The third season of The Wheel of Time is chugging along over on Prime Video, and we are loving it. There's a lot to like about the series, whether it's the expanding world, the endearing characters, the thrilling special effects, or the diverse cast. A lot of epic fantasy stories are set in places vaguely based on medieval England, but The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan took inspiration from all sorts of cultures, which means that the producers looked at actors from all over the world when it came to casting. In fact, when we asked new cast member Shohreh Aghdashloo (Elaida) what about the show had impressed her most, she named its "diversity."
"It's one of the most diverse, global shows I've ever been in, and I just love the fact that it has millions and millions of followers and fans, and the fact that it is aired all over the world," Aghdashloo said. "I love when...in real life, little girls in Asia, Africa, elsewhere, when they see me in this huge grand show, they would think, 'If she made it, I can make it too.'"
Aghdashloo herself is an Iranian-American actress. Another prominent international cast member is Indian actress Priyanka Bose, who plays the Aes Sedai sorceress Alanna Mosvani. "When Priyanka performs, she talks about not being able to use her natural accent (elsewhere). On our show, she just speaks how she speaks naturally, and it feels really comfortable and natural to the character," showrunner Rafe Judkins told Hindustan Times. "This is a show that is set all over the world, and it's great for us to be able to have people come in from all over the world."
"We wanted to see our world in the show. Right from the beginning, I sat with the casting director, and we discussed how the books were famous for being diverse at that time. I wanted the show to feel the same. I wanted us to find actors from all over the world, and we did. We hired extra casting directors in Japan, India, South Africa and Latin America. We tried to get people from all over the world. We have so many people from different walks of life. We have people use their natural accents on the show to outside of American accents because it is special world."
Rosamund Pike is "very proud" of the female representation in The Wheel of Time
Beyond the international representation, The Wheel of Time is also a show with a very healthy ratio of male to female characters. The opening minutes of season 3 were set in the White Tower of the Aes Sedai, and it was pretty much wall-to-wall chaos as these sorceress tore each other apart. It was fantastic.
“I mean, it’s something I’m very proud of in the show,” star Rosamund Pike (Moiraine) told Decider. “Robert Jordan wrote this fantasy series that people, namely women, who had never previously been able to read themselves into fantasy so easily, suddenly had role models everywhere in this series.”
Pike doesn't mean that other epic fantasy don't have female characters — Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon have expansive female casts, for instance — but that The Wheel of Time is unique in that there are a lot of matriarchal societies in the world, a side effect of the male half of the One Power being tainted. “I mean, [Jordan] wrote a very, very modern tale, which we know,” Pike continued. “But I think the way the show’s been cast and what we’ve looked for in the diversity and even, you know, on all fronts — whether it’s in terms of ability or neurodiversity or race — we’ve really wanted to be inclusive in the Aes Sedai because power is everywhere.”
"I think that’s the message we want to set forth. That power is — beauty, yes — but also power is another thing that isn’t governed by one particular look."
Why the Aes Sedai don't have "ageless" faces in The Wheel of Time show
Notably, many of the Aes Sedai sorceresses are played by women who are middle-aged or older, which may be the rarest casting choice of all. In the books, the Aes Sedai have an "ageless" look for them, which the show could have interpreted as requiring them to cast younger actresses. Pike explained why they didn't go in that direction.
“I know what Robert Jordan describes as an ‘ageless-ness’ in an Aes Sedai face. I mean, that’s always problematic when casting a show because in order to convey the depth of experience of these women, you can’t have an entire cast of twenty-something women playing the Aes Sedai," Pike said. "It doesn’t work. So we have to interpret ‘ageless’ as something to do with spirit, I think. Not to do with conventions of appearance.“
New episodes of The Wheel of Time drop Thursdays on Prime Video.
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