Guard of the Citadel Indeed!

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 10

A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the first series of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power television show.

The sun is beginning to make its presence felt. For some of the extras – the dock workers – it all looks quite pleasant really. Their costumes are mostly light and short sleeved and they lounge around bare-legged and be-sandaled, resting on assorted sacks and boxes by the waters of the Amdelyn docks. I realise now that there are at times certain benefits to not being a City Guard. People I pitied earlier this morning, as they stood around shivering before the sun came up while I was nice and snug in my many layers and shiny armour, are now basking in the warmth of a lovely Auckland summer’s day.

Myself and my fellow guards are not basking. We are slowly cooking in ovens made of leather, thick cotton and plastic, standing to attention (the only way of standing wearing armour) with our shields and spears. The set is bustling as the crew work towards the first shoot but as yet the cast are nowhere to be seen, so we slow-cook and dream of jumping into the cool waters of the dock.

We have been placed in pairs along the dock side, and I have been placed with a chap called Luke. Luke is friendly guy of my own vintage, and good company. He’s funny too, in a constantly-complaining-but-in-a-humorous-manner kind of way. I’m always up for a good whinge myself so I have no problem with this, but Luke is extending his witty complaints to some of the crew and a couple of the Assistant Directors are absolutely not buying into the humour. So I’m wearing an expression of sorry but I have no idea who this guy next to me is.

Nevertheless, our plight has not gone unnoticed and someone has brought out a cooler full of ice packs for us. In the apparent tradition of there being absolutely no dignity for anyone on a filmset, we are filled with ice packs by any nearby crew with a spare hand. Said spare hand must find its way along with its icy treasure through any suitable gap in our costume. This most commonly involves the ice pack being squeezed through the sleeve of the chest plate and then manoeuvred into a more central and pleasing location by said hand – if the owner of said said hand has a small enough hand/forearm combination for the job.

The ice packs are an absolute godsend for about five minutes, after which they do nothing other than make your costume tighter and thus hotter. Removal of spent ice is tricky. It’s much easier to push something into a small space than take it out (ahem) and more often than not that pack ain’t coming out until you take off the costume. This of course delivers a further blow – the lessening of your available space to take on further icy refreshment, although I’m sure you can see as well as us that a bit of a vicious circle is developing here. On many days I returned to costume at the end of a hot shift and had several used ice packs drop to the floor as I was de-robed. Several of these seemed to fall into my bag, and I still have a good stash in my freezer today, most handy for someone like myself with my knack of picking up regular football injuries. Sorry not sorry Amazon. Perhaps of more concern was that on two separate occasions I returned to costume knowing I had an ice pack to liberate, only to undress with no sign of it. This led to me considering the unsettling notion that my body had simply absorbed the ice pack. The ice pack would have been under considerable duress and in no fit state to put up a fight. Perhaps this will be my origin story.

Anyway, back to the plot. Where are we? I don’t know, and I’m itching to find out, and I’m banking on seeing something during this scene we’re setting up for that will give me at the least some more clues. All the extras are of the race of Men, there are no Dwarves, Orcs, Elves or Hobbitses here (I mean obviously there are no hobbits, this is a Second Age story of Middle-earth right?) And I’m in a city with a dock. That’s all I know.

The cast arrive on set and stationed just to the side of me are a couple who appear to be a King and Queen. One of whom I recognise as Cynthia Addai-Robinson, aka Amanda Waller from the Arrow television series. I don’t know who she is playing, but she looks very regal. She’s wearing a stunning silver and white gown, with a rich blue cape and a delicate golden crown. She’s accompanied by a distinguished, nay kingly-looking gentleman, with a thick grey beard and a glorious set of thick blue and gold robes. This is Trystan Gravelle, a Welsh actor about whom I know nothing (sorry Trystan), another cast member whose role has not yet been announced.

Make-up and costume staff are always milling around on set checking extras and doing the odd fix up. But the cast, unless we’re shooting, are permanently surrounded by three or four people fiddling with this, that, and the other. Well, hopefully not the other. That level of attention looks rather overwhelming, but I suppose you get used to it. We run through a couple of rehearsals for the take, which is simply Cynthia and Trystan walking along the docks. This is the first scene I’ve filmed, and I’m delighted to note that they walk right past me as the camera follows them. There is no dialogue, so I learn nothing, and after an hour or two they’ve got the scene done and we break for lunch as the crew reset for the next scene.

We walk off set and I pass Trystan talking to the director, and explaining that in the next scene, Pharazôn will be doing something or other. Those of you well-versed in your Tolkien lore will know that the name Pharazôn is the clue I needed. I amble through the city streets back to basecamp unwrapping what this means. Pharazôn in a Second Age story, which means we’re in Númenor, the Island kingdom of Men that was raised out of the sea by the Valar after the ruin of Beleriand and established early in the Second Age by Elros, brother of Elrond. Pharazôn was the last King of Númenor, seizing the throne from his cousin the Queen Regent Míriel, whom I presume is the character played by Cynthia.

This strikes me as slightly odd – if we’re in Númenor then it seems strange that we’re right at the end of its three thousand year history, but in fairness this is undoubtedly the most interesting part. During the period of Pharazôn’s life we get the <spoilers> invasion of Middle-earth and the capture of Sauron, followed by Sauron’s corruption of Pharazôn, the great fleet sailing to make war on the Valar, the subsequent drowning of Númenor, and the tale of the White Tree, not to mention the characters of Aragorn’s forefathers Elendil and Isildur </end spoilers>. So some good stories for a TV show, I’m pretty happy with that.

And I’m a Guard of Númenor. I’m pretty happy with that too. The Tolkien fan in me is positively delighted with this revelation. Amdelyn turned out to be a fake name so as to help protect against leaks, but the city is presumably the port city of Romenna, as the capital Armenelos is inland. Guard of the Citadel indeed!

So it comes as something of a surprise after lunch when we’re setting up the next scene and Morfydd Clark walks past me…