Rosamund Pike, star of The Wheel of Time on Prime Video, confides in the evolution of her character in season 2.
Prime Video recently launched the second season of its fantasy series The Wheel of Time, which notably sees the return of Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred. After her confrontation with the one she thought was the Dark One who is actually Ishamael (Fares Fares), one of her lieutenants, in the first season finale, Moiraine was cut off from the True Source, which allows the powerful Aes Sedai like her to channel the elements.
She therefore begins the second season by facing this major loss, that of her abilities and her autonomy and which she experiences as a real trauma. It’s a storyline not found in Robert Jordan’s books and one that creates real dissension with Lan Mandragon (Daniel Henney), his caretaker and companion.
In an interview with Reverse before the SAG-AFTRA strikes, Rosamund Pike indicates that Moraine’s loss of powers took away one of the main attractions of the role.
The idea of Moiraine being cut off from all of this bothered me.
“That’s not what I signed up for“, she says jokingly.”One of the things that drew me to the show was developing the physical language of channeling. [l’utilisation de la magie, ndlr] and to interpret how one channels the elements of the universe. So the idea of Moiraine being cut off from that was a problem for me.“.
Moiraine’s loss of powers is one of the biggest liberties taken from author Robert Jordan’s 14-volume series. But The Wheel of Time isn’t a strict adaptation of the novels: it stays true to the essence of the story, but isn’t afraid to set its characters on a new path. This particular change forces Moiraine to deploy other talents in her fight against the Dark One, the central being that threatens the universe.
“It was really fun, to be honest with you, trying different things“, confides for his part Daniel Henney about the tense scenes between Lan and Moiraine. Neither of the two actors was afraid to test the limits of their dynamic.
“There were things we tried that were so off the mark that they couldn’t be picked up.”continues the American actor, “but that’s the beauty of a show like this…it’s scary. you don’t know if the characters have to go in that direction. but you have to trust the team that we surrounds, to the scriptwriters, and I think everything went well.“
The fourth episode of The Wheel of Time season 2 will be available from Friday, September 8 on Prime Video