The creator of The Wheel of Time is promising some unprecedented television when the adaptation of Robert Jordan’s fantasy series returns to Prime Video soon for a third season.
“The first 15 minutes of Season 3 is one of the most bonkers set pieces I’ve ever seen on television,” said executive producer Rafe Judkins, who together with stars Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney, costume designer Sharon Gilham and make-up/hair designer Davina Lamont, sat down for a chat Tuesday at the Deadline Studio at Prime Experience. “I was just watching it this week and it is absolutely bananas what our team pulled off … just a bunch of women in their 40s and 50s shredding each other, and it is wonderful to behold.”
Watch the conversation here.
Having first launched in 2021, Wheel of Time follows Moiraine Damodred (Pike), a member of a potent organization of women on the lookout for a man who is the reincarnation of the Dragon, a formidable youth responsible for the Breaking of the World. He can either save it from the Dark One or break it once more. Tense!
One of the more significant relationships of the heavily serialized drama that just wrapped its second season on Prime in October is between Moiraine and Lan Mandragoran (Henney), who serves as her plutonic protector while she searches for the Dragon Reborn. Moraine severed their bond at the start of Season 2, but they ultimately reunited in episode 8 in a breathtaking beach scene shot in Morocco’s Dakhla.
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Rosamund Pike
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Daniel Henney
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Daniel Henney, Rosamund Pike and Rafe Judkins
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Davina Lamont and Sharon Gilham
Michael Buckner for Deadline
“It was insane,” recalls Henney of the Season 2 shoot. “They cleaned this beautiful beach up. We had this amazing sunset and we were shooting the scene that we rehearsed in her hotel. We kind of came up with the beats of how we were going to rebond with the help of her amazing movement coach. And we found what we liked. And then once we got to the beach, it just completely took over and it was a real moment and we’re really proud of it.”
“The Wheel of Time never does anything easy,” continues Pike. “Dakhla lies in a place where people have never shot before. There’s no infrastructure for filming. It’s a place where the tide is whimsical and difficult and might give you something spectacular or it might just not cooperate. There’s a 50% chance that on two days a month the tide is going to do something spectacular. And Rafe bet on the tide doing that on these two days and said, ‘Okay, we’re going to shoot for it.’ On that day the tide did this spectacular thing, which is to encircle this white sand dune in a completely different color from the rest of the sand around it. It looms white as a sort of beautiful humpback whale in the middle of the desert. And we got it. It was one of those moments, which we have had many on the last season too, where you think there’s some kind of Godly work going on.”
The Wheel of Time also stars Zoë Robins as Nynaeve al’Meara, Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Dónal Finn as Mat Cauthon, and Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand.
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