“I think it’s very Tolkien. I think it’s relevant,” Boniadi told Parade.com of portraying a strong female in the epic drama. “I don’t think it’s something that is unusual in this context, outside of the fact that, you know, these characters have agency.” “The unusualness comes from the industry, and women not being portrayed onscreen with full agency across the board, and it’s not just fantasy that that happens in,” she continued. “Strong characters belong in this world. Strong women definitely belong in this world.” The series is based on the appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and LOTR movies. What’s “great” about The Rings of Power, as Boniadi pointed out, “is that every world has a strong woman in it.” “The dwarves have Sophia Nomvete as Disa. You’ve got Cynthia Addai-Robinson and the Númenóreans. You’ve got myself in the Southlands. Of course, Morfydd as the lead,” she said. “And Markella [Kavenagh] and Megan [Richards] in the Harfoot world. It’s across the board and we have agency.” Boniadi noted, “We’re not serving a male storyline. We exist in our own right and that is something that’s refreshing across the board in the industry.” Strong female characters also make the series “really accessible.” “There’s a different power. There’s a different narrative that we’ve created, and I think that complements a world of predominantly male that we’ve seen before,” Nomvete told Parade.com. She added, “Of course, the women in the show are incredibly powerful and prominent and integral. And so moving forward, this is what the generations ahead of us will see and will know within a franchise of this scale.” Nomvete’s character Princess Disa marks the LOTR franchise’s first female dwarf—and first Black dwarf—onscreen. While the series features new characters, some are familiar like Galadriel, who was played by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings trilogy and The Hobbit films. Stepping into the role of the legendary elven commander was both exciting and interesting for Clark. She explained to Parade.com, “It was really interesting for me playing an elf because she’s stronger than all the mortal men around her. And that was something that I kind of did have to use a lot of my imagination to get to. She’s powerful in a way, in a physical way that I haven’t necessarily felt.” Clark is “pleased” for not only young girls, but also young boys to watch The Rings of Power. “I think that like children in general should have, whether they’re girls or boys, should have a big variation of characters and people who they can aspire [to] or be inspired by,” she said. “And I think not just the female characters in this, but kind of there’s a huge diversity of personality and hopes, dreams and ambitions in this story.” The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres worldwide Sept. 2 on Prime Video. Next, find out everything you need to know about Season 1 of The Rings of Power.
