EXCLUSIVE: Cynthia Addai-Robinson & Trystan Gravelle Talk Season 2 of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set to premiere its second season this coming Thursday, August 29. To celebrate the premiere, we sat down with Cynthia Addai-Robinson and Trystan Gravelle to talk the new season.

During the interview, the duo talked being back at Comic-Con to promote the new season, what is in store for their characters in Season 2, the challenges of shooting this season, and so much more. Check out what they said below.

What was it like being back at Comic-Con promoting Season 2?

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “It’s great. I think the first Comic-Con and the first Hall H was really about the curiosity of how were we going to do our version of this part of Tolkien’s story. This time around we have the goodwill of the fans. They loved season one. Now we’re going to present an even bigger season two. And really the whole day, it’s just been nice to engage with people because I think there’s been that real separation from working on it and being separate from not only the audience but each other. We wrapped a year ago now and we all scattered off to our various corners of the world and now we get to reunite and celebrate season two.””

Trystan Gravelle: “I remember everything about San Diego very vividly now. It’s all coming back to me. And it’s much more relaxed this time where I was nursing my way through whatever drink I was given Do you know what I mean? ‘Please be gentle with me’, kind of thing. It’s a lot more fun now to be here. It was fun to begin with but you didn’t know what was going to happen, what was going to be coming. But it’s lovely to be here again.”

What are we going to see with your characters in season two now that the king is gone?

Trystan Gravelle: “What you’re going to see is, I think because of the schism that’s in Númenor, you’re going to see two separate ways of grieving to be honest and perspectives of grief, and how that affects the rest of the island.”

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “I would also add to that that with the death of the king, you would have certain ceremonial rights and things that need to happen in order to address that. You would have presumably the funeral for the death of the king, there would be the changing of the guard because obviously now there needs to be a new leader. And so with Míriel, she is Queen Regent in season one and now we get to see what happens in season two. So, it’s like a dot, dot, dot. It remains to be seen how that transfer of power will play out in season two.”

What has it been like to be able to be in such a classic story and to play such a nuanced, complicated character as a woman of color?

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “I think what I love about literature, and this is always my experience, reading all manner of books as a kid and even now is in your mind it’s whatever you want it to be. You plug yourself into that world. I never viewed anything and felt like it didn’t represent or look like my world. And so I think to get to this place where now we’re presenting this global series to a global audience, it would almost feel strange for it to not represent the world. If middle earth is a representation of earth, it stands to reason that here we are in the 2020s and we need to be representing the world as it is.

So I just always think about myself as a kid and reading books and just assume that people look like me or at least look like the people around me and the diversity around me. I am fortunate to have always grown up and lived in very diverse worldly places. So that was just always assumed for me. And I guess sometimes it still takes me by surprise that it would be any different. It’s never been something that I was particularly tormented about and I’m glad we’re just moving forward now because it’s all about forward motion. We’re not going to be going backward to anything or at least I don’t intend to.”

For both of you, what was the most challenging part about making Season 2?

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “We now see that I am going to be facing a creature in the water, so I’m happy that it’s not something that I can’t even say, but it’s a big moment in the story. Númenor has a very tense, supercharged storyline this season. And I think this face off with this sea creature is the, what’s the word I’m looking for, as the arc goes, it’s the- “

Trystan Gravelle: “Climax.”

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “Thank you. Thank you people. Thanks. And really, I think it’s about facing a challenge and seeing who you are on the other side of that challenge.”

Are you under the water, shooting?

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “I was under the water and it was scary and I’m still here so I obviously survived it. But whenever I watch any movie or series and I see an actor underwater now I really understand how hard that actually is to achieve. And I’m very proud and have to give a nod to all of the water stunt team at Pinewood in London that basically creates that illusion and make sure we do it safely and all of that good stuff.”

Trystan Gravelle: “And while she was cooling off in the water, I was in the Canary [Island] in heat. In all my clothes and my entire wardrobe on, melting in the sun. I’m still here so… I didn’t have heat stroke or anything.”

Each of your character face major changes in season two. Can you both talk about preparing for the new seasons?

Trystan Gravelle: “I wish I could say I just went hawking, but I think the preparation, because this is… We are preparing for this, this is like a cannon and so it’s not over. We really are still at the beginning of what is happening in this cannon. So the preparation doesn’t really differ that much unless you’re doing something very physical like what Cynthia was doing, going under water, and maybe you need to prepare for that. But everything else it’s just you’re taking it in your stride.”

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “I think for me, I had two challenges this season. One was the water work and preparing for that, but also the blindness aspect to Míriel. Because at the end of season one, once she’s blinded, she’s blindfolded for a period. And there was actually only a brief moment where I had to really portray the blindness toward the end. Season two, it’s now fully the situation. And so it was making sure that it still felt like something that she was navigating but it didn’t weaken her or make her look as if she was fumbling about. This is a world that she knows very well, she has to project strength. And so it was finding the balance of playing blindness but not doing it in a way that just weakened her. So that was a big challenge and very important to me. But I myself am curious to see where the blindness element goes beyond what we’ve presented in season two.”

Were you coached to be as realistic as possible with the blindness?

Cynthia Addai-Robinson: “I wouldn’t say coached. It was more about when you don’t have one of your senses, the other senses automatically are heightened. So I felt a lot of times it was really about listening to my fellow actors and feeling the energy shift in the room. We had some scenes in the courtroom and you could just feel the energy of the people and so you would imagine in a real-world scenario, that’s probably a bit of how you suss out and use your other senses to understand what’s going on around you.”

Trystan Gravelle: “And as the rest of the cast as well, I was very impressed with how she dealt with that. Because you do, when you first get on set, the first couple of scenes that you ever do back, you are looking. We’re like, ‘Is she following me?’ There was none of that. It was very good. We fell into, ‘Okay, she’s a consummate professional, she’s got this down, we can crack on with it.’ Probably everybody tried it a little bit. Must have done. Must have done. I definitely did.”

Make sure to check out the first three episodes when they premiere on Thursday!

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Photo credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios