Showrunner Rafe Judkins has explained why five of the actors playing the main characters in Amazon Prime Video's The Wheel of Time series are older than their counterparts in the novels.In a response to a fan's question about the character Mat's beard on Twitter, Judkins offered insight into why all the actors are visibly beyond the mid-to-late teen years of the group of youths in Robert Jordan's fifteen-novel series. "We aged up the Emond's Field Five from the books because sometimes TV shows with a bunch of 17 year olds as leads feel more like YA and Wheel of Time isn't YA," wrote the showrunner.
Those five from Emond's Field that Judkins is referring to are Rand al'Thor, Perrin Aybara, Matrim Cauthon, Egwene al'Vere and Nynaeve al'Meara. The three men all start out around age 19, Egwene is 17 or so and Nynaeve, the oldest of the group, is in her early twenties.
The casting for the show holds true to the way the character's ages are spread out but noticeably aged up. Josha Stradowski (Rand), Marcus Rutherford (Perrin) and Barney Harris (Mat) are each in their mid-20s. Madeleine Madden (Egwene) is just a year or two behind them at 24. Zoë Robins (Nynaeve), as the village wise woman, is 28.
In the books, Mat does eventually grow a beard, but he hates it. Perrin is much better known for the beard he grows and keeps later in the series, and the show reflects that feature of the character. Rand, for now, seems to remain as beardless as he is in the books.
On the subject of age, the character Moiraine Damodred played by Rosamund Pike is part of the Aes Sedai, a group of women who wield the One Power and have what the books call an "ageless look." Judkins previously explained why that effect wasn't used for the series. "VFX that require you to touch every frame that a character appears on screen are not great uses of money," he wrote. "So don't expect to see CGI faces for all Aes Sedai."
Amazon's The Wheel of Time is based on the fantasy book series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. The show does not yet have an exact release date, although it was announced that the premiere will air in November.
Source:Â Twitter