Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay talk about bringing the tricky-to-adapt character to life, and striking a balance between J.R.R. Tolkien’s creation and their grounded depiction for the show.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power unveiled the first live-action depiction of Tom Bombadil in the fourth episode of season two on Thursday.
The J.R.R. Tolkien character was absent from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, but plays a key role in The Rings of Power — helping guide the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) as he struggles with his uncontrollable powers. In the books, Bombadil is portrayed as a jolly singing fellow who has been around since the beginning of time. Some Tolkien fans love him, others find him annoyingly over the top. Either way, inserting such a colorful and whimsical character into a dramatic story was a tricky endeavor.
From the moment the first photo of The Rings of Power‘s Bombadil (Rory Kinnear) was revealed, fans have debated the show’s depiction — is he too serious? Is he not enough like the books? As fans are discovering, The Rings of Power has struck a balance: keeping the core elements of the character, without shattering the show’s dramatic tone. Early reactions on social media seem very positive (“Every scene with Tommy B had me smiling from ear to ear. Rory Kinnear is fantastic!” wrote one fan on the episode’s Reddit discussion thread).
“I think there’s a long tradition of these kinds of characters — the wise trickster,” co-showrunner J.D. Payne tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Think about Yoda a little bit. He’s a funny green puppet who’s playing around with Luke’s stuff and then something ends up being the wisest being in the galaxy. We’re trying to walk a similar knife edge with Tom. Does he sing and spout nursery rhymes? Yeah, absolutely. But was he also older than the first rain drop? Yes. And the delight of it is that one being can embody all those things, and Rory plays him with such a grace. In one moment he is singing, and then I love him, he turns and The Stranger asks him, ‘Who are you?’ And he just says, ‘Eldest.’ I get chills when I see him say that, because I believe he is the oldest being on all of Middle Earth in that moment. So there are moments where he’s very serious and very intense and other moments he’s laughing and cracking jokes. The fact that both beings can exist in one body is again part of the delight. I’m really curious to see how audiences who’ve been waiting to see him respond. And I dare say there’s a good balance here between the wise, sage, ancient Tom and the Tom who’s just messing with you.”
I point out the show’s Tom Bombadil looks like a friendly and accessible guy who enjoys a good craft brew.
“His jacket is still blue, and his boots are yellow,” co-showrunner Patrick McKay adds to THR. “There’s a swan feather in his hat. All of these things are there. But yellow is a gradient, blue is a gradient. We’re always looking for what feels real. Tom is not camping in the woods in his cottage. He is far afield in a dry desert country, and his clothes reflect that and are a little toned down than their brightest iteration might be. But maybe when he first pulled him off the rack, they were brighter.”
And in terms of his age, “we talked about it,” says Payne. “We talked about casting an octogenarian. But Tom still has a lot of time left to live. He’s going to be there in the Third Age. But also there’s something about Tom that feels the spirit of Gaia personified. He has this eternal youthfulness and a fountain of life that comes out of him. So the idea that he might be old and wisened felt a bit at odds with a character who had this also sort of eternal sense of life. So again, we tried to find someone who had the balance between wisdom and youthfulness.”
The dialogue in the fourth episode, however, hints that Bombadil might be even more than your happy-go-lucky immortal being hanging out in Middle Earth. You start to wonder: Is Tom Bombadil, basically, God? Is he the top-level boss of Middle Earth?
“We would have no problem if that question was being asked,” Payne says. “Because people say that about the character in the books.”
McKay adds: “And I think people asked that of Tolkien himself. Tolkien chose to remain silent on it, and so shall we.”
