When Maxim Baldry landed his role in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, he didn’t know who he was playing. All he was told was that his character loves water. “I was like, ‘How’s that? I’m Gollum. I can’t be playing Gollum,” he tells AnOther. But Baldry wasn’t cast as that creepy monster of “my precious” fame; he was cast as Isildur, a man from Númenor (an advanced, by Middle Earth standards, human civilisation) who is better known for being the guy who failed to destroy the Ring, and for being Aragorn’s great-great-something-grandfather.
Born in Moscow and located in London since 2003, Baldry went to theatre at school and even performed in a Tennessee Williams play at the National Theatre. His breakthrough came via Years and Years, Russell T Davies’ hit show, in which he played a Ukrainian refugee in modern-day Britain, as the country spiralled into a dictatorship. Dystopian Britain is a far cry from Middle Earth, where The Rings of Power is set; last season Isildur was a boy, but this season he’s becoming a man – he’s falling in love, facing his demons, and fighting orcs.
As the season draws to a close, Baldry – who is also part of the indie band Terra Twin – speaks to AnOther about the process of filming and the attention to detail (season two alone cost $700 million). He also discusses how his childhood in Russia shaped him, and what kingdom of Middle Earth he’d move to if he had the chance.
Ted Stansfield: What was it like growing up in Moscow?
Maxim Baldry: I always gravitate towards playing outsiders and I think that’s to do with the fact that I have this Russian cultural upbringing, but a British sensibility. It’s kind of an odd match, so I always gravitate towards people who see life from a different perspective.
TS: What parts of your Russian cultural upbringing have remained with you?
MB: Food, toasts, the open-door policy – anyone come home. I always scared my friends when I was a kid, because I’d just knock on the door and be like, “Hey, mate, do you want to play?” And I had this thick Russian accent.
TS: When did you lose it?
MB: I had to lose it quickly because I was like, it’s either this or I’m getting a black eye. Anyone who’s different just gets shunned – you learn that really quickly as a kid.
TS: Do you still think in Russian at all?
MB: I dream in Russian. I had a nightmare last night – just my neurotic side coming out – but I was thinking in Russian.
TS: How did this role come along?
MB: An email appeared in my inbox saying, ‘Untitled Amazon project’. My agent thought it was Lord of the Rings. I was like, I love Lord of the Rings, but who am I playing? The character description was for a young, mercurial soldier with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
TS: Morfydd [Clark] told me she didn’t know she was playing Galadriel until she got to New Zealand.
MB: Yeah! I’ve signed on for ten years. Well, five seasons ... The showrunners have told me that the last scene is Gollum picking up the ring. It goes all the way to the point where I, you know, kill Sauron and take the ring.
TS: So you’ve got a big trajectory ...
MB: Such a big trajectory. He’s just as a kid in season one and in season two he starts to learn how to become a warrior, how to defeat and survive. He has to learn who to trust. He has to deal with his own personal growth and grief. It’s a wonderful character, the arc is amazing.
And again, he’s an outsider, like in a Camus-type way. He’s rebellious – there’s that beautiful quote: “Rebelliousness is a strange form of love.“ Everything he does is from a place of love, but it turns darker and darker as things get taken away.
TS: So with him being an outsider, he’s also the son of a lord …
MB: Yeah, let’s explore this: he blames himself for the death of his mother, and I think that alienates him as a person. He hasn’t told anyone – not his family, not his friends, no one. But then he tells a stranger … I think that to hold onto something so personal, so profound and so deep, you’ve got to be lost. Despite you coming from a noble family, I think he is still an outsider and sees life from a different perspective.
“Honestly, it’s like playing dress up as a kid, but it’s done to 100 per cent scale and the clothes aren’t from Smiffy’s” – Maxim Baldry
TS: My brother always says that Narnia is about the nature of God and Lord of the Rings is about the nature of man. But I like how, in Lord of the Rings, someone like Boromir has a real conflict within them. I think that feels quite true to life, where often the real battle is the war between good and evil raging inside of us. I feel like Isildur has got that going on.
