how her Galadriel will be different from Cate Blanchett‘s take for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Michaela Zee editor“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is only days away, and the Amazon Prime Video series has earned mostly rave reviews with a few mixed reactions (and one flat-out pan) as critics returned to Middle-earth.As Variety chief TV critic Caroline Framke wrote in her review: “It’s safe to say that Amazon throwing the weight of its coffers at this property has resulted in a perfectly winning adaptation that unfolds swashbuckling adventures with clear reverence and affection for the considerable mythos behind it.”Set during the Second Age of Middle-earth (thousands of years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Hobbit”), the prequel series reintroduces characters from Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy, including a young Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo). The Second Age consists of the rise and fall of Númenor, the creation of the Rings of Power and the formation of the Last Alliance.

Caroline Framke Chief TV Critic Several years (and several hundreds of millions of dollars) after Amazon bought the TV rights to “The Lord of the Rings” from the J.R.R. Tolkien estate, the mammoth effort to boost Prime Video’s profile with the same kind of phenomenon HBO found in “Game of Thrones” is upon us — and it’s just as grand, if not as downright surreal, as the occasion calls for. Sure, “Game of Thrones” might have solidified a television format for fantasy epics. But George R.R. Martin’s novels simply wouldn’t exist without Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” and bringing these stories to episodic life requires not just all the considerable money Amazon can provide, but a certain amount of guts from the TV writers taking it on now, some 85 years after “The Hobbit” changed the game. 

Morfydd Clark turns heads in a flowy blue gown for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power after party held at The British Museum on Tuesday night (August 30)in London.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor John Boyega has never shied away from speaking out about the racist bullying he received for his work as Finn in the “Star Wars” franchise. Things got so bad, he convened a meeting with Disney and Lucasfilm execs to express his disappointment in their lack of support during the targeted attacks. While Boyega has now said he has no plans to return to “Star Wars,” he’s proud of “Obi-Wan” star Ewan McGregor coming to his co-star Moses Ingram’s defense after she became the target of online hate when their series premiered on Disney+ in May. “I don’t know how Disney have done, and I don’t know how they’ve moved with everything,” Boyega tells me on this week’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “All I know is about specifically Lucasfilm, about the Obi-Wan Kenobi stuff. And I saw that Ewan McGregor video. And that kind of got me, that was nice. That got me a little emotional on that. That’s cool that he showed up for her like that. That’s cool.”

Sophia Nomvete, Nazanin Boniadi and Morfydd Clark hit the red carpet for the latest premiere for their new series, The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, held at Lincoln Center on Tuesday night (August 23) in New York City.

Battle-worn fighters, angry seas, stranded ships and dazzling waterfalls. Oh, and an imprisoned man who says “I am not the hero you seek.”

“House of the Dragon,” told The Post that she hadn’t seen “GoT” before landing the role.“But of course, I knew about it,” she said. “I understood that it was very big and very popular. [After getting cast], I watched it to prepare.