‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Has More Women and POC Than Films Because of Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings franchise was a massive hit, and brought J.R.R. Tolkien’s literature to cinematic life. It wasn’t perfect though. Some critics pointed out how predominantly White the trilogy was, with very few roles for women and even fewer people of color. The Prime Video series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power corrects that with a diverse cast including women and POC.
Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay spoke with Showbiz Cheat Sheet on Aug. 13 and cast members appeared on a Television Critics Association panel on Aug. 12. Here is why you can expect a much more diverse cast in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, premiering Sept. 2 on Prime Video.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about women and POC in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ universe
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power takes place in the Second Age, thousands of years before Frodo Baggins. McKay and Payne drew on Tolkien’s appendices, The Silmarillion and other notations in his writing to discover who else lived in Middle-Earth.
Really we felt like in some ways we were just excavating more of Tolkien. It mentions that Harfoots were amongst the branches of halflingdom that they were browner of skin than some of the other branches. So we said okay, in diversity that’s already just right there in the text that just hadn’t really been depicted before. Clearly, there are women in Middle-earth in all the different species. We just saw it as really taking stories that were already there that hadn’t been told and using it to add to the splendor and wonder of Middle-earth.
J.D. Payne, interview with Showbiz Cheat Sheet, 8/13/22
Nazanin Boniadi plays a woman of color in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’
Nazanin Boniadi plays the new character Bronwyn in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Bronwyn is a human woman who has a son, Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin). While Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler played the films’ Galadriel and Arwen respectively, Boniadi appreciated representing more diversity on the show.
Fantasy and myth cushion you into a world where you can comfortably explore your existential longing. What is it to be human? For me that’s timeless. Whether it was 20 years ago or right now, it’s applicable. And I love that each one of us, as actors, we inject a role with our own essence, our unique essence. I love that we come from these different backgrounds and much like the fellowship you see on screen. We get to sort of explore that together. It’s timeless. It’s universal. All these themes we kind of embody and we’re archetypes, our characters are archetypes of the most basic human dilemmas. And that’s timeless. That’s what resonates with me.
Nazanin Boniadi, Television Critics Association panel, 8/12/22
Ismael Cruz Cordova plays a Latinx elf
Ismael Cruz Cordova plays another new character. Arondir is an elf unlike the ones we saw on the Elven Council. He’s also in a forbidden romance with Bronwyn in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
“We are such a large cast and we’ve become a community and family, but we come from such different backgrounds,” Cordova said. “Yet you find a little home in Tolkien. I grew up in Puerto Rico, grew up in houses with mud floors and experienced so many hardships in my life. And every time that I saw Tolkien, because I saved all my money to buy my first DVD, my first DVD was The Lord of the Rings, I felt myself in there.”
Cordova did note the lack of people of color in the films. For him the cast of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is monumental.
“When I first saw the movies, which were so influential, as I said before, I felt spiritually represented there, but perhaps not the image,” Cordova said. “What this show does is that it takes advantage of all of that richness that he wrote and brings us to this show, brings this present there. I always say if you can see it, you can imagine it, and if you can imagine it, you can create it. Now that we’re here, a new generation will be able to create their image based on what we’re putting on screen for the first time with this franchise.”
