What does actor Ismael Cruz Córdova love the most about the elven culture now that he stars as Arondir in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power? During a recent interview featurette released by Prime Video, Córdova named two reasons he enjoys playing an elf.
“As an elf, I love the relationship with time,” Córdova said. “These beings are eternal, so these people get to see the flow of nature, the rising and falling of things, the birth and death of other beings.
Along with the “spiritual concept” behind elves, there’s another reason Córdova enjoys the characters. “I also think the ears are so cool,” he said.
Back in 2001, during the making of the first film of the original The Lord of the Rings trilogy, actor Orlando Bloom, who played the elf Legolas, said one of the most interesting things about elves is that they are immortal. “They haven’t known sickness or pestilence,” Bloom said at the time. “They can be slain in battle, or they can die of a broken heart, but that’s about it.”
Bloom also found the movement of elves fascinating and compared it to the movement of a feline. “I always think of [Legolas] as a cat in a way…how a cat will hop up onto a table and will just stop with no forward motion…and it will be sitting still and alert. They have this graceful, poised movement that’s always switched on.”
Twenty years apart, it sounds like both Córdova and Bloom understood what it would take to make their unique elven characters come to life. Recently, Bloom showed his support for Córdova’s work on The Rings of Power when he posted a photo of himself and Córdova with a caption that read “mellon,” which means “friend” in Elvish.
Ismael Cruz Córdova reposted the photo with the word “amigo.”