ELVISH HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!

ROBERT ARAMAYO, WHO PLAYS THE HALF-HUMAN, HALF-ELF ELROND IN THE THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER SERIES TALKS TO TANZIM PARDIWALLA ABOUT BEING PART OF TOLKIEN'S WORLD

- TANZIM PARDIWALLA

"Oh, wow! That was so nuts that I actually don't blame myself for not remembering most of it.

That was the craziest experience I've ever had in my life," says Robert Aramayo as I remind him of our meeting in Mumbai back when he visited India in 2022. As he laughs with a hint of amusement and nostalgia, one can tell he's come a long way from Season 1 to 2 of The Rings Of Power. For starters, he's wearing an oversized sweatshirt as he's seated casually over our Zoom call, an appearance wholly different from his onscreen elven look.

The English actor plays a young Elrond in the fantasy series set thousands of years before the events of Peter Jackson's movies. Interestingly, he recalls watching Hugo Weaving's Elrond and feeling curious about the elves of Middle-earth. Over the next 20 minutes, the actor muses over everything from his Julliard education, his brief appearance in Game Of Thrones and delving into his much-loved character.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE GOING BACK FOR SEASON 2?

For me, it was a completely different season because in the first season, it was all green screens and a huge picture of me behind myself, standing on ladders. Now all of that is gone. I was in the field. So it felt completely different. And the only thing that felt the same were the sets of Lindon where I had worked before. Everything else was fairly new territory. I used to go down the rabbit hole of Elrond, years ago before I obviously knew that I'd be playing him. I used to always be interested in certain decisions that he made in the Legendarium. So I've been down these rabbit holes and they're enjoyable. I try to avoid them but now I know how enjoyable it is to make your own decisions and that's what I like about Tolkien, everyone has a unique perspective based on their opinion of what they've read. And one opinion can be as astounding as another and they could be completely contradicting one another.