LOTR: Rings of Power's Benjamin Walker Breaks Down the Melody & Majesty of Gil-galad (2024)

Developed for television by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power comes to Prime Video this September as one of the year's most eagerly anticipated television premieres. Set during the Second Age, millennia before the events of The Hobbit, the series sees the last alliance between elves and humanity while evil festers in the darkest corners of Middle-Earth. Leading the elves from the golden capital of Lindon is Gil-galad, played by Benjamin Walker, who senses that this hard-fought peace and tranquility may be more fragile than anyone expected.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Walker spoke about finding the subtle nuances in Gil-galad through language and author J.R.R. Tolkien's text. He also revealed what appeals to him the most about the role and teased a show that is well worth the wait for fans.

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CBR: Gil-galad is a character that shows up in The Silmarillion and in Sam's poem in The Lord of the Rings. Was there anything in Tolkien's text about him that helped you find the character?

Benjamin Walker: One of my favorite things about him is that he chose to stay. He didn't depart for Valinor. Elvish Valhalla is going to have to wait. I'm going to stick around on this dangerous, dirty rock with all these creatures that want to kill each other, and I'm going to potentially sacrifice myself and my kind in the process. I love that about him -- that even with the gift of immortality, I will put it at risk for hope.

Tolkien had written the elves to have their own language and specific cadence to their speech. How was it incorporating that to inform your performance?

Oh, that's part of the fun! Tolkien wrote languages, give me a break! How often do you get to do a job where you get to do that kind of research, and it informs your interpretation; it's only a luxury. How elves perceive language almost as a weapon of beauty against evil, how every golden spire in Lindon is a beacon of light seeking out darkness hiding in the shadows -- it's what's beautiful about Tolkien's work and what's fun about doing the job. His name, Gil-galad -- a lot of people would say Gil-galad, and the "a" is a schwa sound, but there are no schwas in elvish. It's only pure vowels. The muscularity and melody of how they speak is an embodiment of who they are and [how they] carry themselves throughout the universe; it's only good stuff.

Whether it be Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, you have done a lot of period piece roles that require you to do a lot of elaborate costuming, and this is certainly no different. What is it about that that appeals to you as a performer and storyteller?

It's just another layer of doing it. The storytelling process incorporates more collaborators; I'm not just rocking in jeans and a t-shirt. The runes on the sleeves of my gown took months and months in the making, whether it be the gold thread that they used or the amount of research that went into it; that's part of the fun. Not that contemporary stuff isn't great. I enjoy that as well, and it's a lot less time in the chair in the morning, but you've also got a team of artists and craftsmen that are helping you transform. It's what these stories deserve. It's kind of the bare minimum.

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Production on this first season took over a year down in New Zealand. With such an extended production time, how did that layer into your performance in ways you may not have anticipated?

On the first day of any job, it's like, "We're all going to be friends forever." That never [happens], but with this one, because the undertaking is so great and the context in which we started it in New Zealand was so unique and everyone's unification behind telling the best version of the story has been so present, I do feel like there will be relationships from this job that will endure past the job. We all really honor what's unique about each other and work as collaborators, and a lot of that is down to J.D. [Payne] and Patrick [McKay]. People say that there's no such thing as a dumb question, and they don't mean it, but J.D. and Patrick do. Their expectations are high, as they should be.

The world has known of Tolkien's Middle-Earth since 1937, and y'all have been sitting on these episodes for a long time. With the premiere coming up, what are you most excited about getting to share this show with the world and add to the mythos with your own voice?

I know the control of information is annoying for the fans, but it's also frustrating for me in that it's something that I'm incredibly proud of and excited to share. Every time someone asks me about something I can't talk about, I want to go, "They made the truck levitate! It's magic. Just enjoy the floating truck!" You don't want to know how it's done, and you want to go revisit it and figure it out on your own, like the books, and go over it again and again and see something new. Don't cheat your[self] by rushing to get there -- it'll be worth the wait.

Developed for television by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres Sept. 2 on Prime Video.