The Rings of Power star Lloyd Owen talks Elendil-Míriel ship, Númenórean superiority, and more (Exclusive)

We're now approaching the end of the second season of The Rings of Power, Prime Video's fabulously expansive (and expensive) Lord of the Rings prequel series. The show has lots of different plots happening around Middle-earth. And in the case of the island nation of Númenór, off the western coast of Middle-earth, that plotline is reaching a boiling point. We got to talk to actor Lloyd Owen, who plays the faithful Númenórean captain Elendil, about his journey throughout the season so far, the tough decisions he had to make in the most recent episode, and where things go from here.

Winter Is Coming: One of your scenes that stood out to me is Elendil in the Númenórean courtroom. And he's basically on trial, framed for causing that fracas the episode before. And he's asked, 'Do you repent of your actions?' He says yes. 'Do you kneel to Pharazôn?' He says no. There are big pregnant pauses before each of those answers. Do you think Elendil's mind was considering answering differently? What is he thinking about in those long pauses?

Lloyd Owen: It's a very good question. I'm trying to remember now. Sometimes in an edit, they can make your pause longer or shorter accordingly. But that charts with where we are. The first one is a political answer. He's dealing with the fact that it's Kemen's fault. He's dealing with the loss of Valandil. And then he's also dealing with Míriel's instruction to toe the line here, because it's important for the fate of Númenor, according to the vision in the palantír. So that's the first one. That one he has to work his way through. He doesn't want to answer that way. But he knows what's required of him in terms of, he's had a direct order from his superior. But it goes against that personal sense of revenge for what's gone on.

However, the second question — and I think this is quite an interesting development for him in relation to whatever duty is and whatever his queen is — is that that is a direct challenge to his faith. So essentially, he he's being asked to renounce his faith, because by seeing Pharazôn as ruler of Númenor, that's going against the Valar, that's going against everything that he deeply feels Númenor should be. And at that point, any sense of duty or following an order, or indeed, his friend Míriel asking him to do one thing, just will not pass, will not pass his faith, will not pass that deep instinct. He cannot do that. And I think that's what that second decision is. That's the tortuous mind that he's going through at that point. And then he becomes clear. And it's very interesting between between the two of them, there's always this hierarchy: She's the boss, she's the queen. They've slightly fought it out in Episode 5 a bit more than we have ever seen Elendil question her, and here he has moral high ground. I mean, he's seen the light and the light is clear for him. And so there's a slight shift in the power balance between them, which is continued on a little bit in the in the dungeon scene.

WiC: I feel like I have to ask this, because the Internet loves to make a ship out of two people who are unattached in a room together and have any kind of chemistry. Obviously, Elendil's north star is his faith. To what degree is his behavior also influenced by any potential simmering forbidden romantic passion for Míriel herself? Is there anything there or are people just reading into it?

LO: That's a very good question. So Tolkien writes about Tar-Míriel, and he writes about Elendil, and he doesn't write about anything between them. But as soon as you make these characters three-dimensional and then...you put them in a difficult situation together...that amount of loss, the decisions they made together...They're quite isolated in the responsibility they have to take for their for their actions. That brings them together. There's a deep connection through faith. They've gone through the fire together. And they happen to both be single. They're both going through loss. Shared experience brings them together.

And that was something that came out of the last scene in Season 1, Episode 8...We're both on the boat. We've come back from the defeat. We're talking about our our losses and the sense of fate that we both have to keep walking through it. And so that was written in the scene, and then...there was a little extra ingredient between Cynthia and I, which wasn't rehearsed. It was just like a deep connection. And I think that the showrunners, the writers, the producers, everyone saw that. And I think that's where we've ended up with the storyline; in that way I think it makes logical sense.

But I also think neither of them could ever say it out loud. It's only forbidden in the sense that it's impossible, really. She's my queen, I'm her captain. It just couldn't be. And also neither of them really know what the other one thinks about it. You know, it's like, she touches my chest, and she's there for long enough in Episode 5...I remember doing it on the day thinking, 'Is that long enough? I think I should hold her hand and, you know, reciprocate.' And just as that happens, she takes her hand away because she's thinking, 'I've had my hand on his chest too long.' I don't think if you spoke to either of them, they would be shocked to know that this might be a thing. But it sort of is a thing because they they bonded through fire, through difficulty. So I think they're very, very, very close. And their faith adds another element. They couldn't not be shipped if that was the case, right?

