How I Became a Harfoot (Hobbit) for 'LOTR: The Rings of Power'

There were a couple times actually

where Megan Richards, who plays Poppy,

and Daniel Weyman and I would conduct improvisation

and we'd go to a park just in front of this like huge tree

and our improvisation just begun.

He was picking up dirt

and we were all very much into it,

but someone came up to us and looked at me

and the three of us were like,

Is everything you all good?

Hi, I am Markella,

and this is how I prepared for my character Nori.

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I was in a store that I was working at at the time

called Sports Girl in Melbourne, Australia,

and I was just locking up for the night.

I was in the back room

and I got a call from my agent who just went,

Check your emails, there's an audition

that I think you'll be pretty excited for.

So at the time it was called Untitled Amazon Project.

So even though I knew it was a Lord of the Rings,

it helped alleviate any external pressure

and I also just didn't expect anything to come of it.

So I was like,

Oh, it's just another audition

and we'll see how it goes.

And then I found out that I'd actually gotten the role

and I couldn't tell anyone,

it was the most confidential project.

So I just parked it for a second.

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I started preparing for the role

around three months before we started filming.

The group of us did stunt training

for like four hours every morning.

The stunt training was in a gym.

The half foot were quite envious

because the elves

had all of these incredible intricate sword fights

and things.

So we did all of the sword fighting sequences as well

because it was just about learning

how to do basic stunt work and move on your feet.

And that decreased as we got closer to filming

because they became more specific

to who was actually doing the stunts.

They came a point where they're like,

All right, you've had your fun,

you're not really doing a lot of stunts, so move over.

No, you just throw stones maybe at some point.

And we had real extensive dialect training as well

with our wonderful dialect coach Leith McPherson.

And when Leith said to me

that we were gonna be doing an accent

that had a light Irish loat,

it was one of those things

where I really questioned whether I could do it.

But she's a wizard.

If we didn't do everything we weren't supposed to do,

we'd hardly do anything at all.

She'd come up with random exercises

like very physical ones to go

with the way that you would say things.

So she'd send us audio recordings

of her reading out sentences

and I'd just listen to them every morning.

And then Megan and I would often call each other,

or Sarah and I would call each other or Dylan and we'd speak

in the accent as well, which also really helped.

We had movement as well, which was incredible.

And just to ground ourselves in the character

in the body, in the way that Nori moves.

Movement Coach Lara would always say,

Think of a five-year old child

and how a five-year old child would move.

And then you'd combine that with stunt training

and it would be this really nice combination

of real precise movement

and then just messy, chaotic running everywhere.

There were a couple times actually where Megan Richards

who plays Poppy, and Daniel Weyman

and I would like conduct improvisation

and we'd go to a park,

and then when we got there,

he just text us saying, I'm by the big tree.

And Megan and I were like, We're in a park,

what do you mean you'll by the big tree?

And then I was like, No, I think this is a test.

And so sure enough we like kind of wandered around the park

and we found him just in front of this like huge tree

and our improvisation just begun.

We didn't even say hi and we did it.

It was like picking up dirt

and we were all very much into it,

but someone came up to us and looked at me

and the three of us and were like,

Is everything, you all good?

And so then I was just like, it's good, so good.

When we started rehearsing,

that was the pivotal moment for me

where I realized that I was doing it

because I'd see someone who I just hung out with

who was just in completely like normal casual clothes.

And then I'd go and they'd have like prosthetic ears

or some of the orcs

would have these full on body prosthetics

and then would remove their gloves

and be eating a banana

just like hanging up at lunchtime.

It was those kinds of moments I guess

that I would feel like I was an audience member

and then I'd go, Oh actually, I'm a part of this.

Whilst obviously immersing myself in the context

and the law beforehand for context,

I then worked very much from the page,

then it was just focusing on how I could bring Nori to life

within the given circumstances

that were already created for me.

So the showrunners were so collaborative,

there was such a safe space for us to actually ask questions

and explore new ideas and discuss the scenes.

It really was a team effort like Dylan and Sar

and Megan and Daniel and the rest of the community.

It all helped bring Nori to life

in a way because we were building on relationships

between ourselves as humans as well,

before set,

I would always listen to,

You Ought to Know By Alanis Morissette.

It's relates to Nori's head space in some weird way.

I admire Nori's bravery a lot.

I think that I would not be as brazen as she is.

The thing that I did relate to is that she's very protective

over her family and over her loved ones.

And so that was my way in I guess.

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So the first time I was on set,

it wasn't actually for a scene that I was filming,

it was for the half foot reveal,

the first episode where they all pop up.

That was also a moment where I was like,

I can't believe that tomorrow I'm gonna come to set

and do this as well.

A day on set if we're shooting during the day

would be, I might wake up at 3:30 in the morning, go to set,

be makeup and hair for two hours,

or an hour and 45 minutes, have breakfast,

get dressed and to costume, go to set,

put the feet on, makeup,

do the day, get back at maybe 7:30, 8:00,

then get up and do the same thing the next day.

We would shoot about 10 hours a day,

but then in total it would maybe be 14 hours

because of everything that was going on.

And if we were really pushing it

and we had a lot to do it'd be like 17 hours sometimes,

and the half foot filmed a lot on location

and they'd built these carts for us

because you know we carry our homes on our backs.

The detail, it genuinely blew me away

because it was so specific,

I couldn't tell where the natural environment began

and where the set began.

It was just the two had mixed so seamlessly

and everyone was so excited.

The crew was so excited

and I could go on about the crew,

but I just genuinely feel like their work

is what you see on screen.

It comes to life because of them.

It was a mix of scale work.

It was a mix of set being built differently

especially when Daniel Wayman was working with us

and the strangers obviously much taller.

They'd built another whole cart

so that we looked even smaller

and like the berries were scale too bigger as well.

So that bigger in our hands, they are edible.

The berries that they made, they were like a jelly.

They were so sweet as well.

It's like the snails too, they were like jelly as well.

And then I'd go to ADR

and they'd be fully wriggling around.

We'd done maybe two, three weeks of filming

and then we'd gotten NEMA basically saying,

Production's gonna have to shut down

for a couple of weeks.

And it was just before another customer

was gonna start filming

and they'd been preparing for so long.

So we all got together

and we just had no idea what was gonna happen really.

Even though that happened for us,

we still were able to film at one point.

And so we were just very aware of how fortunate we were.

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I actually didn't know who I was playing

and what I looked like or what the costume was gonna be like

before I got to New Zealand.

Kate Hawley was the first head of department that I met

when I first went to New Zealand for a fitting.

And she instantly took me to this room

where she had all of these beautiful pictures

and references and mood boards

about what all the worlds and all the realms

and all the characters were gonna look like.

My ears are prosthetics.

The feet come up to about like just above the knee.

They're like big silicons flippers.

They have like a real protective under layers.

They're just huge.

You're like in a boot essentially.

And my favorite thing about the costume

was that the half foots have these apple seeds

might be easy to miss them because they're dotted around

and they represent each member of the community

that's passed away from previous migrations.

So the elders might have like lots threaded

and a lot of embroidery on their chest and everywhere.

But the younger ones would have maybe less.

And so that was incredible

'cause it just United the half foots as a community.

And so I love that.

That's my favorite part of the costume, I think.

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There was a video that I saw Bryan Cranston said,

Don't have a claim on an outcome.

I'm still learning and I still let...

I want all the advice I can get really,

but that just stuck with me

because it just helped alleviate any pressure

because it's like,

just do what you love moment to moment.

And if something comes of it

or you get a role or you get a project, amazing.

If it doesn't,

just remember why you're doing it,

and keep going.

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