DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 11
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.
As I said at the end of the previous installment, it came as something of a surprise after lunch when we were setting up the next scene and Morfydd Clark walked past me. I’d been enjoying the earlier revelation of discovering I was a Númenórean guard in the time of Pharazôn and Míriel, thus giving me the time period that the show was being set in, and a fair guess as to what the story would be (oh how very naïve that turned out to be!).
Morfydd is one of the few cast so far who has been officially associated with her character, being of course the mighty Elven Queen Galadriel. As a Tolkien fan, Galadriel in Númenor is undeniably a little jarring. There is no mention of her being there, or indeed interacting with Númenor in any way, anywhere. Now I’m not one of those fans that at this point is going to be angrily denouncing the show’s lore crimes – I have far more important things to get angry at – but nevertheless this does rather throw me. Yet as I stand there, a Númenórean guard with my shield and spear by the side of Pharazôn and Míriel, watching a scene roll whereby the beautiful Galadriel walks right past me on the way to a ship, I decide I absolutely don’t care.
After all, there is nothing I can do about it. And it’s thrilling to be standing here amongst it all, next to characters I have known for most of my life. Entirely surreal. I learnt my lesson on expecting too much from adaptations of beloved literary classics with the Hobbit trilogy. Nowadays I’m very much of the mind that the writers can play a little fast and loose with the lore just as long as they tell a good story, preferably without melting a giant golden dwarf. I’d much rather be here on set experiencing this than not being here at all. I have come here as a fan of Tolkien but now I’ve pretty much turned into a young actor in Hollywood – do whatever you want in this scene, JUST AS LONG AS I’M IN IT! Let’s face it, the whole experience is going to be pretty miserable if I just shoot holes in everything.
That said, I’m doing my best to resist the temptation next time Morfydd walks past to say “aren’t you a little short for a Noldor?”. Don’t get me wrong, she looks amazing and I can totally feel myself going a little bit Gimli at this point, but she is undeniably closer to dwarf than elf in the height department.
As I dwell on all the show and its relationship to Tolkien’s writings, it occurs to me that had the make-up crew told me that I had to shave because I would be playing a Númenórean, I would have been much more amenable to the notion. The descendants of Elros, brother of Elrond, were notably beardless – all they had to say was “dude, you’re a actual descendant of Elros, we gotta shave ya” and I’d have done it on the spot. For a moment the thought occurs that had Freddie in Costume not decided that beards were good to go, then ironically the show would have been truer to Tolkien’s words. That said, I heartily endorse this change and applaud their progressive pro-beard approach.
I mentioned before how thrilling it was to be a part of the scene, part of a story I had known for so long, and the fact that the show is a Tolkien adaptation definitely played a part in that – I presumed the main part. But as I’ve worked on more shows and films in the years following this I’ve realised it wasn’t the only part by any means. We’ve all heard about the magic of Hollywood, the magic of film, and in my experience this is very much a real thing. Terry Pratchett tackles this brilliantly in his Hollywood satire Moving Pictures as part of his Discworld series. There _is_ an undeniable sense of something magical on a film set, and the more real and impressive the set is the more magical it feels. For me as a lowly extra the buzz doesn’t compare with the similarly magical buzz I’ve had performing as the frontman in a band over the years, but there is certainly a hint of it. I imagine being a major cast member perhaps does give a much more comparable buzz – either way, I can sense the magic on these sets as almost a tangible thing, and it takes me a little by surprise.
A much more tangible thing is lunch. I’m impressed with how smoothly the process of feeding a hundred-plus extras is. We’re handed a meal in a box based on whether we’re a vegetarian or a heartless consumer of tortured animals and both options are surprisingly good. I was kind of expecting something along the lines of an airline meal when they handed over the box, but this is actual real food that you can eat. It’s a proper healthy meal, freshly cooked and leagues above anything I’ve been fed at other jobs – and I used to work in a Tesco staff canteen so, you know, high praise indeed. However I have made the beginner’s error of sitting down to eat without wearing a poncho to protect my costume. Within seconds one of the floor runners, Lisa, has chastised me accordingly and ordered me over to a set of wheelie bins filled with nice thick ponchos, which is just what you want to wear on top of your hot and heavy costume after standing in the sun for the last two hours. Lisa has a sense of authority which belies her teenage years and lowly role and is in fact mildly scary so I do as I’m told. In due course the city guards will learn to keep a close eye out for Lisa at mealtimes and have a poncho close at hand ready to go as soon as she appears. You can find them anywhere but all the wheelie bins are the same colour so it’s easy to get yourself a face full of bin smell by mistake, or indeed do what I did and put your poncho in the recycling bin. She seems a little put out that we appear to be doing as we’re told, but soon perks up when we start pointing out other non-city guards who are flagrantly flouting the poncho rules.
We’re back on set after lunch, and just like the morning shot this one takes well over an hour to set up. This time I’m a little more alert to what is going on, and like any keen extra I’ve worked out that I need to stay alert if I want to get a good position in the scene i.e. one that gets you up close on camera instead of being part of the general background blur. Sometimes the 2nd or 3rd Assistant Director will need a particular look/height/whatever in an extra, but more often than not any old extra will do, especially when you are part of a group of a dozen guards that all look the same. You can quickly learn to read the signs and know when the extras are about to be placed in position on the set, so when the AD comes over to get you you’re ready and waiting, paying attention. Invariably the extras in the best spots will be chosen first, and if you’re not ready you may even end up being sent back to the holding tent which for some people is absolutely fine – after all, you get priority access to snacks this way – but I want to play as big a part in this as possible.
I seem to have got a great position for this scene. Galadriel exchanges a few words with Pharazôn and Míriel, and then walks right past me and fellow guard Luke down a ramp toward the water, stopping only to exchange a few words with a character I shall much later discover is Elendil. Much to my delight the camera captures this conversation with Luke and I directly in the shot behind them, although I’m not quite close enough to overhear the conversation thus I can’t uncover any further clues as to what might be happening in the story. And the books are no help at all – if anything they’re something of a hindrance! This is after all the scene in Episode 4 when Galadriel is being booted out of Númenor, just before that great moment when the petals of the White Tree begin to fall, leading to Míriel changing her mind and deciding to sail to Middle-earth herself with Galadriel and help install Halbrand as the rightful King of the Southlands. So you can see (presuming you’ve read them!) why the books are not entirely useful.
And that was basically my first day on set. What a day it was. So many questions answered, so many more questions as a result. We shot this scene many times from many angles, and then that was it, time to get out of our costumes (more on that another time!) and go home. There’s a lot to digest for me in every way – although I won’t have much time to do it as it’ll be 7pm by the time I’m leaving the studio this evening and my call time for the following day will require a 3am wake-up call to get me back to Númenor on time tomorrow. This day was an eye-opener and no mistake!