Payne started by speaking 12 seconds of elvish to the fans. (I don't know what it means. Let me know if you do.)
Q: How did you come to love Tolkien?
Payne: LotR became my personal canon of life, Tolkien makes his way into the biggest moments of my life. My son's birth announcement included Elvish. Tolkien speaks the language of the soul.
McKay: LotR is a rare example of true optimism: not Hallmarky or saccharin, it's born of pain and struggle and evil, but still comes out at the end saying there's still hope, and friendship and bravery are greater powers than evil.
Q: What will the show's story be about?
Payne: The Second Age is a human story (human as in humanity irl, not the race of Man in Middle-earth). Imagine all the things you love, and imagine all that is about to be taken away. How far into the darkness are you willing to go to protect the things you care about the most.
McKay: First season will reintroduce the Middle-earth: a different age, different people and kingdoms, the world was in a different state. It's also gonna be about the return of the evil.
Payne: Amazon have let us make the show we wanted to make.
Q: What's your favorite moment of the SA.
McKay: Sauron put on the One Ring and it was felt across the world and the elves instantly perceived that they've been had.
Payne: The downfall of Numenor, it's deeply painful but maybe it can be helpful and there's something we can learn from it.
Q: How long have you been doing this project?
They've been working on this project for 4 and half years. It's deeply emotional to them.
Q: If you could choose to be a race in Middle-earth, what would you like to be?
Both want to be elves, but dwarves would be a close second.
Payne: We feel Dwarves are often the butt of jokes, but we take them very seriously.
Q: How daunting is it to take on the material knowing how sacred it is to fans?
McKay: No one puts more pressure on us than ourselves because getting this right means so much to us. We've been the fans who've been disappointed. We don't want to disappoint you guys. That's a hard thing to live with. You constantly feel "Oh my god is this good enough? It's not good enough, needs to be better, needs to be better!" That's how we've lived for 4.5 years. It's nice to take a moment to celebrate it with you all.
Q: What guidance did you take for the creation of characters that are not in the books?
Payne: We have the privilege of working with Tolkien scholars like Tom Shippey (it's interesting that they mentioned him) and amazing linguists. And we have lore-masters that are part of the writer's room to make sure that we're always honoring both the letter and spirit of the Legendarium. Tolkien gave us all these amazing clues about cultures in SA. We also do what Tolkien himself did, which would be going back to our world, and look at the heroic sagas, myths, and stories, and draw inspiration from them. So one, we always go back to Tolkien, and two when Tolkien's silent, we try to invent in as Tolkienian a way as possible.
Q: Will we see TA stuff that get moved into SA?
McKay: SA is so enormously vast and huge so we don't think there's much room for anything from TA, but maybe somewhere down the road, who knows what's gonna happen. (So it seems that the Balrog may not be Durin's Bane? But they're being intentionally vague here.)
Payne: Balrogs are sneaky.
Q: How much of Numenor is practical vs. CGI?
Weber: We build as much as any group of humans could.
McKay: We built several city blocks in full and an entire wharf it's enormous and crazy.
Payne: When you step in it, you feel "I'm in Numenor!" It's absolutely amazing.
Q: How was the casting like?
Payne: We saw hundreds for each of the (main) roles and thousands in total. We really had two criteria: 1) they have to be an excellent performer cause we'll be following many of them for 50 hours; 2) we have to look at their eyes and say "do they have Middle-earth in them?"
Q: Why is there a hobbit story in SA?
Payne: It's technically a Harfoot story. Tolkien didn't say the Harfoots didn't do anything amazing. He said the Hobbit before the TA didn't dod anything impressive. So we felt we had license to tell a good Harfoot story.
McKay: It was important to us that what makes Tolkien's tone unique is the blend of all these cultures and what each of them bring to ME and what each of them represent. The underdogs, the smallest people being bale to do great deeds. We could not imagine a version of the show that didn't have a version of that. We went deep into the text to find it and we believe there is a beautiful wonderful story that you guys are gonna like.
Q: Do female dwarves on the show have bears?
Weber: I can confirm they have facial hair. I was there at 3AM as each hair was applied one by one to make them regal and glorious. You'll see more of it. You'll see them very well on the show.
Q: Will there be Entwives?
McKay: Maybe you've seen one already.
Q: What's the inspiration for the music?
McReary: My starting point is Howard Shore. I'm honored to score a series that features a magnificent main title (by Shore). You're just gonna weep when you hear it. But for me one of the interesting things is: I was looking at all the elements Howard would put in. For example the dwarves, deep male vocals, but there's a sadness. These are people that are in diaspora in TA and their music reflects that. What if we go back before the apocalypse? Let's use those sounds, but they're vibrant, they're industrial, they're alive, they're at the peak of their civilization. So in a way I wanted to create a score that honors what Shore created by creating this continuity. We're gonna hear the society of the elves, dwarves. Even the Harfoots have a variation of what feel in the Shire but it's not that. And the most exciting one was Numenor because Numenor needed to be different. You're gonna hear instruments you've never heard in the movies. My hope is that you embrace them, you recognize that they belong, and when you go back to watch those classic movies you'll realize: they're gone.
Q: How did the previous LotR movies and arts inspire you and how is that a challenge to match into that world?
Payne: I weep when I watch those movies, unabashedly. I quote them regularly. They're a part of the daily fibre of my life: the way I communicate with my partner and my children. So they're woven deeply inside. But what we want to do is to capture the fact those movies are a part of a continuum of artistic works over the last many decades, which also includes the Bakshi films, art by John Howe, music by Led Zeppelin, and art by Alan Lee, and all these various artists. We really wanted to draw form the best of them and be able to belong in Middle-earth.
(Some random info about Colbert that he revealed: He has read LotR 50+ times. He listened to most if not all of Corey Olsen's podcasts. He was offered to watch the whole season in advance, but refused because he wanted to experience it like everyone else.)