MB: Yeah, the cracks of humanity. That’s a really great way of putting it because I think he’s trying to do the right thing, but he ends up succumbing. Boromir is one of the most fascinating characters to me in the Peter Jackson trilogy, because you can really feel his conflict, and you can feel him go against his own desire, and then at the end, it’s also that sort of the release, you know, “I failed. I failed as a man.”
TS: “My brother, my king” – that’s one of the most moving parts.
MB: But again it’s the man, you can see yourself in these characters. That’s why we gravitate towards Tolkien. Because you see yourself as these fallible human beings, you see yourself in every character, in some way.
TS: Have you ever spoken to the cast from the original trilogy?
MB: I haven’t actually. I would love to speak to Viggo Mortensen. There’s a funny story of him walking around Queenstown, swinging a huge sword – a real one, he didn’t want to use a rubber one – trying to do his stuff with it and people would call the police and be like, “There’s a really freaky man walking around with a big sword.“
TS: You should try to set up a meeting with him.
MB: I don’t know whether they’re all that keen that there’s other adaptations happening. I think Orlando Bloom met Ismail and had a really wonderful exchange, where Orlando almost passed past the baton of the Tolkien adaptations to Ismail. Peter Jackson’s trilogy was an adaptation of Tolkien. We’re all living in an adaptation, so this is just our version.
TS: Did you have any moments of losing yourself in the role?
MB: Honestly, it’s like playing dress up as a kid, but it’s done to 100 per cent scale and the clothes aren’t from Smiffy’s. For me, I think it was being on an actual ship that they built for my character, but it was on a gimbal, and I remember four wind turbines blowing and feeling sea sick. I hate the sea. But that was a moment for me where I was like, “Oh my god, this is so magical,“ and that was riding my horse bareback. I would say it was skillful, because not a lot of people can do it, and it’s dangerous.
TS: What was your horse called?
MB: Fandango. That was actually something I lied about on my spotlight page. I’d be like, “Yeah, I can ride a horse. Yeah, I can do X, Y, Z.“ Every actor does it. But then when I got this job, I was like, “I need to tell them I can’t ride a horse.“ The script kept being like, ‘Isildur on his horse,’ ‘Isildur on Berek.’ But that transported you to Middle Earth – if you’re on a horse in the middle of the woods wearing a beautiful Numenorean costume … it’s pretty cool.
TS: What gave you a sense of the scale of the set?
MB: For season two, they built a whole village of Pelargir, which is an old Numenorian colony in Middle Earth, which was so big that you could walk through it – there were horses and donkeys and even its own lake. It was nuts. When else could you be on a set where you walk through, get on a ship and then jump off, walk down the pier, get coffee in one of the tavernas, and then go to the fountain, where there’s literally water in the fountain. Everything works. It transports you to Middle Earth.
TS: And what gave you a sense of the attention to detail?
MB: Things that weren’t even seen on camera. The granular detail of the fact that I have a fish pendant that my mother gave me, and he just carries it – you don’t even see it half the time, but it gives you that granular detail that enriches your performance because you’re aware of where you’ve come from, your backstory.
TS: Did you steal anything from set?
MB: The fish pendant, but don’t tell anyone. I wanted to steal my horse, but I don’t know where I’d put him. London is just not built for a horse. It’s not for Ladbroke Grove, is it? I did get a bit attached to the horse.
TS: If someone offered you a one-way ticket to Middle Earth, would you take it?
MB: If I could bring my iPod, then yeah. I think Middle Earth is full of heavy metal. I’m in Mordor the whole season, so I’ve just been in Slipknot mode. I’d just want a horse and to listen to Slipknot.
TS: Where would you live in Middle Earth?
MB: Númenor is the best. Fresh fish, you get to go sailing whenever you want to, the weather’s pretty good, the city is at the peak of its civilisation ... I don’t want to be in the Shire …
TS: No one wants to be a Shire, but I reckon the hobbits are having a lovely time.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two is out now on Amazon Prime.