Troll Scene, Season 3 Explained by Ismael Cruz Cordova

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 7 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” now streaming on Prime Video.

It’s all-out war in Middle-earth, with orcs and elves at each other’s throats.

The Siege of Eregion continues in “Rings of Power” Episode 7, with Adar’s (Sam Hazeldine) forces breaching the castle walls and storming the elven stronghold. Hundreds of deadly, disgusting orcs lay waste to the city, but Elrond (Robert Aramayo) has a plan to stave off the destruction: calling upon dwarven reinforcements led by Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur). However, the dwarves are nowhere to be found by the end of the episode, as King Durin III (Peter Mullan) has been corrupted and brainwashed by his ring of power.

Unfortunately, the elf who is having the worst day of all is Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards). He finally realizes the truth about Sauron (Charlie Vickers) and sees through the dark lord’s disguise as Annatar, but the damage is done. Celebrimbor has made all the rings of power under Sauron’s orders, and the master blacksmith decides to mangle his own hands so he can’t make any more dangerous jewelry.

Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) swoops in to save the day and helps free Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) from Adar’s orc camp. She shares a kiss with Elrond before they join the elven army at Eregion. In a badass elf team-up, Arondir and Elrond take down a massive hill troll that stomps through the battlefield. Before Arondir can take out more orcs, however, he finds Adar in the skirmish and fights him one-on-one. Adar proves to have the upper hand and he takes down Arondir before moving onto Elrond and taking his ring of power. The episode ends on a dark note, teasing even more destruction to come.

With Variety, Córdova discusses the intense, physical training he underwent this season to play Arondir, breaks down his troll fight scene and teases that Season 3 is already in the works.

Arondir does even more flipping, fighting and orc killing this season. How did your training change from Season 1?

All the wire work and everything you see on the show, it’s me. I only have a tiny bit of a stunt that I have a double for, because it was supposed to be one take and we had to split it — but the rest is me. I learned all of that in the first season, and got trained on wires. They’re quite complex. In Eregion, I’m actually up there on that tall wall, and I jump. They’re stuntman stunts! I had to train quite a bit in strength, martial arts and choreography. I was trying to also change a little bit of the texture of the movement to signify a little bit more of his anger and grief.

You do sword fighting and archery — did you get to learn horseback riding for this season, too?

I did horseback riding. I don’t think I get to ride in this season on camera, but I did, like, two months. There was a episode, I believe the sixth, that I open just running through the forest. That used to be horseback riding, so I trained for it. I can’t remember how we came to it, but he just runs. It’s the forest and elves run quite fast and lengthy. It didn’t make sense for him to be on a horse, but I did train, and I freaking loved it. I found out that I wasn’t gonna be horseback riding way before they stopped the classes. I just kept going very quietly.

Is there any training you haven’t done that you’d like to try?

I haven’t done stunt driving. I’m a little bit interested in that. I’ve trained in underwater breath holds, but I haven’t been able to do anything grand underwater and I would love to. I have no interest in jumping from any type of aircraft — zero, absolutely none. Or going through fire — I’m good. I’m super focused on the choreography of it all. I want to get very good at the lines when I’m doing martial arts, like the swiftness of the sword, which I started playing in this season when I’m slicing orcs very nicely. Anything! Honestly, I’m just gonna keep going and going. I’m trained in 16th-century calligraphy, and learned how to make my own quills and paper in this other project. The last movie I just did, I learned how to play a whole song on the violin. I’m that guy.

There aren’t too many cars or planes in Middle-earth, so you’re probably safe there. But Arondir should get to play a song on the violin at some point!

That would be great. I would love to sing in the show. There’s so much written about elven singing, and we see it with Gil-galad. I think it’s always super great for Arondir to do a lot of these things, because it shows you this difference and the contrast between types of elves. He’s not a royal, rich or a city guy. He’s a rugged, rough, warrior poet, covering for every mistake that comes from the capital, essentially. He’s the one that’s like, “OK, I’ll save you now, and I’ll save you and I’ll save you.”

With the hill troll fight scene, how much of the monster was practical vs. CGI?

There was a big structure that had all these mats around it and nets and chains. I jump and grab onto it, and drive him down. They had two big feet and a little part of it at the bottom, so we interacted with that as well. We saw the sketches, so we know what it looked like and the battle itself was so realistic with so many orcs. You really felt like that troll is there.

There are so many orcs and elves running around the Eregion battlefield — how chaotic was it on set?

The energy is there; I feel so immersed. There’s fire, the big wall of Eregion was built, it was so freaking muddy. The landings are completely different. When you land on that, the mud just sucks you in. There are people running around you. So when you’re doing choreography and you learn it in certain directions, you’re completely disoriented. Everyone has to be precise. There are so many swords floating around. It can be overwhelming, but I find it exhilarating. I absolutely love that kind of stuff. For me to have Elrond and Gil-galad close by, those heavy players of the elven world, I felt like one of the guys.

How did your fight with Adar go down? After killing the troll and some orcs, I would’ve expected Arondir to beat him one-on one.

As the battles go, he gets a little more reckless. That recklessness, that’s the mistake that I made. I get super emotional. That allows Adar to get me. Otherwise, Arondir would have been able to face him in an equal way. We needed to find the flaw. You see Arondir do all these great things; you just saw him help kill a troll. There’s no justification for him not to be able to have quite the equal battle with this baddie, other than he lets it go. His posture completely changes, and in that tiny bit of weakness, Adar knows it exactly. He’s been breaking me down and breaking me down, and we had to find that moment.

There hasn’t been an official renewal yet, but have you discussed Season 3 at all or seen any scripts?

As far as I know, they did kind of confirm that we’re going for a third. I haven’t seen any scripts, though. I would love to. But I’m pretty sure we’re going for a third.

This interview has been edited and condensed.