The Lord of the Rings Star Says Shooting Rings of Power's Tunnel Scene Was Even More Stressful Than It Looked

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuted last week with its first two episodes, and the second installment included a particularly stressful sequence. The episode saw the elf Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, tracking some orcs. The trail led him to an underground tunnel and, for any viewer like me, watching the elf crawl through such confined spaces was a stressful experience. The tunnels only got narrower, eventually going underwater, with orcs afoo. The entire sequence ended on a surprising note as hands emerge from behind Arondir and he disappears. I assumed that filming the sequence somehow must have been less stressful than it appeared on the screen. Córdova corrected that assumption when I spoke to him ahead of The Rings of Power's debut.

"Well, sir, you are mistaken," he said. 'It was more stressful in real life. It was incredible. The tunnels were built, I mean the whole structure, so a lot of the times you do see me go through the tunnel, there was all these moving parts that kept getting reconstituted, so the tunnels like could go forever. It was real dirt, they were very narrow, and then you had that sense of claustrophobia."

He continued, "But that's the thing, as you're saying, it is an elf, so I had to figure out how to move like an elf. And there was, as you can tell, I was holding a torch for most of the time and moving myself with one arm and that was also very important, to keep that elven-ness, so working as an animal. I was seeing how does a panther, a crocodile, beings that keep the relationship of their body as they go while doing this thing but keeping that stoic nature of the elf that is focused."

In the end, Córdova says it was a challenge to film the scene, but ultimately worthwhile. "It was quite challenging but so exciting to play because I also knew kind of how it was going to be cut inside the episode as well," he says. "So the function that it has in that second episode is pretty cool if you ask me. I also did a lot of breath hold work for that other part.. and that final moment, as well, was quite a gag and very fun to play, so I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot."

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power's first two episodes are streaming now on Prime Video. New episodes debut weekly on Fridays on Prime Video.