In an interview with CBR, Brändström compared her accomplishments on The Rings of Power to her experiences on two other big-name TV series, Shogun and the John Wick spinoff The Continental. Disenhof spoke about preserving what audiences love about The Lord of the Rings while adding his own unique voice. Plus, learn what scene from Season 2 still stands out to them.
CBR: Charlotte, you have plenty of experience working on TV projects that have an epic scale, whether it’s The Continental or Shogun. How does The Rings of Power compare to some of those other shows, and how did it challenge you creatively?
Charlotte Brändström: The hardest [aspect] here is you have all these different worlds. In the other things I’ve done, you have one world. In Shogun, you have one world. You have these people, but they’re all in Osaka, and Continental is New York in the ’70s. Here we have five different worlds, five different looks to create — and different species too, because they’re not humans, most of them.
Every show has its challenges. I like to give things scope, make them as cinematic as possible and interesting. So it was just a very exciting show to work on, with a team that’s just incredibly talented and creative.
And then the person I’ve collaborated the most with in my whole life, actually, is Alex. We just calculated that between both seasons, we shot 238 days together. So that’s great. That’s quite a lot [of time] to spend. When you think about all the time it takes to prep and everything, you spend a lot of time together. And we’re still friends. [Laughs.]
Alex, everyone has their own idea of what Middle-earth should look like, whether from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels or the general expectations from fantasy TV shows and movies. How did you deliver what the audience was looking for, while also bringing your own ideas to The Rings of Power?
Alex Disenhof: I’ve been a fan of Tolkien’s work since I was a kid. I read the books, [and] the movies were actually very formative for me, as a young person wanting to get into making movies. So to get the call to come and play and help bring Middle-earth back to life was a dream come true. That said, I think you have your own set of tastes that you develop over years of working and your own instincts. And I think you let the scripts lead you.
You’re one of many, many people creating something. We have these incredible sets built by Kristian Milsted, our production designer. And you have these incredible costumes, you have these prosthetics. You kind of let that guide what you want, and then you can combine it with your own taste.
Something Charlotte and I talk about a lot is making it feel lived in and real. Even though it is fantasy, it doesn’t mean there’s three moons and it’s all super bright and sunny all the time and whatnot. We wanted it to feel like a place that was different from our own world, but also something we recognize, which I think is what people reacted to when the first [Peter Jackson movie] trilogy came out, was that it felt lived in and real.
The Rings of Power Season 2 had even more visually stunning moments. What one scene were you most impressed by?
Disenhof: In [Season 2] Episode 8, there’s a shot as the orcs are attacking the city. It’s one continuous shot. And it travels through a pretty massive set and a bunch of different kinds of action happens throughout it. It required an enormous amount of planning and dreaming, and to see it all come together and work out was really cool.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.
