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With the wait for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power nearly over, the Prime Video series is poised to dive into the Second Age of Middle-Earth in the world created by author J.R.R. Tolkien for his high fantasy novels. Among the regions of Middle-Earth explored in the show is the island city-state of Númenor, the greatest kingdom of humanity before the erosion of their alliance with the elves. The Rings of Power introduces the sailor Elendil (Lloyd Owen) and his children, Isildur (Maxim Baldry) and Eärien (Ema Horvath), a family with a regal destiny that will change the trajectory of Middle-Earth forever.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Horvath, Baldry, and Owen explained the influences on their family dynamic in The Rings of Power, praised the enormous attention to detail and immaculate production design in the show, and shared how they bonded while filming the first season in New Zealand.

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CBR: This show boasts some of the highest production values of all time and practical sets and costuming. How was it walking onto set every day and seeing this all firsthand?

Ema Horvath: It was incredible!

Maxim Baldry: Every day we, were amazed, and it surpassed our expectations and dreams. It was phenomenal.

Lloyd Owen: It was in the process of being built while we were there. We were there in pre-production, and we saw Númenor coming up. We didn't even know what was behind the curtain. We gradually heard rumors and saw little bits. The day that we actually walked through Númenor was quite phenomenal, I have to say. The level of detail was extraordinary. In the era of CGI, they actually built that city, and [Ema] had an amazing experience.

Horvath: I spent quite a bit of time with Daniel Reeve, who created Bilbo Baggins' handwriting; anything you see written in the show, he designed. He designed an entire alphabet for Númenórean, and I spent a lot of time writing it and learning how to write in it. There's this beautiful little alleyway on the set that has elvish carved into the walls, and it's graffitied over with Númenórean, and if you know your lore, it's a very significant and sweet detail. [laughs]

Baldry: There's bird poop as well. [laughs]

Fans have been familiar with Tolkien's world and lore since 1937. How is it getting to join that world and add your own voices to it with The Rings of Power?

Owen: It's an extraordinary privilege -- a massive responsibility and excitement. I think in our cases, with the island of Númenor, so much of that you're having [to refer] back to in the books. You've got a sense of this other world that's so important to those characters in The Lord of the Rings, with Aragorn -- my 38th great-grandson -- talking about those days. Once you start diving into the Second Age, two thousand years before [The Hobbit], and how rich Tolkien's imagination is, it's phenomenal. He's put certain signposts along the way towards what happened.

There's a definite overall arc, but we have an opportunity to fill in, and in my case, with Elendil, be the man who leads the last alliance between elves and men. How we get the character to that point, that's the great bit of excitement and responsibility because people's imaginations, when they read the books, fill in that stuff; that's the responsibility part. Ultimately, what you have as the actor is to be as truthful as you can. Can you see us as father and son and daughter? That's the hope.

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Isildur in The Rings of Power.

Maxim, Isildur is a character readers know from the two worst days of his life. How is it approaching the character when it's not those two days?

Baldry: He's had a tough ride and a tough ending! In Season 1, we're exploring the origins of all these characters when they come into the world. It's lovely to have time to sit with them and understand them. Isildur is a lost boy. He's young, hungry, and forced to become a sailor by his father, and he's like, "I don't want to do this! There's something else out there for me!" It's romantic. He makes mistakes along the way, and there's a wake of destruction wherever he goes, but there's a lot of love in his heart. In the first season, you see him finding himself.

With production on this season lasting over a year thanks to the pandemic, how was it finding that family dynamic with that extended time?

Baldry: We did become a family.

Horvath: When I got off the plane, Maxim was like, "We're going to Queenstown for a bonding trip!"

Baldry: Only activities! Kayaking, zip-lining -- we were about to do a bungee jump, but it was too much. [laughs]

Horvath: There is a bit of a dynamic there. We've lost our mother, and my character is really trying her best to fill that hole, and I think she's far too young to do that. There is a bit of that dynamic that is reflected in us as people together. I'd say I'm risk-averse, and Maxim is...

Baldry: Pro-risk. [laughs]

Owen: What J.D. [Payne] and Patrick [McKay] have done so well with the creation of Ema's character, as well as putting into the backstory for us with the loss of their mother and my wife... The turbulence that caused in the family and the external influences on Eärien that aren't present in the first little bit here -- having to deal with that dynamic has been a fantastic bit of juice for this family. Also, because Númenor is at a tipping point politically between the elvish ways and Númenórean ways, that is also reflected in the family. The political and personal are combined brilliantly here by the showrunners.

Y'all have been sitting on these episodes for a long time. Now that the show is ready to see the light of day, what are you most excited about getting to share it with the world?

Baldry: The world of Númenor, which hasn't really been explored before or seen by anyone. We've had the firsthand experience of bringing it to life and feel immensely proud and [have] done it with a lot of care and love. We hope you feel the same way about it.

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.