The Wheel of Time launches today on Prime Video, and in the run-up, Paul Simpson had the chance to speak with executive producers Mike Weber and Marigo Kehoe.

 

How did you each become aware of The Wheel of Time, the book series?

Mike Weber: I was aware of it in college; university friends of mine had read it but I never actually read it myself until much later as a professional when I was presented with the opportunity to produce the project. Then I really got into as many books as I could and have since read almost all of them. I’ve become more and more a fan through producing the project, that’s for sure.

Marigo Kehoe: Chris Parnell at Sony was head of Sony studios at the time who I’d done a couple of projects with – Outlander and Electric Dreams – and he asked if I could come on board this. I met Mike and [showrunner] Rafe Judkins and read the scripts and an outline and absolutely fell in love with it. And now I’m on book 4 I think, still trying to plough through them at the same time as shooting the project but absolutely love it.

How much do you feel you have to be faithful to the structure of the original Wheel and how much are you putting it into a new medium so that has its own requirements and therefore those will take priority?

Mike: Rafe Judkins, our showrunner, does the heavy lifting in terms of making those creative decisions but from a marketplace decision-making process there’s a lot of shows that have come before us, right? And things that were original in Robert Jordan’s work became something that somebody else has already adapted into a television adaptation. So we had to be mindful both of elevating above shows that have come before us in addition to being faithful to the source material and I think that drives a lot of decisions.

It sounds like it’s a similar issue that the Foundation adapters have got because it looks like you’re copying whereas you’re actually going back to the original source.

Mike: Yes.

Marigo: Very much so.

What  do you think makes it the right story to be telling in 2021? We’ve got the #MeToo movement and the pandemic. How does it speak to a society that’s changed so much in the last four or five years?

Marigo: Well I think we’ve been very true to the source material. One of the wonderful things about the books is that the women are front and centre of it all and they are the ones who have the magic. They are all ages, all sizes, incredibly strong and powerful women, which I love about the stories.

And then in terms of diversity because of the breaking of the world in the books, it’s a future world that is one that we all want to live in. It’s all ages, cultures, society beliefs, everything. So I think it’s very relevant to today and a great escapist story in a time of Covid.

What were the specific challenges that you faced with the first season, in terms of preparation?

Mike: Finding a place to shoot and really getting a place that can deliver the entire menu that was required to do that first season [which covers] most of [the first book] The Eye of the World was a challenge. But finding Prague, finding this studio that we renovated from a truck factory into this all-encompassing sound stage with all departments under one roof, and then the great exteriors and locations that are in Prague just a short drive or flight away, that really gave us what we needed – and the incredible crews in the Czech Republic built some of the most spectacular sets that any of us had ever seen. All that combined, I think the location of Prague really lent itself to us achieving the vision.

Marigo: Absolutely.

Is there a moment that you looked at either in rushes or once it had been composited that you went, ‘That’s what I was hoping this was going to be’?

Marigo: Oh yes, the Trolloc battle in the first episode, all twelve minutes of it, is extraordinary. I think, as Mike said, some of the set builds that we’ve achieved. Shaidar Logoth and Tar Valon and those are real… The whole of Emond’s Field, the two rivers village, the attention to detail…Some of the crafts we’ve got on the show are just extraordinary.

Mike: For me, it was I think seeing Rosamund Pike really embody Moiraine and just go through the whole process of finding what it looked like to channel her. It looks so natural on screen but it was a technique and movement that she really researched and refined and I think it really pays off in the show. So for me that was that big moment where I was like ‘Ah, this is going to work.’

What do you think is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from filming season one that you’ve taken into season two?

Marigo: An interesting question… We go on creating new worlds. It’s just an endless round of new challenges every time, so I think without the team that we’ve got then we wouldn’t achieve it. They are extraordinary, our production design team, I’m going back to that again but it’s an epic show. A feature film each episode.

Mike: I think the chemistry of casting too, really…

Marigo: 100%.

Mike: In casting these roles that appear now in season two and that will continue on for many many seasons, hopefully, you have to be very mindful of the source material and where that character goes, and I think that’s something we’ve really gotten pretty good at.

Marigo: Absolutely and new characters coming in for season two – and others yet to be announced – need chemistry with the existing cast because they all get on so well.

The first three episodes of The Wheel of Time are streaming now