WiC: It feels like destiny for them to be shipped. The Internet looks at certain things and just can't help itself.

LO: I mean, look, I've got a dog in this fight, and I don't know what the writers are going to write, but it's almost like in my head...I don't think they ever get to kiss. I don't think they ever get to say it. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe Númenór goes down and it's almost and it doesn't, you know, or the love gets declared and then it can't be. I don't know how you how you do it without diminishing it, but also elevating it. So it's gonna be really interesting. I mean, I'm glad I'm not a writer. Let's see what they come up with.

WiC: You were talking about the way Tolkien wrote things. I went back and checked and I'd almost forgotten how huge a journey Elendil has. How aware are you of the source material? Some actors don't read the source material, they just read the scripts, some look ahead, some read the books. Which kind are you? And if you have looked ahead, are you playing that as an actor or just more being in the moment?

That's a really good question. I'm a theatre actor. I'm doing a play at the moment. When you do a play, you get the whole thing. So you always get the whole thing. You get a Shakespeare play, there it is and you go, 'I go from here to there.' So you always know what your ending is. But the the culture in film and television, particularly TV at the moment, is as it's developing, as it's writing, it's being created. What we have here is a template. So to a certain extent, [showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay] have an arc...I don't know where the arc ends, but perhaps to the Last Alliance of Elves and Men? It makes makes logical sense.

[Playwright Bertolt] Brecht in the theatre was the first one that ever put signs up about what the scene is about before you watch the scene. Because it's not about worrying about the narrative. What's great about drama is going, 'All right, I know how they're gonna get there, [it's] fascinating to watch how it happens.' So you're not just getting excited with the story changes, you're like, 'What is it about these people? And I know they're going to make that decision, but how do they get there?' And I think that's the great excitement for me about Elendil. I sort of know where he ends up, you know, he's this mixture between Noah and Job, he's got to get everyone over there, he's got to learn how to become a king, you know, lose people. It's enormous for him, and it's like, 'How does that leader get built?' How does he have such an effect on so many generations? They're still talking about him thousands of year later in The Lord of the Rings. They've got poems about him. This one man has obviously done something quite extraordinary, or was extraordinary.

So yeah, it's quite fun. I've read a lot. One of our birds is called a magpie, and they just take little bits of everyone's stuff and they build a nest out of it. And as an actor, you just got to be a magpie and you gotta go, 'I'll take that, that's good. I'll take that.' And then try and build all that into to what the writers have written, because you do have to just deal with what's written. You know, if it's in the book and it's not in the script, then how much of that can you bring with you? So that's always the sort of delicate balance you're playing.

WiC: I don't know why, but I I've gotten to interview all the Númenór people. I got to interview you, I got to interview Trystane Gravelle, I got to interview Cynthia Addai-Robinson, so I'm the Númenór guy. Is there a special bond between the Númenór cast specifically, or are you all just one big happy Lord of the Rings family?

LO: We became one big happy family because of being in lockdown in New Zealand, where we had to be each other's family because we had none of our own family there, no friends. And we just arrived on the island of New Zealand and didn't know anyone. So it became a family pretty quick, and there was lockdown, so there was an extra thing of bonding over that experience. So we are a happy family.

However, the Númenóreans didn't come until Episode 3 in season 1. A lot of them had already been there before, it was like Lord of the Flies when we arrived. (No, I'm joking.) But we had a WhatsApp group called Númenór Knights. I was in a house in Auckland, so we used to come and have dinners and then discuss our scenes together. Because all of the harfoots were doing that, we'd found out.

So we are quite tight. And yeah, we have our own little subset of Rings of Power that is Númenór. And we are jokingly superior about it. Because we have the greatest army there ever was. And we're the top civilization, the rest of them are just dying to be like us, is what we say.

Thanks very much to Lloyd Owen for chatting with us! New episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power air Thursdays on Amazon Prime Video.

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