The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power actor Ismael Cruz Córdova details his grueling, months-long audition odyssey to earn the role of Arondir. Based on the beloved fantasy novels by author J.R.R. Tolkien, The Rings of Power takes place thousands of years before the events of Peter Jackson's acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy, chronicling the rise of evil in the Second Age of Middle-earth. The show has earned strong reviews from critics thus far, with praise levied at its scope, scale, and faithfulness to the themes present in Tolkien's work.
While The Rings of Power brings back several familiar names, including Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo), the majority of the characters in the show will be new to audiences. Among the new characters is Arondir, an elf who is in love with Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), a human. Arondir has found himself on the front lines of an Orc incursion in the Southlands. The most recent episode of The Rings of Power saw the character captured by Orcs and forced to work as a slave, with the promise of more action to come as the show progresses. Although the character's journey in The Rings of Power has been one filled with ups and downs, Cruz now reveals that his casting process wasn't too different.
In a new interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Cruz details his casting process for the show, saying that it took multiple auditions over the course of many months (and many locations). After explaining the struggle of trying to send in his self-tape audition from a small village in South Africa with no Wi-Fi, the actor reveals that he was actually turned down for the role several times. Then, however, Cruz got a surprise call to meet the producers in New Zealand where he nailed his in-person audition. One element of his improvisation even made it into the final show. Check out Cruz's full story below:
“It was about six or seven months’ worth of auditioning. I cannot tell you how many times I did audition. I auditioned in New York, LA, and then I got shipped out to South Africa to the desert, borderline to Namibia. By the time that I got there, I got my first rejection. And again, I was like ‘nope’. I told my managers, they sent it, we kept fighting for it and they gave me another opportunity. So by that point I’m putting my tape together, everybody’s excited because my makeup artists are huge Tolkien fans. They do my makeup, they set me up with lights. I was living in a tent. I shoot it in my tent. There was very little wi-fi, only in this kitchen on the top of the hill, it was almost like dial-up. I go put my phone there, plug it in, sleep in the kitchen.
Eight hours later I wake up in the morning to ‘upload failed.’ So, I’m freaking out. I give the phone to my driver and he drives it two hours to the next village where there’s wi-fi. He plugs it in, sends it, gets it to the producers. I get my response and it’s ‘nope,’ again. I really want this role, I really believe that this role is for me, so I tell my team, ‘I know that Jay Bayona lives in Barcelona, I speak Spanish. I know that we’re going to vibe. If he meets me I know he’s going to give it to me. So let’s redirect my flight, I’ll show up at his office, we’ll have coffee.’ And they’re like, ‘Relax, don’t be creepy. Don’t get arrested, we’re trying to get you in the show.’
By that point, the producer sends an email like, ‘listen, he’s great but it’s not going his way.’ I made my way to New York, my manager calls and he’s like, ‘well actually they want you to go to New Zealand in like two days.’ I was like, ‘What do these people want from me?’ I make my way to New Zealand and I truly believed that when I got there and people felt my essence, because Arondir is a warrior led by love. And I really felt like if they met me they would know. So, I got there and I was playing it cool, and once I did my audition I felt that everything turned. And actually, in my audition, there’s this moment in the third episode that everybody’s responding to where I touch a tree and I pray over it and I ask for forgiveness. That was actually something that I did in my improvisation, and it made it to the show.”
With source material as beloved as The Lord of the Rings, casting was evidently something that The Rings of Power producers took very seriously. Cruz was likely in competition with hundreds of other actors for the role and, while his casting process was anything but straightforward, his effort clearly paid off in the end. Cruz's story also reveals just how strong his in-person audition must have been, with Arondir's touching moment with the tree from episode 3 actually coming in part from an improvised element from his audition.
Cruz's journey to landing the role of Arondir in The Rings of Power was full of ups and downs, and he clearly put a lot of effort into the process. It's unfortunate, then, that his casting has been the subject of racist backlash online, with a small subset of angry fans criticizing The Rings of Power for the casting of someone who isn't white to play the role of an Elf. It remains to be seen how Arondir's story will unfold in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, but Cruz's wild audition process is an entertaining story in itself.
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Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live!