I just wanted to welcome everyone to the table read today.
This is a little surreal for me.
I look around and I see the faces of the characters I grew up with reading,
and I just feel unbelievably privileged
to be able to sit here and watch you guys bring this world to life.
So thank you very, very much.
These characters are beloved
to so many people, and each character has its own fan base.
You got all the guys who love Lan who are so excited to see Lan.
And so of course, there's a lot of pressure there.
I remember before the cast announcement we were all just like,
just so nervous and I was just like, I don't even know how to act,
Why did I get this job? Why am I here?
Rafe, what have you done? Oh my gosh.
Any time as an actor that you're starting a project, you're nervous.
If you don't have those nerves, you shouldn't be doing what you do.
But as you step into the character and you get some reps
in, that slowly starts to dissipate a bit.
It's always there.
When I started this off, there was a lot of hype,
and I needed to get rid of that pressure a little to be creative on set and to try
what I think is the essence of the character.
So that pressure is good to start off with because it makes you want to
go the extra mile.
But when you start shooting, you want to, for the creativity,
you want to get rid of that.
I remember when I had my first
day of shooting, I was shooting with Michael who plays Rand’s dad.
And on that day there were like 300 people, I think, and it was a big set.
I was so nervous and we did the take and Uta said “Cut”,
And then Michael said to me,
“Easy peasy, right?”
So I really loved shooting with Michael,
he helped me with those nerves.
We had a lot of time before we started shooting to
get to know one another and to rehearse, which is just so important,
you know, you don't usually have that kind of luxury.
In the beginning is kind of weird because, you know,
you're going to be together for a really long time
and you don't really know each other, and it's supposed to look like
you know each other really for a long time.
But that month of prepping was really good.
We did all the stunts together, the horse riding, the dialect coaching.
We did all of that together,
and the relationship just grows, also like in the story.
You remember when he opened the bag?
”What’s a blasted badger doing in my bag?”
You know what, it's one of those things
at the start where everyone kind of like pretends they’re not like their character
because they're trying to be like actors and stuff,
And then we just realize we're all just like our characters.
Perrin, there's an element of him
that I've taken of almost like apologizing for being to big
almost like trying to hide which is something I use when playing Perrin.
I thinkI knew Nynaeve as soon as I read her,
we have a lot of similarities, which is scary, like reading
someone on a page and you're like “Oh , okay, you can say that a little bit quiter.”
There's a lot of similarities between me and Egwene,
I feel like we've shared a lot of the same experiences
of being kind of torn away from your home and embarking on this new adventure
with people that you've never met before,
but making really amazing friends along the way.
Me and Zoë, we're like sisters, and that's been something really beautiful
to find in someone, you know, we're going through the same stuff and it's
really important that the Nynaeve and Egwene relationship is really strong,
and that's exactly what it's like in real life, we're sisters.
We have sleepovers and you know, it's cute, I love her so much.
-You're beautiful.
-You're beautiful. -You’re beautiful.
Thank you baby.
It's funny every time we have like a guest or a reoccurring character come on
they're always like, “God, you guys are such a little family or a little clan.”
Like, we all just have
really great banter, but we're all just like massive goofballs,
probably to a fault.
I'm sure that the crew would just always like
annoyed at how much we just gasbag and all that.
(Grunts) Ten kilometers.
Hey, guys!
Hi!
Welcome to The Ways, bro!
We’re just here just to see Rosamund and Josha as a surprise,
it’s our last day of shooting, so we just wanted to come down,
say goodbye to everyone. -Wish everyone well.
Love you guys. It looks amazing.
It's not lost on any of us, how much people love these characters,
that at a certain point, you kind of have to take it by the reins
and just say, “This is mine now.”
and we have to do what we feel is right with these characters
so they live and breathe on the screen, and it's been a really
beautiful experience.
The shooting was supposed to take nine months,
but because of COVID, now we're busy already for two years.
So looking back when we met for the first time and now actually
after those two years, we've become close group.
I really love them all.