The Rings of Power star discusses playing Gil-galad, High King of the Elves

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the story most of us know. There will be some familiar faces; the immortal elves Galadriel and Elrond will be around during this period, for instance, but mostly we’ll be meeting a new cast of characters.

Or mostly new. One of the most important figures of the Second Age was Gil-galad, High King of the Elves of the West. He actually did appear briefly in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series, where he was played by Mark Ferguson. He’s in the opening sequence where the Last Alliance of Elves and Men battle against Sauron, dying in the fight.

So we know how Gil-galad’s story ends. But what does he get up to in the Second Age? Nerdist talked to actor Benjamin Walker about bringing this iconic character to life.

Gil-galad was an elven-king. Of him the harpers sadly sing; the last whose realm was fair and free between the Mountains and the Sea.

“He’s got this kind of elvish spidey sense of the impending rebirth of evil,” Walker said of his character. “He always sees it a second before. So when we find him at the beginning of season one, he’s in a time of peace. But for Gil-galad that means something entirely different. That peace and liberty require constant vigilance. And I think he’s playing the long chess game of the preservation of Middle-earth. Also, we have to remember that these elves chose to stay. They could’ve gone to Valinor and lived on the elvish Valhalla beaches and lived happily ever after in light and love and ecstasy.”

"It’s almost like he can smell it in the air. And not only that. He’s got this connection with the life force of Middle-earth, almost as if he can feel the tentacles of evil slithering beneath the crust of Middle-earth. And he knows it’s there. And so, it begs the question what am I going to do about it?"

Walker unloaded a lot of mythology there. It’s true that, at the end of the First Age, many elves chose to leave Middle-earth for Valinor, which is a kind of paradise only the elves can access. But others like Gil-galad stayed, because they didn’t feel their work in Middle-earth was done. Sauron and his master Morgoth were defeated at the end of the First Age, but Sauron escaped, and in the Second Age works to make himself a new dark lord. It will take brave souls like Gil-galad to stand against him.

His sword was long, his lance was keen. His shining helm afar was seen; the countless stars of heaven’s field were mirrored in his silver shield.

“We know him as a warrior,” Walker continued. “We’re going to get to see him as a warrior. But he’s a politician in the sense that we wish we had, in that he attempts to bring out the best in all of us, so that when we do need to come together, we can.”

"He has all of this information and he has all this awareness, but he has enough love and consideration to know when is best to tell people. Do you go on the PA system and say, ‘There’s an asteroid coming to the earth, everyone freak out?’ No. You build an infrastructure. You allow everyone the possibility to protect themselves and start the project of splitting the asteroid in half before everyone even knows it’s coming. That’s what he’s trying to do. And that’s what a good politician does. And that’s what I like about him."

It’s interesting that Walker gives the example of an asteroid, because in the trailer for The Rings of Power we do see Gil-galad observing some heavenly body falling to Earth.

So far as I know, that’s not part of any event Tolkien ever wrote about, so I’m curious to see how Gil-galad — and everyone else in the show — reacts to it.

But long ago he rode away, and where he dwelleth none can say; for into darkness fell his star in Mordor where the shadows are.

Gil-galad is a king, which means he has lieutenants and subjects. One of them is Elrond, who during this time period is only a couple thousand years old, practically a baby in elf years. He’s not young, but he’s young enough to need some mentoring from an old hand like Gil-galad.

“Gil-galad is going to encourage him to take the first steps and the journey towards his ultimate destiny,” Walker said of Elrond. “But he does it in the way a loving parent would, which is to allow them to make their own mistakes or to encourage them to do things and convince them that it was their idea in the first place.”

It sounds like parenthood may be a theme for Gil-galad, both literally and metaphorically. “He has to let his own world have a life of its own. He has to let go, like a parent does,” Walker continued. “The ultimate last loving thing is to let them go out on their own and to trust that they will do the right thing. And that they will know what that thing is. And I think that’s why these characters that Tolkien has created continue to evolve. Otherwise, he’s just this prescient ruler who’s got a lot of experience and can kick ass when he needs to. He’s constantly evolving.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Amazon Prime Video on September 2.

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