In The Wheel of Time, there are neither endings nor beginnings. But Episode 4 of Season 3 has marked a distinct turning point. A wildly ambitious installment delivered moments book readers had been waiting years to see depicted on the television screen. And for show-only viewers, it offered a stunning, mind-bending exploration of fate, identity, and possibility that redefined what the series is capable of.
In the episode, Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), Rand (Josha Stradowski) and Aviendha (Ayoola Smart) enter the ancient Aiel city of Rhuidean. Each faces their own trial within the glass columns. While Rand confronts his past, Moiraine sees haunting versions of possible futures. The scenes scour every possible outcome for the Aes Sedai — unexpected romance, devastating betrayal and death (a lot of it, too). Rosamund Pike sat down with Parade to discuss the events of the episode and more.
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‘Road to the Spear’ has drawn a lot of high praise from fans. Can you speak to the fan reaction the show is receiving this season?
I’m so pleased that there is this buzz about Episode 4 because it is our most ambitious offering to date. And to be perfectly honest, it’s where I’ve always dreamt the show would lean. Into the sort of the psychedelic nature of Robert Jordan’s writing, the thing that upturns your reality, the thing that’s sort of daring and provocative. Because that’s what I feel the books are, and suddenly we were given free reign.
Rafe Judkins brilliantly encapsulated the Rhuidean episodes from book four of The Wheel of Time into a script, which is not easy. And then our director, Thomas Napper, came up with a visual language. For instance, Josha in the glass columns taking these strides as if against a kind of gale-force wind, and each sort of position was mimicked by one of his visions of his ancestors. We filmed those seven months apart. His close-ups in the glass columns and then the actual historical pastures we did in South Africa. So it was a difference between June 2023 and February or March 2024.
Then, for Moiraine’s visions, this what we called the rollover rig, which was a camera on an arm that would pivot through a depression in the floor on one side of the set and pass overhead like a clock, going from 9 o’clock to 3 o’clock. And it would disappear into a crevice in the floor. And at some point, as it passes the midpoint, the image will flip. And to do all the visions where you just get 30 seconds, or maybe even 10 or 20 seconds, to convey a reality that could be one of Moiraine’s possible futures, it was a very experimental and exciting way to work.
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The scenes we get to see of Moiraine in Rhuidean are not depicted in the book. What was it like getting to work on those and figuring out what they would be?
Rafe said, “Look, we can do everything. Let’s put something sexy in there. Let’s see Moiraine in a nightmare in bed with Lanfear. Let’s see her In bed with Rand. And then with Lanfear, a sort of embrace that goes into a murder. Let’s see her murdered by Lanfear in all kinds of multiple ways. Let’s see her murdered by Rand. Let’s see her take Rand as her warder. Let’s see her swear fealty to The Dragon Reborn. Let’s see it all.
I saw one bit where it was getting faster and faster. The cuts were getting more rapid — throat slashed, face punctured, neck cut off. She dies over and over again. I was thinking, “God, the writers must hate me!” [Laughs.] I hit the deck a lot of times. We had this rig where I had to go with the camera and fall with the camera. I’m, luckily, quite a good faller, so it was fine. But also, what about the image of The Two Rivers folk as Forsaken! Imagine that! That’s a 20-second shot. And Sharon Gilham, our costume designer, designed seven Forsaken outfits just for a 20-second scene!
The costuming on this show is really stellar. I was wondering what part of being an Executive Producer on this show is the most exciting for you?
Things like exploring music cues. For instance, at the beginning of Episode 5, she’s essentially had a terminal diagnosis emerging from the rings. She kind of knows with some certainty that, if Rand is to make it to The Last Battle, it will be without her, which is a cataclysmic recognition and realization. And she goes out into the desert at the top of Episode 5 with the Sarkarnen, this object that she’s found in the Avendesora tree, and sort of expresses aliveness and here and nowness and rage and pain and determination, all through channeling these extraordinary patterns in the sand with the Sarkarnen. And I got to work with Lorne Balfe on the cues for that and really talk to him about what it felt like, this battle between power and submission with this object and with The One Power. And it needed to be right. I wanted that music to not feel like something overlaid on an experience. It had to feel like it was a total organic representation of what it felt like to be on that rock in the desert at sunset. So things like that.
Casting decisions, too. Getting to look at all these tapes coming in from all over the world for some of our key new characters. That’s been very exciting. Looking at edits. I’ve learned a lot on the show as a producer as well. And also budget constraints. Understanding the limits and things that actors are not always privy to. What are the sacrifices like this? What do you have to lose in order to achieve something that’s more precious?
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I feel like the making of this show reflects a lot of the themes and ideas of the show. For instance, it’s a book series that is beloved, and the idea that Josha as Rand may represent the “saving” or “breaking” of this world. The Sarkarnen and Moiraine holding it feels like a similar metaphor. Do you feel the weight of fan expectations as you’re making the show?
We are constantly thinking about the fans and thinking about what will please them, what will excite them and what they would love to see. We listen to them. I remember being mortified when, in Season 1, somebody felt Moiraine wouldn’t ever put her boots on the bed. I think our directors of Season 1 really wanted to feel that these characters were sort of, in a real sense, battle-ready. Sleep was a high-stakes commodity that opened you up and made you vulnerable. If you were to sleep, then you must be ready. So that’s why I made the decision to leave my boots on. And then I know that people were dissecting that and up in arms about her having boots on the bed. So we listen, and we pay attention.
It’s interesting, because Moiraine is learning to trust and ask for help from the younger cast, The Two Rivers crowd in this season. You know she’s she has to ask Rand for help with understanding how to use the Sarkarnen, because he’s the only one she knows who’s journaled that level of power. And then she asked Seguin for help visiting Suan in a dream, right? But I made sure that when I got on the bed to dream walk or to go to dream, I did not have my shoes on.
It’s interesting because Moiraine is learning to trust and ask for help from The Two Rivers crowd in this season. She has to ask Rand for help with understanding how to use the Sarkarnen because he’s the only one she knows who’s channeled that level of power. And then she asks Egwene for help visiting Siuan in a dream, right? But I made sure that when I got on the bed to dream walk or to go to dream, I did not have my shoes on.
You’re responding to the audience!
But the excitement of feeling that somebody who’s lived with an image that they’ve imagined for, we get to be the ones to encapsulate that. If all the times that I feel that maybe Moiraine is not quite the vision, I’ve made sure that I hope that there are some quintessential Moiraine looks and Moiraine moments. Making sure we see Moiraine in true blue as she needs to face her destiny more and more through the season. I discussed with Sharon that we want to start where she’s in disguise. And then as the season progresses, she is in klein blue, and it’s vivid and it’s incandescent in the sunlight.
Speaking of costuming, did you know that people are quite taken with Moiraine’s desert sun hat?
I did not know that! I know some people have sort of judged it as desert chic or something. But I was very grateful for it. We found it. A local craftswoman in South Africa made it. And all these people who’ve contributed their craft to these looks, leather workers, weavers, fabric dyers, printers, jewelry makers. Even a fan, actually. A fan sent me a pair of earrings, and they were so beautiful that she’d made that I got them into Season 2. I don’t know if she ever noticed or knew.
The Wheel of Time is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
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