Perrin actor talks working with “real animals” in The Wheel of Time season 2

This week, we’ll finally get to watch season 2 of Prime Video’s fantasy show The Wheel of Time. Based on the beloved epic fantasy book series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel of Time follows a group of young men and women who are whisked away from their quiet village by the Aes Sedai sorceress Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) to join the fight against the ominous Dark One. Last season ended with one of them, Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), realizing that he was a reincarnated hero known as the Dragon Reborn.

Season 2 will begin with our heroes scattered to the winds. One of Rand’s childhood best friends, Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford), will be traveling with a group of soldiers from the Borderlands. Perrin is a much-loved character from Jordan’s books, in part because he forms deep bonds with wolves. Who doesn’t love wolves?

Speaking to CGmagonline.com, Rutherford talked about working with actual animals to film his wolf scenes for season 2.

Marcus Rutherford formed a “real bond” with the wolf actors on The Wheel of Time

“It’s interesting, a lot of season 2 involves working with real animals, which is quite a different thing to be doing,” Rutherford said. “I spoke to [showrunner Rafe Judkins] when we first started, and I knew this part of his character, and he wanted that part of it to feel very real, that connection to be as natural as possible.”

Game of Thrones pretty famously used real animals to stand in for direwolves in its first season before transitioning into primarily CGI creations. That was somewhat necessary considering how enormous the direwolves are supposed to be, but since The Wheel of Time has regular-sized wolves, that means it has a lot more freedom to use actual animals. Rutherford explained how this was an advantage for him during filming, because it meant that he and the animals had to develop a “real bond” with each other:

"I think if you CGI those kinds of animals it can look big and scary, but I actually think working with a real animal, you have to have a real connection, you have to establish trust and it has to be able to work with you on set and follow you, and sit down next to you. That established a real connection with the animals that I had to work with, and it meant that a real kind of bond was formed. It’s cool and really different, and I think that challenging aspect of the season was something that correlated with Perrin’s journey as well."

Dónal Finn teases Mat’s complicated relationship with luck

Another interesting tidbit from the same interview involves Mat Cauthon, who is played by Dónal Finn in season 2 following the departure of season 1 actor Barney Harris. Mat is a character with a very particular relationship with luck; if Perrin’s superpower is his ability to commune with wolves, Mat’s is having uncanny good luck that gets him out of binds.

After a rough run for the character in season 1, Finn teased that Mat’s relationship with luck will start to shift in season 2:

"When I started season 2, I don’t feel like I had a lot of luck on my side, just because of the circumstance of the character and where you meet him. I think he’s isolated, he’s remote, and he’s left to dwell in all the decisions and the circumstances that he chose, that got him to this place. So I think it just causes him to be really reflective, and to kind of question how he showed up for people, or maybe didn’t show up for them.Ultimately that, as well as this friendly but explosive rivalry between him and Liandrin, who is taking care of him, both of those things set about a course for Matt to decide who does he want to be? Is that something that’s written into the pattern? If he makes a choice in his behaviors or his actions is that consequential, or is that a choice that’s mapped out and always led to being the person that he will become?But I think what that kind of means is that he’s trying to take luck maybe into his own hands. The way I would read luck within that story of season two is the Mark Twain thing of “the harder I work, the luckier I get, like” He’s trying to carve out his own circumstance, and it that way it feels like things are starting to become lucky."

The Wheel of Time three-episode season premiere drops on Prime Video this Friday, September 1.

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