Gaia Wise and Luke Pasqualino are the voices of Héra and Wulf, the heroine and villain of the new animated film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. As their first voice roles, they detail the challenges experienced in making the film and how they ended up loving this kind of acting. They also reveal how being in the Tolkien world was such a joy, especially with the complexity of the characters with which they could play.
The Contending: This is the first time both of you have done voice acting. What was that like for you?
Luke Pasqualino: Yeah, the closest I came to doing voice work on this level was doing ADR for a TV show. So to do it entirely for a project was something very new for me and I found it fascinating. We did the original recordings without any visuals to go by so all we had was the script, the microphone, and some direction from the producers and our director Kenji Kamiyama. Then when the animation started to come out we got to tweak our performance a little bit since we knew what it was going to look like to try to make it sound more authentic. But it was also an interesting experience because during the recording me and Gaia didn’t meet in person. In fact these interviews we are giving today are the first time me and Gaia have met face to face. But in terms of an experience overall I had an amazing time and would definitely do it again.
Gaia Wise: It was quite strange to begin with because you are just in a room and they just say, And, go! Like Luke said, if you’ve done ADR you understand the performance because you have done it before and this is coming in blind. Initially it was quite daunting and sometimes I went, I feel like a fool doing this. But then you see the incredible team of animators that Kenji has assembled and you are able to see what I have to lend my voice to, this is what I have to do. So by the end I personally found it incredibly easy to be able to walk in, and I would know what to do and how to tweak it. Living with this character for three years has been a joy and it’s so exciting to see the final project.
The Contending: Gaia, your character Héra had no name or personality within the original Tolkien text. You have described her as rebellious and complicated. I’m curious if you can expand on what you think of her overall?
Gaia Wise: I feel incredibly privileged that I was given a blank canvas with his character. Helm calls her his tearaway child. She begins as a rebellious teenage princess and is forced to grow up incredibly quickly, facing horrors that I hope no one ever actually has to see. She does it with the most grace and bravery. She is incredibly tenacious as well and I just loved bringing her to life with all her melange of characteristics that she has.
The Contending: Luke, your producer has said your character Wulf is the most interesting villain with all he goes through in the film. What did you think of him as a villain and as a character?
Luke Pasqualino: I agree I think he is the most interesting villain.
Gaia Wise: I second that.
Luke Pasqualino: I said this earlier as well that, as far as villains go, there’s always this sort of bravado where they never show any form of weakness. With Wulf there is a huge amount of vulnerability in him, which gives him a niche among villains. He wears his vulnerabilities on his sleeve, it is not something he’s trying to hide at all, especially with Héra. They go so far back together to their childhood and they’ve both never had that mother figure in their lives. That is something that bonds them, but it’s also something that divides them as well in the long run. So, to be able to play a character that’s been through those sorts of experiences and has that complexity underneath his skin is a huge pleasure, especially when you’re playing a villain. You tend to see that with the anti-hero but to have that in a villainous capacity is what makes it so interesting.
The Contending: You talked about how you guys didn’t really get to see each other or interact as much doing the voice work yet there is so much of that history among the characters. In a scene where the two of you were talking in the beginning, Wulf asks if it would be so terrible to be married to him and her saying she doesn’t want to marry anyone showed a lot of the feelings and history that these two had. How did you guys try to craft that connection even though you guys didn’t get to interact?
Gaia Wise: I think in a weird way it lends itself to who they are in that moment. They have not seen each other for years. The only person I was in a room with was Lorraine Ashbourne, who plays Olwyn, and I have to have a really intense deep connection with her because she is my maternal figure and my protector. I think not being in a room with Luke means that we were really able to keep these characters apart as they are in the film. We did so many different takes about how we wanted the lines to hit. I would do mine and then Philippa would come in with how Luke was doing it, and she would suggest how I need to change it ever so slightly. Because you get to do it so many times, something will land where it sounds absolutely perfect.
Luke Pasqualino: It was only later down the line with the last couple of recording sessions where we got the majority of Héra’s lines. Only then was I able to hear how Gaia had formed those lines so I had something to play off of. I was relatively blind up to that point.
The Contending: You have stepped into The Lord of the Rings universe, a place where a lot of people are seriously invested in. What was your connection to the material, if any, and what did you think about being in that world?
Luke Pasqualino: I absolutely loved this as soon as I read the script. I really thought the character was someone I could have a lot of fun with, and it’s a villain, which I have not been used to playing. It has only been in the last couple of years that I have stepped into that villainous role. So I was definitely up for doing that. I’m also a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings films and The Hobbit movies so to be a part of the Tolkien world was a huge plus for me. Even when I started to do my first recording to audition I went to extreme lengths to make sure it sounded as good as possible, like hanging things over the doors to try to muffle the sounds to make my voice as crisp as possible without any echoes. To finally get the offer for the role of Wulf was a joy. I was over the moon.
Gaia Wise: I’m kind of similar. I read The Hobbit when I was a kid and after I had seen all the Lord of the Rings films, I read the books so I could say I knew what the story was. Then like Luke for this role, I went to extremes and hid in a dark cupboard with a tiny little microphone because I wanted it to sound good. This is a bit of a rehash but, when I got the role, I was living in this tiny little flat in not the best neighborhood of London and I screamed so loud my neighbors thought something had happened and I got a knock on the door from the police. They said, Sorry, your neighbors heard screams coming from here and I couldn’t say I got this amazing role so I just said I got a job. Yet my reaction was so over the top if I had just got the job, so these policemen were kind of the first people who found out.
The Contending: Final thoughts?
Both: Go watch the movie and enjoy it!
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim opens in theaters exclusively nationwide today.
