Summary
- The Dwarves in Rings of Power are evolving beyond just comic relief, with promises of more depth and emotion in Season 2.
- Actors like Owain Arthur and Sophia Nomvete praise the support teams for helping them give their best performances despite prosthetics.
- While the actors pushed for different accents, like Welsh, the Dwarves in Rings of Power maintain strong Scottish accents.
When you think of a Dwarf in Middle-earth, chances are you think of John Rhys-Davies’ gruff Scottish one-liners. His iconic turn as Gimli has inspired countless depictions of fantasy Dwarves in the decades since – to the extent that he reprised his role for recent video game 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Return to Moria.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Rings of Power Season 1 seemed to follow in Rhys-Davies’ hallowed footsteps. Khazad-dûm was featured primarily as a setting in which Durin bickered with Elrond, Durin bickered with his father, and Durin bickered with his wife, Disa. I’d have liked to see more✅ from the Dwarves, and Season 2 promises more Dwarves, and more meaty scenes and new emotions for them to explore.
“The dwarves can be pinned to the light relief – and we are the light relief in many ways,” says Sophia Nomvete, who plays Disa in the show. “But there is also so much more to us and there's so much more depth to the dwarves and we're so lucky that we get to uncover it.
“Comedy lands best when there's true sensitivity behind it and around it. So I think it's wonderful that they get to delve into that side – and we still have a few cheeky one-liners and looks from husband to wife here and there to keep it going. But we really get to dig deep into their heart and into their struggles this season, which has been a joy.”
The Rings of Power’s dwarves have followed in the footsteps of Peter Jackson’s Dwarven archetype in being primarily deployed as the comic relief in the epic Second Age story, but all that is due to change. The eruption of Orodruin has seri💦ous consequences on the underground city of Khazad-dûm, and 🌠Durin and Disa need to bring their people together in order to survive.
"I actually did push for [Durin's accent] to be Welsh," - Owain Arthur, Durin.
First, Durin needs to repair his broken relationship with his father. But do all of the prosthetics the actors wear impact their performances in such emotional scenes? Nomvete🐷 says the suppo🍸rt teams only helped them to give their best, and Owain Arthur concurs.
“The makeup team and the prosthetics team are great in knowing when to come in and when not to come in,” he explains. “Sometimes the performance and the emotion that's required for a take is more important than a piece of hair coming down here.” He points to his face. “Sometimes it can get in the way, because it's too distracting if you've got a piece of hair going across your eye like this, and it kind of takes you out of it. But usually they've got the balance right on knowing when to step in and when not.”
All actors put a piece of themselves into every performance, but one thing I felt was missing was the accents. The Rings of Power’s Dwarves follow in the footsteps of Peter Jackson’s with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:strong Scottish accents, and I wonder why Arthur’s booming Welsh♋ tones in particular weren’t utilised for a new spin on the Dwarve꧃s.
“It's not our choice, to be perfectly honest with you,” Arthur admits. “It's not up to us. I actually did push for it to be Welsh because of Tolkien's connection to the Welsh language, and it's my first language as well, so I have a lot of pride in that.
“I would have loved that to have happened, but I'm not actually entirely sure why Scottish was the final answer. But I love the Scottish accent. It's the next best thing to Welsh.”
