‘The Rings of Power’: Gil-galad Actor Benjamin Walker on What Viewers Would Be Surprised to Learn About the Making of the Series

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is Amazon Prime Video’s massive, high-budget fantasy series. Regardless of how you feel about the story thus far, the series has impressive visuals and an epic scale. It is heavily detailed, with sets and costumes representing years of history and storytelling. Actor Benjamin Walker says there are aspects about the making of The Rings of Power that would surprise many viewers. 

‘The Rings of Power’ is a prequel series to ‘Lord of the Rings’

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power takes place thousands of years before the events of J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels. It features familiar characters such as Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) but also introduces viewers to new characters and unique settings. The story revolves around the forging of the Rings of Power and the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron. 

The Rings of Power is an incredibly expensive undertaking for Amazon. The budget for each season is around $100-$150 million and the series could eventually exceed $1 billion. Amazon also spent $250 million to acquire the television rights for Lord of the Rings. Amazon is investing heavily into this series, and much of that budget can be seen on screen. 

Benjamin Walker shares what may surprise viewers about making ‘The Rings of Power’

Benjamin Walker plays Gil-galad, the High King of the Elves. In an interview with Collider, Walker talks about the grand spectacle seen in The Rings of Power. He says fans can imagine the level of work that went into this series, but he says the amount of collaboration that happened on set would surprise audiences.

“Probably the level of collaboration that’s gone into it because it makes sense that the scale of it is huge and it makes sense that the amount of work that’s gone into it has been tireless,” Walker shares. “What was surprising to me was on the day of filming, there was something a bit independent film, guerilla-style, everyone’s standing around trying to figure out how to milk every bit of magic out of these scenes and that was surprising to me.”

“And I think you’ll be able to really tell because it’s what Tolkien did well,” Walker continues. “He created these vast universes and creatures and languages but at the core of it, it’s the battle between good versus evil and the intricacies of these relationships and J.D. and Patrick have helped us stay true to that.”

Walker says the attention to detail is intense

The production design of The Rings of Power is incredible and Benjamin Walker says this is no accident. He shares a story of the level of detail shown by the production team. Lord of the Rings fans know their stuff, so the creative team of this series will have to know Tolkien lore as well. 

“My first day on set, there was something like 200,000-300,000 hand-painted, gold leaves on the ground,” Walker explains. “I mean, individually painted. Like leaves. Unique little constellations of life that someone has researched and tested and had multiple iterations and meetings about. The color of the leaf, the size of the leaf, the health of the tree that the leaf fell from, the ground that the leaf landed on, and now here I am walking on to set and they’re perfectly placed and the place is alive with the love and the detail that has gone into it.”

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.